By now, most of us may have caught a glimpse of Taiwanese pop-star/race car driver Jimmy Lin holding an iPad in one hand, and what appears to be a 7-inch iPad prototype in the other.  As convincing as this “prototype” appears, I have serious doubts. It’s nothing more than a Chinese knock-off, the W11, who seem to refer to their product as the W11 iPad. This post translated from a blog in China on Oct. 5 talks about the product’s head start in production before the “legendary 7-inch iPad 2.”

Add to that the fact that Lin himself is the founder of a hightech surveillance equipment company, who with his own devices can remotely control more than 100 home appliances from his PDA; it probably wouldn’t be hard for Lin to get iOS, or something to resemble it on the W11.

He says on his blog that the “prototype” is for his 1-year-old son, and given that context, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lin’s whole post was written a bit tongue-in-cheek. If I wanted a mini-iPad for my son, I would have one of my techno-lackies install iOS on a 7-inch tablet, too.