It took a Chinese art student less than 10 days to construct a tablet for his girlfriend, who posted pictures of the homemade iPad-like creation online, causing it to quickly go viral.
The posting was accompanied by 37 photos that documented the entire process, along with humorous commentary. The post “It took 10 days for my tablet computer to be born!” attracted over 120,000 hits in three days.
A Chinese blogger also posted a series of photos of the tablet, which displayed an embedded camera and an imitation Apple logo on the front, a speaker on the back and shiny, white crystal glass beads framing the front and back, with a four-leaf clover made out of the same beads. The blogger also provided photos of the entire assembly process with details of the parts.
The girlfriend, a female college student named Sun Shaha, has attracted the envy of many netizens.
The Yangzhou Evening News interviewed Sun, who said that the tablet was a gift from her boyfriend, Wei Xinlong. They are classmates at the Department of Environmental Design at Northeast Normal University.
Sun said, “The parts of the tablet were mostly from the second-hand electronics market. Some hard-to-find parts were purchased online.”
According to Wei, he started building the tablet after he received the touch screen component on Oct. 22. It took ten days.
“There were some problems with the express delivery, and that delayed my project for a couple of days,” he said. “It really only took me a week to assemble the tablet computer.”
Wei estimated the cost of the tablet to be about 700 yuan (US$110) plus 100 yuan (US$16) spent on tools.
Even though Wei is an art student, he has a passion for science and technology, Sun said. She’s satisfied with the tablet’s performance; reading e-books, watching movies or playing games has not posed any problems.
Wei set up an online group that now has over 80 members. He also published a tutorial that describes in detail the process of assembly.
Wei was modest about the achievement. “To tell you the truth, this cannot be considered a real tablet computer. At most, it is a laptop with a touch screen,” he said. He thought the design could be improved.
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