China to rip off the iPad Mini –- one vendor has already announced the remarkably similar ‘Goopad mini’ for just $99.

The tablet was first spotted by Chinese tech website Gizmochina and comes from Chinese company Goophone, which also launched the “Goophone i5″ shortly after the launch of the iPhone 5 last month.

However, the company apparently patented the iPhone 5’s design in China, based on early leaks of the device, no doubt in a bid to save itself from a prospective court date with Apple.
While the looks and name of the Goopad mini may make for some amusement, the tablet actually sports some pretty decent hardware specifications.There’s an 8-inch 1024 x 768 resolution display, a dual-core 1.4GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and dual-facing cameras. The device seems to run a customized version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The tablet will launch in November for $99, making it $230 cheaper than the entry-level iPad Mini.