So I was touring the local mall and stumbled upon an interesting find. I spotted what looked like a black, plastic version of the Macbook Air. It was an Indigo RS130, a shanzhai laptop manufactured in Taiwan for the cellphone brand Firefly.

The specs were the boring basics: Intel Atom N280 1.6GHz with GMA950 graphics, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 802.11b/g WiFi, LAN, 1.3MP Camera. What set it apart was its 13″ screen and chiclet keyboard. The design very much mimicked the Macbook Air, down to the power button at the corner.

It also had 2 USB ports, a LAN port, one jack for both mic and headphones and an HDMI out. The unit had no pre-installed OS (not even Linux) but the display model had Windows 7 on it. A big downside was that the battery was pretty small and only lasts around 2 hours. I wasn’t able to get the actual weight but it felt something like 1.2-1.3 kg.

The retail price for this is roughly $390. You won’t get much out of it except light browsing and similar tasks due to the slower CPU. If you’ve ever dreamt of a black Macbook Air or just want a budget notebook with a better screen and keyboard, this might just be the one for you.

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Black Macbook Air Clone Spotted In The Wild