A salesman promotes a FlyTouch at a GOME store. [Wang Jing / China Daily]

The FlyTouch, the first made-in-China tablet computer, which many regard as an iPad rip-off, is on the shelves at GOME and Dazhong Electronics.

It has a seven-inch touch screen, uses Google's Android system and is able to perform just about anything an iPad can.

The regular retail price of the computer is 1,999 yuan, although a FlyTouch agent at a GOME store near Changhong bridge recently offered to sell it for 999 yuan to store members.

"We are ordering the third batch of goods from the producer since there are only three left in the storehouse. A great many customers have ordered a FlyTouch by phone," said a clerk at the store.

"I have ordered one. An iPad is so expensive that its price is about five times that of a FlyTouch. I can use the FlyTouch to record my meetings, which is really useful to me," said netizen Bin Junwu on a online forum.

But a purchaser going by the moniker 'czm-sz' said the battery of the FlyTouch only lasts an hour and a half.

At the GOME store, a customer surnamed Wen said she thinks the quality of the FlyTouch is far below that of an iPad.

Other national brands, such as Aigo and Hanwang, are also reportedly releasing tablet computers soon.