Chinese iPad clone released three months before Apple’s

Without stealing Apple’s hard needed thunder, we’d like to point out that a Chinese hardware manufacturer made an iPad clone three months ago.

In what may be the first case of a manufacturer trying to clone a product that doesn’t even exist yet, China company Shenzhen Dragon Brother Industrial has introduced their own ‘P88’ “Apple Style” tablet last October. Now that the product is realeased, we see that the product resembles the real deal in a lot of ways.

• P88 doesn’t sound cool, neither does iPad
• It actually comes with three USB ports, so no clunking around with docks
• It supports multitasking
• It’s cheaper
• 160GB disk drive instead of a max 64GB disk
• With a little bit of hacking, it might even be able to run OSX or Android

The specs side by side

Who am I kidding, I’m probably going to buy an iPad as well, the iPad has 10 hour battery life, Apple’s UI is slick and Apple has and extensive app store. But it’s interesting to see that SDBI developed the product before Apple did, probably inspired by mockups floating around on the web. If they get better in this game, user generated designs might be the new thing, and 2010 might be a tipping point for Apple’s almighty throne. Via Shanghaiist