By Chris Chang, posted Apr 7, 2011 at 4:02 PM, 12,191 views,

Finally, A Smart Cover Knockoff! (video)

Apple’s pulled something of a surprise out its hat with its new Smart Cover for the iPad 2. It is magical, and we wish there’s a knockoff for that pure genius cover. Guess what, we managed to get one from China, and it looks very similar to the original. However, it turns out there is a very unfortunate downside for the Smart Cover knockoff… The video below explains everything.

Click here for YouTube link.

We had an awful time playing around the Smart Cover knockoff. First, we are unhappy with its price. It is only slightly cheaper than the original. We got the poly pink for 220 yuan (about $33), while Apple is providing it for $39. Next, it does not attach to our iPad instantly. We thought the knockoff will work the same as the original since it also comes with a self-aligning magnetic hinge. We were wrong. The magnetic hinge somehow got itself separated with the cover when we placed it near the left side of our iPad… Lastly, it stinks. We are not sure what kind of poly material the knockoff makers have used on their Smart Cover knockoff, it smells very bad.

The only thing we like about this knockoff is that it could automatically wake or put our iPad to sleep when we open or close the cover. We took a deeper look at the cover, and we found out that it contains 15 magnets in the far-right panel, that’s exactly the same as the original (see iFixit’s Smart Cover teardown).

The Smart Cover knockoff really disappoint us. We hope to see an upgrade on the magnetic hinge, and a lower price tag, at least half the price of the original. Oh, one more thing. We could not turn our iPad 2 into FridgePad with this Smart Cover knockoff.