So, the Sony Vaio P has a clone. Congrats, Sony! Too bad the mimicry ends with the aesthetics: The appearance is spot on, but the insides are decidedly sub-par. The Atom processor is a less powerful than the processor offered in the Vaio P, and the memory maxes out at 1GB. If you’re comparing, that’s a full GB short of the original. Since this is a clone however, the price is really the only area where one could say it “competes” with Sony’s premium-priced Vaio P. The clone offers a 160GB for about $300, as well as a $380 model with 350GB storage, 2Gb ram and 3G

For many X-Wings in the Star Wars universe, the end came as a spectacular explosion on the field of battle. Not so much for this RCX-4 helicopter. For it, the end will no doubt arrive as a boring ol’ lawsuit. First spied at CES, hovering in the air and openly thumbing its nose at George Lucas and Lucasfilm, the RCX-4 is a four screw beast of an RC helicopter that bears more than just a passing resemblance to the workhorse of the Rebellion. And like Dak, Luke’s enthusiastic but doomed gunner in The Empire Strikes Back , it too feels as though it could take on the whole Empire by itself, if not for that pesky IP issue that will surely bring it down very, very soon. So its days are numberd, but even so this knockoff sounds decidedly un -knockoff in the quality department.

If Nokia had ever followed through on that rumored swiveling “E71-type handset” we heard about last April, it would probably have looked a lot like Nokla’s E81 phone here. In fact, Nokla’s betting a few people don’t know the difference. Strangely, this is the second E81 phone that the knockoff artists at Nokla have put out. The first was a candybar phone that Nokla released to take advantage of the current lack of a legitimate Nokia “E81″ phone in that company’s ever-expanding product lineup. The features are actually rather modest, but end up being completely overshadowed by the included mirror that graces the phone’s swiveling backside. Shades of the Sony Ericsson “woman’s cellphone” playbook , no doubt.

Finally, we have ourselves a proper Kindle 2 knockoff, courtesy of—who else?—the Chinese. This fine specimen comes out way thanks to the hard, completely un-innovative efforts of one Peking University Founder, whose name is as perplexing and mysterious as this device’s specs (there are few to speak of). We do know that this will arrive in Japan by the end of 2009, and that the price tag will be about $210. The device uses a cellular connection/SIM card for proprietary Apabi eBook downloads, which will display on a 6-in. screen

Sure, we’ve seen plenty of iPhone clones in our day, but we’ll say this: this is the clome to beat all clomes. It really takes the KIRF standard up a notch, running the best fake OS X we’ve seen to date. This one’s identity is less confused than many of the knockoffs we usually see, and if you’re lucky enough to get your hands on one of these 4GB having-babies… well, you just might be able to convince your grandma that it’s the iPhone 3G S. Video is after the break. [Via PMP Today ] Continue reading Keepin’ it real fake, part CCXVIII: iPhome 3G for the wim! Filed under: Cellphones Keepin’ it real fake, part CCXVIII: iPhome 3G for the wim! originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:10:00 EST.

You know you’ve made it when a shady Chinese company uses your image without permission to sell a crappy knockoff of a phone nobody really liked all that much in the first place. [ Cloned in China via Coolest Gadgets ]

Dredged from the Far East of the blogosphere and spreading rapidly, these photos are said to be a new, smaller version of the PS3. They’re plentiful and fairly clear, but could they be real? Doubtful. Sony has a history of miniaturizing their game systems after a while, as in the cases of the PS2 Slim and PS one, but at this stage in the PS3’s life, a slim version would be a surprise. More to the point, there are issue with how this spotted hardware fits within Sony convention. Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft notes that the console has essentially renamed—Sony has always branded it with the full PlayStation 3 moniker—and that midstream logo changes are uncharacteristic of the company.

Dredged from the Far East of the blogosphere and spreading rapidly, these photos are said to be of a new, smaller version of the PS3. They’re plentiful and clear, but could they be real? UPDATED Sony has a history of miniaturizing their game systems after a while, as in the cases of the PS2 Slim and PS one, but at this stage in the PS3’s life a slim version would be a surprise. More to the point, there are issue with how this spotted hardware fits within Sony convention. Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft notes that the console has essentially renamed—Sony has always branded it with the full PlayStation 3 moniker—and that midstream logo changes are uncharacteristic of the company. The glaringly inferior finish is what stands out the most, as some of these shitty plastic components look like they came right out of a PS3 knockoff mill

Coverage of Chinese “shanzhai” knockoff phones tends to dismissive at best , but the NYT, in a fit of earnestness, has done a full-on, iSuppli-style cost analysis of your typical iFauxne. Spoiler: They’re extremely profitable! Inspiring a knockoff is something like a rite of passage for any new handset, and virtually no desirable phones go uncopied. This article is a decent primer on the industry in general, but its material cost breakdown—the likes of which we regularly see for desirable, legitimate handets—is particularly revealing. These knockoff houses feed from the same supply chains as their mainstream counterparts, and some aspects of their build costs—basic parts, like mics, vibration motors and speakers—are therefore identical. The major cost-savings are found in the most expensive—and generally, important—components. Judged against, say, a G1 (which carries a build cost of $140), a $40 knockoff will have a significantly cheaper screen, baseband, and camera module.

Weight Fat —found in a Japanese crane machine—blatantly rips off Wii Fit with its green, grey and white color scheme and similar fonts. There’s a problem with this knock-off, though: it’s not even a video game. The Weight Fat Checker is actually exactly what its name proclaims it to be: It’s a body fat checker that measures, displays and monitors your weight/fat when you grip the sides of it like a steering wheel. Here’s a thought: Just let me grip your fatty sides and I’ll check your weight/fat for you, for free. [ CAG via Kotaku ]