China unleashes plastic unibody MacBook Air knock-offs with netbook specs and glowing logos

By

4289578497_6d7be009bc_o

The techno-sweatshops of Beijing have never seen an Apple design they weren’t willing to ineptly rip off, but these MacBook Air knock-offs spotted by M.I.C. Gadget are the first I’ve actually liked.

Basically, what we have here is a white plastic simulacrum of the MacBook Air’s aluminum unibody chassis, crammed with the innards of your stock, last generation netbook: an Intel Atom N280 processor with up to 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive.

I love it, right down to the lid’s pulsing, multichromatic logo! If Apple ever introduces a plastic unibody Air, this is exactly what I would imagine it looking like. It’s unfortunately a Windows machine, but at around $249 I’m tempted to pick one up anyway, just to see if it’s as easily Hackintoshable as my Asus Eee PC 1000HE. What a coup one of these MacBook Air netbooks with Snow Leopard installed would be for my gadget cred next time I showed up at the blogger’s hall at CES.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.