Apple may have sold two million of its new iPad tablet computers in less than two months, but it now has a Chinese challenger -- the identical looking iPed.
Apple's iPad is not, officially, even on sale yet in China but the iPed can be bought in Shenzhen, southern China, for almost a fifth of the price of the U.S. price of Apple's gadget.
The world's first iPad lookalike runs on Google's Android operating system, is apparently powered by an Intel chip and sells for $105. The basic model iPad sells in the US for $499.
Pictures of the iPed, filmed by Japanese TV news and posted on YouTube, show the gadget being sold in a Shenzhen computer mall in packaging that even looks like an iPad box.
The change in vowel is seemingly the only major difference in appearance between the two gadgets.
Apple, now the largest U.S. technology company by value, said on June 1 it had sold two million iPads, outdoing even the iPhone on its launch.
On May 28, the flat, 10-inch black tablet computer went on sale in Australia, Japan, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.
Demand in the United States was so strong that the company pushed back the global roll-out. It goes on sale in nine more countries in July, including Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
