The Proliferation of MacBook Ripoffs

Everybody loves Apple's sleek, hip industrial design — especially other laptop manufacturers trying to compete with the explosive success of the MacBook Pro.

Everybody loves Apple's sleek, hip industrial design — especially other laptop manufacturers trying to compete with the MacBook Pro. Over the course of the past year or so, we've counted at least one new model from each of the major PC manufacturers that looks strikingly similar to Apple laptops. The latest is the HP Folio 13, a pretty terrific-looking new business model in the Ultrabook™ series. BoingBoing calls it the MacBook HP:

When the new Samsung Series 7 notebooks debuted they were immediately dubbed "MacBook clones," which given Samsung's patent lawsuits with Apple, you might think they'd try to avoid. The similarities aren't quite as bad, but we noticeable nevertheless. Sam Biddle at Gizmodo pointed out its Apple-inspired backlit keyboard and aluminum finish, and gave the machine a glowing review for one specific reason. "Underneath all that brushed aluminum are some pretty damn good guts for the price," Biddle wrote. "For $1,300? Very nice. It may be a MacBook ripoff, but I'd like to see Apple rip off that price."

However, we'd like to offer the most blatant MacBook ripoff award to Lenovo, though. The "spectacularly thin" U300 laptop came out in September with a similarly impressive set of specs, but the MacBook look is unmistakeable. Note the black sunken keyboard, the frame around the display, and clean silver top.

Apple didn't return a request for comment on the recent flood of MacBook-like competitors on the market but didn't hear back in time for this post. Apple's legal resources seem dedicated to the mobile market these days, which makes sense given Apple has barely touched its laptop line these the past few years to focus on the mobile market. After all, the laptop era is totally over.