The folks behind the Shanzai.com blog have been covering the cheap netbook and tablet knockoffs and original products coming out of China for a while. And then they got thinking… what if you could tap the capabilities of these Chinese manufacturers to build products custom made to match the expectations of Western consumers? And that led to the creation of Shanzai Studios, a new site that hopes to use the power of the crowd to design killer concepts that can be turned into real products by some of these Chinese manufacturers.

Up first is Operation TBD, (Tablet bag Design). The idea is that users can submit their ideas for the perfect bag to tote around the upcoming iPad or another slate-style tablet. Other users can leave comments and suggestions and vote on their favorite designs.

Contributors will get discounts if they choose to purchase a finished design based on their ideas.

If this works out, maybe we’ll start seeing some of those crazy-cheap or just-plain-crazy devices that typically only show up in China make their way to the US in the future. Macbook Air-clone running Google Android, anyone?

HP has a habit of dressing up its netbooks with special edition covers from big name designers like Vivienne Tam and Tord Boontje. So what better way to spruce up a Chinese HP Mini knockoff than by adorning it with a little bling?

Of course, there’s bling and then there’s bling. And while the HP Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam Edition and HP Mini 110 Tord Boontje Edition might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I’m not really sure that MOFI’s shiny new netbook are anyone’s. The Chinese company has produced three different models that look a bit like an HP Mini 1000 when you glance at the keyboard and display. But flip them over to look at the lid and you see something else entirely.

One model is covered in yellow (or maybe it’s supposed to be gold?) leather and sequins. The company does have two other models that are a bit more subdued, including one with a white lid and a floral pattern and another with a nearly solid-black lid with a little abstract pattern in it. You can find photos of all three models at Shanzai.com.

All three models have the usual netbook specs including a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, and 10.1 inch display.

Chinese PC maker CASZH has put together a prototype of a netbook with NVIDIA ION graphics. The unnamed machine packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and the folks at Shanzai.com say it was able to play World of Warcraft reasonably well with frame rates between 20 and 30 fps.

The netbook has a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. While the NVIDIA graphics processor can handle HD video including Blu-Ray decoding, that low resolution screen isn’t going to display all of those pixels. Fortunately, the netbook also has an HDMI output for connecting the laptop to a monitor or HDTV.

It also has 2 USB ports, mic and headphone jacks, a flash card reader, an Ethernet port, WiFI, and a 3 cell battery. Shanzai.com is estimating that the whole package could eventually sell for around $300, but it’s not likely to show up in the US anytime soon, especially not at that price.

The netbook also bears a striking resemblance to the Point of View Mobii ION 230 netbook, which is expected to sell for closer to $500.

We’re starting to see a growing number of Intel Atom powered laptops with 11.6 inch and 12.1 inch displays. And of course, the market is overflowing with 10.1 and 10.2 inch netbooks. But a Chinese PC maker apparently decided to split the difference, with an 11.1 inch model.

The laptop has a 1366 x 768 pixel display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and I’m pretty sure it runs Windows XP. It also has 3 USb ports, an SD card reader, and a nice looking chiclet-style keyboard, although I wish the keyboard were a little wider to take advantage of all the extra space available.

The laptop sells for the equivalent of about $380 US, although I doubt we’ll be seeing it in the US anytime soon.

Hackers in the US have been slapping OS X on low power netbooks and occasionally carving an Apple logo into the lid for good measure for ages. But now an actual PC maker in China is cranking out an 8.9 inch netbook complete with an Apple logo on the lid… even though the odds of this device having any connection to Apple are none to none.

The laptop sports an ARM-based CPU and runs either Linux or Windows CE. So yeah, not so much with the OS X. And it reportedly sells for the equivalent of about $200. So not so much with the Apple. There’s also a Windows key on the keyboard (as well as a tiny right-shift key located to the right of the up-arrow, which will frustrate touch-typists).

Otherwise, it looks like a nice little machine. It weighs 1.7 pounds and measures just .2 inches at its thinnest point, (although it’s much thicker near the rear). According to Shanzai.com, the low power ARM CPU should help the laptop get 7 or 8 hours of battery life from a 3 cell battery, although I don’t know if that’s what the manufacturer is claiming or i that’s just the assumption the web site is making based on the fact that ARM CPUs tend to be low power.

What’s funny is that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Chinese manufacturer put out a computer with Apple branding and a CPU that’s not Intel or PowerPC-based. Earlier this year, a Hong Kong PC Maker posted a mockup of a Fakebook sporting a VIA Nano CPU.