Charbax Finds A Snapdragon 652 Chinese iPad Mini Clone

OK, this got me excited. An iPad Mini clone with Retina-class screen, sleek design, and a Snapdragon 652 CPU. As well as LTE 4G wireless.

Charbax, of ARM Devices.net, found this lovely beast at Mobile World Congress.

Those are dual front-facing speakers:

When the black border around the screen is revealed …

… it begins to resemble the Ramos K1 tablet of two years ago:

In the video, the dual speakers are demonstrated …

… and there’s 3D sound.

This feature that’s built into the 652 will drive filmmakers crazy:

The ambient light sensor can change the contrast of a video on a per-pixel basis and totally changes the photographic intent of the image:

Wow.

Now to throw water on all of the fun.

This isn’t a branded tablet.

It’s from a white-label design house called BORQS:

Their website.

And here’s a hell of a surprise: They designed the failed Jolla tablet!

We’ll have to wait and see if any tablet brand picks it up to sell under their label. Teclast? Onda? Ramos? Frankly, the odds are very, very slim for any China brand we’ve heard of doing this. They’ve all discontinued their iPad Mini clones.

I would have hoped that Best Buy would grab this under their Insignia label, but after the disaster of the Insignia Flex Elite 7.85 — discontinued in less than a year — I won’t even consider the thought past this.

The only possibility would be Acer, which is listed as a prior partner on the BORQS website. But they’ve already done two iPad Mini clones that got no traction. I really doubt they’d try it a third time.

This tablet could be something that never goes on sale anywhere.

Seven-inch tablets seem still have some sales life in them, and BORQS has one of those ready to go too, seen at right:

We’ll have to console ourselves that both Asus and Samsung are rumored to release Snapdragon 65x-based tablets later this year.

And now the video:

Well done, Charbax!

Advertisement