Hong Kong supplier punts Mac-alike netbook
VIA Nano inside
If Apple won't make a Mac-style netbook, someone else will. And if you can't face waiting for the Asus Eee PC 1008HA, how about this fine piece of trademark infringement from Hong Kong?
Yu Guan's 'Apple' netbook: chip off the old unibody?
Excitingly dubbed the WF188 - we'd suggest renaming it WTF188 - it's a 10in MacBook Air-style netbook based on VIA's 1.3GHz Nano processor and new HD-capable VX855 chipset.
The unit has the Air's trademark curves, inlaid ports, notch at the front for lifting the lid and there's even an Apple logo - in a lawyer-beating 'flip horizontal' mode. We're not sure if it's clad in aluminium or simply sprayed glossy Macbook white - the latter, we suspect.
An IP lawyer's dream
Supplier Yu Guan says the unit contains up to 2GB of 533, 667 or 800MHz DDR 2 memory, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 10/100Mb/s Ethernet, three USB ports and a multi-format card reader.
There's a choice of storage units: 40-160GB of 2.5in SATA HDD space, or 16-64GB of SSD goodness.
Yu Guan's website isn't limited to Mac-like knock-offs. There's a range of phones and other devices that will have intellectual property protection officers at HTC, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and others rolling in the aisles. ®
COMMENTS
@Shopping Trip
I can thoroughly recommend Hong Kong, fantastic place, lovely people (admittedly a large number of ex-pats) and yes, the cheap knock-offs are very good and very cheap - for example, rugby tops for around £4 (I was over for the 7's both times) and far more durable than half the full-price stuff in the UK.
Although, the cheap prices in Hong Kong pale into insignificance when compared with the cheap prices in main-land China. 5 years ago a knock-off Game-boy Colour was around £20 and the games were around £1, knock-off DVD's cost less than £1 and the quality was high (nothing like the quality FACT would have you believe in their adverts).
Basically, Hong Kong and China both get a big thumbs-up from me as places to visit.
Re: What do you expect???
Some people really have been brainwashed by the far right wing. However, if what you say is true then why don't you get your big fat US ass back on it's high horse and mention the US government passing on trade secrets to Boeing. Or maybe you're ashamed that your government is not as efficient at industrial espionage or the recipients not suitably equipped in the brain department to take advantage of the information as other more advanced countries/companies respectively.
I usually like to be subtle and understanding in my comments but somehow I don't think that approach would have worked here.
@ AC Tuesday 17th March 2009 15:09 GMT
"If a corporation has it's assembling in a Communist country then there will be knock offs."
It's not a knock off as it's not part of Apples' product line. If Apple eventually do make one then it will be a copy of this.
Try this site
http://www.tct.hk/3G.htm. Seems OSX is not an option only Ubuntu or XP Home. I don't see a price anywhere, but then the site is not in English so I may have missed it.
Should have used a penguin
I have been looking for a Via Nano laptop. A pity some berk put an i-logo on it.
A web search for WF188 just shows an ARM based pda/phone. That would have been interesting too if it were not infected with wince.
