At IFA in Berlin, a company shows off an Android tablet and phone that look like clones of the iPhone 17 Pro

At the IFA electronics show in Berlin, Chinese company Hotwav unveiled the Pad 17 Pro tablet and the A17 Pro Max smartphone, both of which look almost identical to the iPhone 17 Pro. Neither device actually runs iOS — both use Android, our correspondent found after visiting the manufacturer's booth.

The orange casing, flat side edges and the unmistakable protruding camera module with three large round lenses make it easy to mistake the Hotwav tablet for an oversized replica of Apple's flagship phone at first glance. Instead of an Apple logo, the back panel bears the manufacturer's own branding — but the camera layout and overall look of the rear panel mirror Apple's design almost exactly.

Under the hood: a standard Android budget device

Flip the tablet over, though, and the illusion fades: the device runs Android 16. According to the spec sheet at the booth, the Pad 17 Pro features a 10.1-inch, 800×1280 display with a 120Hz refresh rate, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Its battery is rated at 5,000mAh, with a 13-megapixel main camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing one. There's no technological breakthrough here — nor does the manufacturer claim one; the tablet isn't trying to compete with the latest iPads. Its main selling point is simply looking like an iPhone blown up to tablet size.

The phone copies even more closely

If it were just the tablet, one might chalk it up to a quirky design homage. But the same booth also showcased the A17 Pro Max smartphone — and here the resemblance to the iPhone is even more pronounced. Flat orange edges, a protruding camera module and a trio of lenses arranged almost exactly like Apple's — a similarity made especially striking by the orange finish.

Still, this too is an Android device — running version 15 this time. According to the manufacturer, the phone has a 13-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel front camera, a 5,160mAh battery and an ASR8662 processor. The back panel carries the Hotwav logo, leaving no doubt about who actually made it.

Why show this at IFA

The situation is more interesting than it might seem: this isn't some random find in an electronics store, but a product presented right at the international IFA trade show in Berlin. Such events matter to Asian manufacturers as a way to find European distributors, trading partners and potential buyers — the goal isn't just to show off new products to visitors, but to find companies willing to sell this hardware across Europe.

That explains the booth staff's initial reaction: when our correspondent started asking questions about the devices, they happily demonstrated everything, clearly taking him for a potential buyer. But the moment it became clear he was a journalist, their interest evaporated instantly — staff claimed poor English and any willingness to talk disappeared. The question of whether the manufacturer had drawn a bit too much inspiration from Apple's products went unanswered.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz