The iPhone has been the center piece for many Chinese knockoffs over the past few years, but as the Chinese smartphone market has evolved, most of the poor-build products have been left behind. These days we are instead greeted with cheap but durable, reasonably spec’d devices.

The ZoPhone i5 is a perfect example of  a reasonably decent Android device designed to look and feel like the iPhone. For $200 you can get your hands on what looks like an iPhone, but at the heart is something completely different. The ZoPhone might look the same with its 4-inch 1,136 x 640 resolution display, but Android powers the device and the hardware is quite a bit different. The ZoPhone i5 sports a dual-core Mediatek MTK 6577 processor clocked at 1.2GHz, as well as 4GB internal storage, 1GB RAM, and a rear-facing 8MP camera.

Until recently, the iPhone clones haven’t been a huge issue for Apple, but many more products are receiving more support, mainly because of their ability to use Android as a stable alternative operating system. Companies such as Goophone are prepared to have their own patent war with the real iPhone maker although, unlike the Samsung-Apple war, they’ll probably be kept quiet.

For $200 (around £125), the ZoPhone has quite impressive specs, but unless you’re willing to pay for international shipping, this product, along with many others, will be strictly only for sale in China.

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China and clone devices pretty much go hand-in-hand, still the newest iPhone 4S clone actually has something to offer that makes it at least somewhat noteworthy. This clone is one of the first few Shanzhai smartphone clones to feature Ice Cream Sandwich.

The Android Apple-clone is a little lighter than the iPhone 4S at 114 grams, but essentially it looks exactly like Apple’s popular smartphone, even matching its screen resolution at 960×640. The clone itself is powered by the 7227-HTC Touch Chip and has a few extra features like WCDMA 3G, 512MB of memory, 8GB of storage and dual cameras.

The clone uses a custom set of tweaks and skins that are designed to mimic the iOS user interface and even include Siri-like assistant and voice controls via built-in Vlingo voice assistant. It’s as close to the real thing without stepping into the other side, and it would sure trip up your pals.

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The goods were shipped over as parts from Asia to be reassembled and labelled in L.A. before being sold in order to obscure the operation. Laid out on a table in typical drug-bust style, a Los Angeles Times photo shows piles upon piles of the PSPs, third- and fourth-gen Nanos and other goods set to be displayed in a press conference Monday.

“This was a well-funded operation,” said Ron Boyd, chief of the L.A. Port Police force. ”The counterfeits looked very authentic.”

Though they were deceiving to the eye, the iPods and iPhones, many of older generations, don’t work when hooked up to iTunes, he said. Investigators assume the recent shipment was timed to coincide with lingering electronics hype brought on by the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

The investigation also involved the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, the Border Enforcement Security Task Force, the California Highway Patrol’s Cargo Theft Interdiction Program and the Vernon Police Department.

This sort of thing is pretty commonplace in other countries — the word “Molino” comes to mind — so it’s good to see the integrity of the world’s most trusted industry defended in the U.S.A.

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