Is the iPad a knockoff?

iPad vs P88

Questions are being raised over the authenticity of the iPad after a Chinese company has claimed that Apple's new device is nothing more than a copy of an existing product.

The Chinese company - Shenzhen Great Loong Brother - claims that Apple have copied their P88 which has been on the market in China for six months.

The president of the company, Xiaolong Wu, gave an interview to Spanish national newspaper El Mundo, saying that if the iPad comes to China, "We won't have any choice but to report them because it will certainly affect our sales."

He added that he has already applied for a patent for the product last May - a process that can take up to a year in China. "We'll have to follow the law," says Wu, admitting that it will be difficult to take on Apple in the US. However, the El Mundo reports the crime as "plagiarism," although it's assumed it means IP or copyright infringement, Wired states.

Wu says that Apple has not only copied the concept of a multi-touch tablet, but also the design of the case and screen bezel. But, while Wu may claim the products are "completely identical", the stats tell a different story.

The 10.2-inch screen on the P88 isn't multi-touch (it uses resistive touch), it uses a hard-drive (250 GB), has an Ethernet port, a 1.3-MP webcam and Intel 945GSE chipset (likely to be paired with an Atom CPU, not listed) with a gig of RAM, and it runs Windows.

In terms of usability, while Apple boasts that the iPad can run for 10 hours, the P88 only runs for a fraction of that without being plugged in: a disappointing 1.5 hours.

There are plus points to the Chinese device, though. For one, the P88 boasts three USB ports, which means users don't have to worry about docks and other hardware items. Also, it addresses the biggest complaint against theiPad - it has full support for multi-tasking. The P88 is also credited with having a faster processor and runs on the Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz CPU. Unlike the iPad , its RAM is not a big secret and amounts to 1GB (which, incredibly, is expandable to 2GB). Boosting its connectivity, it has a three-in-one SD, MS andMMC card reader. It also offers ports for mic jack, headphone jack, network cable and external display interface. And finally it boasts a much larger disk drive, with a capacity of 160GB, thinkdigit reports.

But should Apple be worried? Well, for the time bring at least, it doesn't look like it - given that the iPad is already whipping up a storm in the States.

However, Wu isn't the only competitor to make claims against Steve Jobs' latest gadget. Fujitsu Ltd have also stepped forward thios week, saying that their US subsidiary launched a similar, sleek handheld multimedia device with a 3.5-inch screen, used by retail store clerks to keep inventory data, scanbarcodes and manage business operations as far back as 2002.

In fact, according to Fujitsu spokesman Masao Sakamoto in Tokyo, in 2003 Fujitsu's US arm made a trademark application for the 'iPad' name with the US Patent and Trademark Office, something that the AFP says is still pending and not yet registered.

So, anymore claims?

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