Tracking the products, trends and reach of China's local to global tech culture.
DEFINITION: Shanzai [San-zai -alt. sp.Shanzhai] 1. mountain fortress/bandit 2. a vendor, who operates a business without observing the traditional rules or practices often resulting in innovative and unusual products or business models.
DEFINITION: Shanzai [San-zai -alt. sp.Shanzhai] 1. mountain fortress/bandit 2. a vendor, who operates a business without observing the traditional rules or practices often resulting in innovative and unusual products or business models.
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![]() We’ve recently seen a lot of MacBook look-alikes come out of China. They’ve been popular with consumers by virtue of adopting Apple's slick design mentality and coupling it with traditional super-competitive shanzhai pricing. Here’s the latest off the ranks. Pics come courtesy of our sister site, Shanzhaiben.com, and we take a quick look at how this new device stacks up against both the original Apple MacBook, and the recent upgrade. First a quick run-down of the Shanzhai MacBook: it sports the traditional white Apple color scheme and styling, with a recessed chassis that allows the screen to open 180°. This also serves to disguise the ports that it supports (check out the table below for more details).
![]() Here’s a comparison table showing how the Shanzhai MacBook fares against the real deal. As everyone knows, when the Macbook was first brought out, it adopted the Intel GMA950 integrated graphics chip, which aroused plenty of complaints. When Apple brought out the new Macbook it exchanged the GMA950 for the NVIDIA Geforce 9400M, which brought a big performance improvement. ![]() Conclusions:
Looking at the specs, the Shanzhai MacBook isn’t really too far removed from the original MacBook; not great news for those hoping the devices coming out of Shenzhen are up there performance-wise with the real things. Still, both hardware and software improvements are coming thick and fast from the Shanzhai manufacturers, and you can bet it won’t be long before the next-gen devices hit the market. In fact, given that in the last few days we’ve seen an Ion-based Shanzhai device reviewed, a dual core Atom 330 with Geforce 9400M chipset probably isn’t that far off. Then we’ll see some real performance at a far better price than the Apple products will be offering. Related articles |
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Where can I find this phone? When I look here (eemobi.cn/.../... (http://www.eemobi.cn/product/list-customcategory-44-p1.aspx)) I ...
Seen this model here, and not impressed about it. Simply said. seen 30 or more different Windows tablet models in Singapore, Shang...
Where can i buy this on web ?
All good points. It will be interesting to see what enrolls in this battle
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Thousands of Aussies who had naughtily unlocked their iPhones were suddenly greeted with a new wallpaper on their phones featuring the ‘80s one hit wonder Rick Astley (who became famous for the song...
With the huge amount of competition between notebook manufacturers in Shenzhen, we’re beginning to see a few go the extra mile to help them stand out from the crowd. Kivu Technology Co. is one such co...
PC maker Haleron has just announced a new 7” Smartbook based on a 266Mhz ARM processor from VIA subsidiary, WonderMedia. The device runs Windows CE 6.0 and the release looks to have been timed with on...
Here's seven inches of tablet for you to salivate over. Or do I mean MID or PMP? Either way you slice it, it's known as the SmartQ V7 and is produced by a Shenzhen-based company going by the name of S...
A so far unknown manufacturer has come up with a seriously nice looking piece of kit in the form of this rotating touch screen netbook. While we're not exactly sure which shanzhai player to credit w...