Shanzai Aspires to quality netbook knock-offs

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Comments Posted on Jul 15, 2009 Posted by Song Jiang

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Just spotted today, an almost exact replica of Acer's popular Aspire One netbook. Being sold in China under the name 'JingWah Digital Fashion A10', this Acer look-a-like eschews the almost ubiquitous Intel Atom in favor of the Taiwan-made VIA processor platform.

This guy is a real twin to the original. The only difference from the original Acer machine, so far as we can tell, is the choice of processor. The 'Digital Fashion' packs a 1.6GHz VIA C7-M at it's heart, coupled with a the VIA VX800 chipset. The screen is the standard 8.9" TFT with a 1024 x 600 resolution, 160GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM. Even the keyboard looks the real deal.

The netbook market is still showing growth in certain global regions, and China is one of those regions. It wouldn't surprise me if this Digital Fashion A10 was touted as being identical in every way back in its native Shenzen. Not having an Intel sticker on the front might not be such a big deal to a generation of youngsters brought up on mobile phones. And those that know their stuff may actually prefer a Chinese-made CPU. Never underestimate Chinese pride my man.

Western Opportunity Analysis:

This kind of device could also find broad acceptance in the West, where cheap PCs are still very much 'in'. Intel and AMD are attempting to steer us towards thin and light, but we know we like it small and cheap. Students and folk who just wanna surf would be perfectly happy with a Fashion A10 type device. Despite Intel's best efforts there are plenty of processor agnostic folk out there who'd love to have one of these babies at proper netbook prices, even it meant having slightly less performance. Say, sub 200 bucks or so?

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Here's the original, just for reference purposes.

Conclusion

I'd take one for sure if it were priced right. With a decent battery, you'll be able to carry it around all day and do your web surfing etc. And at these prices, if it gets stolen or you drop it, your not going to cry your leg off. Ah...real netbooks, at real netbook prices. Those were the days.....

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