Category: Android

Freelander Link-Create Factory Tour, A31, Exynos4412, MT6577 tablets and phones

Posted by – April 11, 2013

Freelander Link-Create manufactures about 2000 tablets or/and phones per day in this factory in Shenzhen China. Freelander makes and sells a whole range of Allwinner A31, Exynos 4412, MediaTek MT6577/6589 and other tablets and smartphones. But they were just making some MediaTek and Exynos based tablets the day (week-end) I was there. Check back for more on Freelander at http://ARMdevices.net in the next few days. I’m going to try to visit their factory again also while there are more people working making some of these newer devices.

Ampe ICOO ICOU7GT, 7″ 1280×800 Allwinner A31 for $129

Posted by – April 11, 2013

Nice looking 7″ 1280×800 IPS tablet with the Allwinner A31 inside. Selling for about $129 (800rmb) in Shenzhen China.

Konka 50″, 65″ and 84″ 4K screens

Posted by – April 11, 2013

Konka is showing their latest 4K screens, at 50″, 65″ and 84″ sizes.

Vivo X1S, MT6589 ultra-thin 6.55mm for $403


This is perhaps the best looking MediaTek MT6589 quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 phone that I have seen yet out of China. I don’t know where the Vivo brand comes from, but this phone is kind of impressive although it is kind of expensive for a MT6589 phone. It includes DAC audio using on-board Cirus Logic chip which provides quite high quality sound.

Nubia Z5, APQ8064 ultra-thin


ZTE’s new brand Nubia releases this ultra-thin Z5 Android phone on the Qualcomm APQ8064 processor.

Skyworth 4K 50″ sells for $1453 in China

Posted by – April 10, 2013

You can now buy this Skyworth 50E780U 4K HDTV in China for under $1500. It’s for sale right now. $1453 (8999rmb) is just the official suggested retail price, it seems to be sold for as cheap as $1323 (8198rmb) online at taobao (which I think is kind of China’s Amazon).

This 4K display is made by Taiwanese Chimei Innolux, it’s sold by the Skyworth brand, the number 1 TV brand in China (in front of Samsung in China). The only sad thing about this 4K display is that you are only getting a 50″ size, not 55″ nor 65″, I have been talking about my wish of seeing sub-$2000 4K 55″ during 2012/2013, now we’ve got sub-$1500 4K, but for now it’s 50″. I’m seriously considering buying one of these for myself, if I can somehow have it safely shipped to myself in Europe with UPS or some other shipping method, do you think that would be a good idea or will I regret not having at least a 55″ screen size for my 4K home screen resolution? Maybe if I wait another 2-3 months, sub-$2000 55″ 4K screens are going to be broadly available? I am very excited about the possibilities of 4K displays, simply because the demonstrations of 4K at trade shows that I have seen over the past few years have always been the highlights of the shows for me. 4K is way, way more interesting than 3D. I also expect to be able to buy sub-$2000 4K camcorders later this year, maybe Panasonic is working on a GH4 with 4K high bitrate video recording resolution. And I am convinced that YouTube, BitTorrent and other online sources for above 16mbit/s compressed 4K video streaming or downloading can provide for awesome 4K video content online in the months and years to come. So I am not worried about 4K content. I am sure Hollywood already has digitized most of their movies in 4K resolution and it wouldn’t be hard for them to release them all in 4K as soon as the home movies industry decides how to release them, I’d say they should just turn on 4K video-on-demand right now. $20/month for unlimited 4K movie streaming/downloading/progressive-downloading, I’d pay for that Hollywood! To save on bandwidth costs, Hollywood should just use BitTorrent for their 4K VOD movie distribution. All 8 megapixel pictures can already provide for great 4K slideshows today. I would consider placing my 4K display on an adjustable arm that easily allows the display to be used for office use, home cinema use and when raised a bit higher it can be a constant amazing 8 megapixel slideshow display in the living room. I wonder though what will be with the 30fps limitation of HDMI 1.4a that is the 4K interface used by these new 4K displays, I wonder if a firmware update can transform those to a possible HDMI 1.5 with at least 60fps or maybe 120fps support and maybe also higher bitrate if needed. I’m also worried about the built-in ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core M-star processor system not being user-replaceable once faster processors get available, because the solution to the limitation of HDMI 1.4a would be to directly stream all the contents from Ethernet or USB, but if the built-in processor needs update for the user interfaces, the 4K Google TV UI that I am expecting and perhaps especially the video decode performance being upgraded in the future. There, I’d prefer if the ARM SoC platform was easily user replaceable in all new 4K TVs, that I think would make the 4K panels more future proof regardless what happens with the eventual limitations of HDMI. What do you think is the future-proof 4K solution to the current 30fps@4K limitation of current HDMI 1.4a?

Alldocube RK3188 Tablet Factory Tour Part 3/3: Assembly

Posted by – April 9, 2013

Welcome on this 23-minute tour at the Alldocube RK3188 Tablet assembly line. See how Shenzhen Cube assembles about 2-3 million Android Rockchip tablets a year, expecting to double their output each year.

