Category: Tablets

Ice Cream Sandwich on the Tegra3 powered Asus Transformer Prime

Posted by – November 22, 2011

Nvidia just released this video demo showing Ice Cream Sandwich running on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime (click to pre-order for $499 on Amazon). It will be awesome to see if a full Chrome browser can be run on top of Ice Cream Sandwich for when a device like this is used in ARM Powered Laptop mode and using the HDMI output and USB/bluetooth keyboard/mouse in ARM Powered Desktop mode.

Engadget.com: Qualcomm S4 MSM8960 development platform tablet

Posted by – November 19, 2011

This is the new Qualcomm S4 MSM8960 Krait development platform with the Adreno 225 GPU, on a pretty high-end tablet development kit, with a 1366×768 capacitive screen, 13 megapixel camera, 3D camera, 2megapixel front-facing camera for 1080p video conferencing and a bunch of other new sensors, fingerprint reader, an MHL connector, full sized SD card slot and more.

Source: engadget.com

Qualcomm also announced a new bunch of their Krait S4 ARM Processors due to arrive in Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops and more starting early next year:

The Krait CPU is the next generation of Qualcomm’s micro architecture and is purpose-built from the ground up for significant mobile performance and power management advantages leading to enhanced user experience and better battery life. The Krait CPU is an essential part of the Snapdragon S4 class of processors. Today, Qualcomm announced several new S4 chipsets, including the MSM8660A, MSM8260A, MSM8630, MSM8230, MSM8627, MSM8227, APQ8060A and APQ8030. These are additional chipsets to the previously announced MSM8960, MSM8930 and APQ8064. Snapdragon S4 MSM processors include Qualcomm’s leading-edge wireless modem technologies, including EV-DO, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, LTE FDD, LTE TDD and Wi-Fi® standards.

Liliputing.com: Google Marketplace works fine on the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet

Posted by – November 17, 2011

Liliputing.com just posted this video showing how nicely the full Google Marketplace can be made to work on the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire. For the next step, I expect Amazon will update it to Ice Cream Sandwich, and when they do, I expect Amazon to pre-install the full Google Marketplace and all the Google Apps, just because that’s what is better for the consumer. And I think Amazon will figure out that it’ll actually increase their own content sales in terms of revenue per tablet to simply fully unlock the Kindle Fire.

It still doesn’t have HDMI output, kick-stand, MicroSD card slot, USB host, webcam, legal Mpeg2/AC3/DTS codecs up to 1080p legally either.

Source: liliputing.com

ZiiLABS ZMS-20 playing 1080p High Profile

Posted by – November 16, 2011

ZiiLABS released this video demonstrating 1080p high profile level 4.1 H.264 with CABAC, deblocking and 8×8 transforms. Played on the ZMS-20 based JAGUAR platform.

List of my ARM Powered devices used for video-blogging:

Posted by – November 14, 2011

Andy Frame is interviewing me on ARM’s official YouTube Channel about my ARM Powered devices used for video-blogging and live video streaming from consumer electronics trade-shows.

List of devices featured in this video:

- Headmounted Display: Kopin Golden-i, OMAP3530 based, provides SVGA screen at eye-level for real-time monitoring of an IRC chat for asking better questions
- Headmounted Logitech c910 Webcam connected to the ARM Powered One Laptop Per Child XO-1.75, Marvell Armada 618 based, live-streaming the webcam video feed to http://ustream.tv (an optimal Headmounted computer, maybe Motorola’s next version, can include the webcam and Android based software to live-stream the video to any live video streaming service built-in)
- Archos 101 G9, OMAP4430/OMAP4460 1Ghz to 1.5Ghz tablet, similar specs as in the Galaxy Nexus but in a 10.1″ tablet form factor. Starts $269 unlocked no contract for 8″. This is probably my favorite high-end tablet at the moment. I’ll post my full video-review of the Archos 101 G9 in the next few days.
- Archos 70 Internet Tablet, OMAP3630 1Ghz single core, released about 13 months ago. I use this tablet every day as 7″ tablets fit in any jacket pocket. Thus I mostly use this for checking emails, web browsing, watching video, playing games, using apps when I am outside. I am looking forward to upgrade this to a dual-core 7″ tablet.
- My $87 FG8 Android Smartphone, it’s my main smartphone for the past 7 months since I found it in Shenzhen China. It supports Dual-SIM cards (so I can use my home and foreign SIM numbers at the same time, or use voice SIM and data SIM at the same time), has a decent 3.5″ capacitive touch screen, uses the wildly popular in China Mediatek MTK6516 ARM9 processor. I’m looking forward upgrading this to a Galaxy Nexus (because I am eager to try Ice Cream Sandwich) or to a newer faster 3G-capable sub-$100 Android phone.
- ZTE MF61 T-Mobile USA 4G HSPA+ Hotspot, $50 for 3GB/month pre-paid, $141 for the device, no contract.

Marvell Armada 618 in the Vizio V-Tab 8″ capacitive sub-$200 tablet

Posted by – October 30, 2011

Marvell provides this low leakage highly optimized single core Armada 618 now in end consumer products and reaching sub-$200 pricing.

Ericsson HSPA+ and LTE modems

Posted by – October 30, 2011

Ericsson is one of the leaders in cellular network infrastructure, for the past 4 years they also make HSDPA, HSPA+ and now also LTE modems to embed in Tablets, Laptops and more.

Freescale i.MX6 Quad Core at ARM TechCon 2011

Posted by – October 28, 2011

Freescale is showcasing the performance of their Quad Core ARM Cortex-A9 i.MX6 Quad processor.

Latest news from Texas Instruments at ARM TechCon 2011

Posted by – October 27, 2011

The OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 processor is taped out, they are about to show impressive samples soon, they will then be tweaking and optimizing it before release in commercial products within about a year. OMAP4 is being launched in the Motorola Razr and in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phones, each more awesome than the other. Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 works awesomely on OMAP4, Honeycomb 3.2 tablets like the Archos 101 G9 are being released now, TI is also looking forward to power products such as Laptops that run Chrome OS, Ubuntu and Windows 8.

Marvell Armada PXA2128 processor in a tablet prototype

Posted by – October 27, 2011

This is the first time that Marvell is showing the PXA2128 in a workable tablet prototype form factor. This is the new high-end processor from Marvell with a 1.2Ghz Dual-core doing the intensive tasks and a slower lower power co-processor doing the basic background tasks, providing a solution that can peak at high performance and go back to low power mode automatically.