It sure seems these Chinese rip off artists work really quickly as the new Nokia X5 smartphone has only just seen the light of day but has already been knocked off and cloned by Chinese cloning merchants.

According to an article over on Daily Mobile by way of Twitpic, the Nokia X5 clone was pictured just ten hours after Nokia made the official Nokia X5 announcement, which has to be a new record in cloning a new smartphone.

Judging by the clone picture the device does look remarkably like the new Nokia X5 with its square chubby form factor, but there is no word on if these cloners have knocked off the same operating system and features or not. I wonder if it spins like the original.

No doubt you will be able to pick up this knock off somewhere in China for a low price at some point, that is of course if you are happy having a clone device rather than the real deal, but as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.