14 DAY TRIAL // We've talked on several occasions about the various knock-offs that tend to make their way to the Chinese market, some of which don't really have anything special to offer, while others are, in fact, pretty exciting, both in terms of their external design and the features they provide.
And that's exactly the case with the latest such device we've come across courtesy of Shanzaiben, namely the Droipad, a device that, at least as far as the exterior is concerned, is almost a perfect clone of the Apple iPhone 4, apart from a “slight” detail: it has a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen display (800 x 480 pixels resolution), which, for all intends and purposes, ranks it as an Internet tablet.
Beside the external look, the Droipad has absolutely nothing in common with its much better-known “counterpart” from Apple, the Chinese tablet actually running the Android 2.1 operating system and weighing around 500 grams, which means that holding it in just one hand for longer periods of time might prove to be somewhat of a problem.
While the Droipad relies heavily on the touchscreen for controls, it also sports exactly the same buttons as the iPhone 4, that, however, have a slightly different use, namely that of accessing the menu, returning and switching the device on or off.
Plus, a webcam module also has been placed in the mid/top side, probably one of the most important design differences compared to the Apple smartphone.
Similar to some of the other tablets using roughly the same hardware configuration, the device will support 3D hardware acceleration, 1080p video playback, while in the 3000 mAH rechargeable battery should provide a very good functioning life.
No idea on the pricing just yet, but no matter how affordable this thing might be, it's very likely that we'll never see it go out of China (for clear, patent-infringing reasons).
