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iPed? Somebody call the Fed

Tech savvy Englishmen (and women) were able to get their mitt on the iPad yesterday. Over it China, however, it was the launch of the iPed that was making the news.

A totally unofficial replica of the iPad, it even houses an Intel processor and run on Google’s open source operating system Android. Even more cheeky is the fact that it’s being made in the same region of China that the iPod and iPad are made. I would be willing to bet that they’re knocking out in the same factory, using identical parts, which is/was the case for the counterfeit PSP systems.

Now here’s the really unbelievable part – the iPed only costs Â¥9,600 ($105 / £65). In Japan, the iPad is priced at Â¥48,800 ($536 / £348) – about five times more.

Written by

Matt Gander

Matt is Games Asylum's most prolific writer, having produced a non-stop stream of articles since 2001. A retro collector and bargain hunter, his knowledge has been found in the pages of tree-based publication Retro Gamer.

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13 Comments

  • How is it ‘cheeky’ that they’re being built in Shenzhen? About 90% of the world’s electronics are built there. They have factories bigger than most cities.

    I went to the HK Electronics show a couple of months ago, and there were literally countless iPad-lookalike tablet PCs running Android or Windows. They’re not exactly iPad clones, although they do have very similar casing.

  • It’s cheeky that they’ve called it iPed – only one letter different from iPad.

    I also think it’s cheeky that it’s probably made in the same factory as the iPad, using the same molds (probably) for the casing, and no doubt has English text copied from the manual. The box even looks the same, mimicking Apple’s original design.

  • It’s almost certainly not made in the same factory as the iPad. Foxconn (Apple’s manufacturers) are deadly strict about that sort of thing. They won’t be using ‘stolen moulds’.

    Yeh they’ve copied the casing style but that’s pretty easy to do. As I said, there are countless tablets out in China now that look identical to the iPad (but run a completely different system). Ditto the iPhone – you can get a cosmetically identical ‘clone’ for 10% of the iPhone’s cost, but it’s completely different internally.

  • Adam – The fake PSPs were being made in the same factory as the real thing, and they used the same parts.

    James – I usually have a bowl of Cheerios.

  • Matt, the iPads are manufactured by Foxconn, who literally kill employees for leaking photos, and have a deadly strict factory regime – there’s no chance the same factory is also producing knock-off iPads.

    I know some ‘real’ factories produce knock-offs in their off hours, but I don’t think that’s particularly common anymore. They have to make a big deal of IP protection nowadays (and you don’t need to be in the same factory to make a knock-off, it’s easy enough to make everything from scratch).

  • You are wrong the iped is made inte same factory as the ipad i was there on a tour of the factory two moths ago on a purchasing trip. Ihave the iped it identical to the ipad except for the software i like the iped better it is more flexible.

    Don’t judge untill you see for your slef.

  • Which fake PSPs are these? I’ve never even heard of an actual fake PSP – plenty of generic Chinese MP4 players, game machines of varying quality (from the Pop Station up to the Dingoo A330) and even mobile phones in PSP-lookalike casing, but the internals are completely different.

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