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Be sure to have seen all my 21 Shenzhen Factory videos in my YouTube playlist for Shenzhen Factory videos, more to come in the days/weeks to come! Check back!

Alldocube Tablet Factory Tour Part 2/3: SMT workshop

Posted by – April 9, 2013

Here’s a look at Alldocube‘s SMT line in their Shenzhen Headquarters.

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Alldocube RK3188 Tablet Factory Tour Part 1/3: Headquarters


Welcome on my full tour (Part 1 of 3) at the Alldocube Tablet Factory in Shenzhen China. This is the tour at the Alldo Cube Headquarters, featuring their R&D office, design, testing, component storage, component quality control and the device repair/support area. Alldocube in Shenzhen is finalizing the testing and is beginning mass production of the Rockchip RK3188 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 28nm HKMG based tablets. Full mass production of the new RK3188 Quad-core Tablets is expected for the middle of April 2013. Check back in the next days for the Parts 2 and 3 of this Factory Tour, to feature the Alldocube SMT Line and Assembly lines next.

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Karim Yaghmour talks Linux Trace Toolkit, Embedded Linux and Embedded Android

Posted by – March 25, 2013

Karim Yaghmour talks to Zach Pfeffer about the Linux Trace Toolkit, the Embedded Linux book and now he’s releasing the Embedded Android book. At Linaro Connect Asia 2013, Karim Yaghmour presented 4 sessions on Embedded Android which I filmed in their entirety which you can watch here:
Karim Yaghmour Presents Embedded Android Session 1: Android Internals
Karim Yaghmour Presents Embedded Android Session 2: Working with the AOSP
Karim Yaghmour Presents Embedded Android Session 3: Native Android user-space
Karim Yaghmour Presents Embedded Android Session 4: Using and Customizing the Android Framework

Qun Fa E2001 5.7″ 720p MT6589 phone for $187

Posted by – March 25, 2013

Here’s the 5.7″ 720p E2001 phone on the MediaTek MT6589 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 sold for $187 in Shenzhen China.

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Zopo Libero HD ZP800H, 5″ 720p IPS, MT6589

Posted by – March 25, 2013

Sold for 1799rmb ($290) in Shenzhen China, battery capacity is 2000mAh, 1GB RAM, 4GB flash, dual-sim on the MediaTek MT6589 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor.

$289 Zopo Leader ZP900H, 5.3″ qHD MT6589 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7

Posted by – March 20, 2013

199gr, 2300mAh, dual-SIM, here is Zopo’s 5.3″ qHD IPS MediaTek MT6589 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 with SGX544 GPU smartphone selling for 1799rmb ($289).

Allwinner A31 9.7″ Retina factory tour at Celeb Tech

Posted by – March 18, 2013

Here is a tour of the Celeb Tech factory in Shenzhen China. This is their touchpanel assembly line, they also have a more general tablet assembly factory in another part of Shenzhen (Dongguan) which I may go to and film at the next time I visit Shenzhen. They are in full swing producing the pretty awesome 9.7″ Retina Allwinner A31 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 tablet that sells at some pretty amazing prices on the Chinese market.

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SED Electronics Market (Tablets Market) in Shenzhen walk-through


Here’s my latest 20-minute steadicam/GH3 walk through the SED Electronics Market in Shenzhen, that building is my favorite in the Shenzhen Huaqiangbei Electronics market area. This is where you can find all the tablets, HDMI sticks and tablet accessories. I film through this market with the Tiffen Steadicam Merlin 2 on arm and vest with the Panasonic GH3 camera and 12-35mm lense.

ArcherMind Eyesight protector and other gadgets

Posted by – March 18, 2013

ArcherMind of Nanjing China shows some of their latest gadgets.

ARM works on software for HDMI Sticks redefining the Set-top-box

Posted by – March 17, 2013

ARM works to support open standards to optimize the web browser on ARM Powered HDMI Sticks, working with DLNA, WebKit, other open standards to have all set-top-box features work on ARM Powered set-top-boxes and HDMI Sticks. Here, ARM talks about working with FXI Technology on the Cotton Candy, running Linaro-optimized Ubuntu and the Webkit optimized web browser through Qt.

$158 A31 9.7″ Retina, $114 A31 8″ 1024×768, $57 iMAPx15 7″ 1024×600 by BoXun

Posted by – March 11, 2013

Here are some very nice valued latest tablets sold on the Shenzhen Huaqiangbei market, featuring the Allwinner A31 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 in 9.7″ Retina IPS for 985rmb ($158), 8″ 1024×768 for 715rmb ($114) and the Infotmic iMAPx15 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A5 in a 7″ 1024×600 for 360rmb ($57).

You can find the contact details for this seller here:

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$400 Meizu MX2, 4.4″ 1280×800 Exynos4412

Posted by – March 11, 2013

Here is Meizu’s latest flagship smartphone, running on the Exynos4412 quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and using a new 4.4″ 1280×800 LCD display.

Karim Yaghmour Presents Embedded Android #4 – Using and Customizing the Android Framework

Posted by – March 11, 2013

Here’s the fourth session by Karim Yaghmour on Embedded Android at Linaro Connect 2013. Also watch session 1, session 2 and session 3.