Since I import electronic goods from China and I love reading eBooks, this piqued my interest so I asked my sourcing agent to take a look to see if he can get me an unit to play with. Here is the deal...
Eletoworld is just a reseller.
The manufacturer of this product is a company in Beijing call "ZhiQi". Its website is
www.smartdevices.com.cn. The entire website is in Chinese but here's some info that my agent gathered:
1) The device is really meant to be used as a PMP in China. It is pitched as a iPod Touch competitor by the manufacturer. The ebook functionality is strictly an add on. It comes with a PDF reader in the Chinese version.
2) The current English Ubuntu is done by a third party, possibly eletroworld. The manufacturer's own English version won't be ready until end of June.
3) They do not plan to have an American distributor. The device is not approved by UL nor FCC. And they don't plan to in the short term. So that probably means limited distribution in the US.
4) They are willing to sell me 10 units at a significant discount relative to eletoworld's prices. Email me if you want one. If enough people want it I can bring a shipment in via UPS and you guys can have it at cost plus your pro-rata piece of the shipping cost. But all the documentation will be in Chinese, so you need to savvy enough to do hack it without manual. No matter what I have already asked to have one Q7 and one Q5 sent to me for evaluation.
When I find out more I will post more data.