Category: Tablets

Chromium OS on a $199 Tablet powered by Freescale

Posted by Charbax – March 8, 2010

Freescale is showing their reference design for sub-$200 tablets. The target is that tablets can soon be sold below $200 to end consumers that are able to run any Linux-based OS, including Android or Chromium OS – based on the open-source code available at http://chromium.org

In this video, Freescale’s product manager of Software Development demonstrates the status of their optimizations of running Chromium OS on their i.MX51 based devices, among other form factors is the recently announced $199 tablet form factor. It even supports hardware acceleration of HTML5 based video playback.

This means, full power Chromium OS could be made available in the next few months in Laptop and Tablet form factors to be sold well below $200 unlocked without contracts. The main question is how fast and how smooth will the Chromium Browser feel on ARM Powered devices? This is to be seen and tested very soon! Follow my video-blog for hands-on reports showing performance of Chromium OS running on all the ARM Powered devices very soon. Check also for Chrome browser running within Android, or for Chromium OS modified to add Android apps support, thus merging the two.

I also wonder, how much more does a $65 ARM Powered laptop cost if it uses an ARM Cortex A8 processor like the ones from Freescale instead of the ARM9 or ARM11 based ones from rockchip, VIA, Samsung and others. If the price increase is within $35, then welcome will be all the sub-$100 full power smooth ARM Powered Chromium OS laptops and tablets! Without actually knowing the real price difference between the ARM9, ARM11 and ARM Cortex based cheap laptops, my guess is that the availability of sub-$200 and sub-$100 Chromium/Android Laptops/Tablets is a possibility.

How soon will we see Google sell unlocked Chromium/Android on ARM powered laptop/tablet/e-reader convertibles with 50-hour battery life on Pixel Qi screens at http://google.com/laptop?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Creative Zii Egg Android device

Posted by Charbax – March 6, 2010

Creative is working on these Creative Zii Egg products based on their ARM based processor. Creative is also working on an ARM Cortex A8 based processor for their next generation of these products.

Altina 4.8″ Android GPS with ethernet

Posted by Charbax – March 5, 2010

http://altina.com.tw is launching a 4.8″ Android GPS MID with built-in 3G and even an ethernet connector.

Camangi Webstation

Posted by Charbax – March 5, 2010

7″ Android Tablet.

Forsa 7″ Android Tablet at CeBIT 2010

Posted by Charbax – March 4, 2010

Here’s a 7″ Android Tablet powered by a Marvell xscale processor, can have built-in WiFi, GPS and 3G.

1Cross Tech MIDhybrid Android e-ink/LCD/keypad e-reader combo

Posted by Charbax – March 4, 2010

http://1crosstech.com is showing a cool looking combination of a 6″ e-ink e-reader on one side, with a 3.2″ HVGA Android LCD on the other side, and also with a touch panel keyboard input and a whole bunch more hardware features such as a 3G sim card slot, WiFi, Bluetooth an accelererometer, VGA webcam for video-conferencing and more.

DSK Mobilis at CeBIT 2010

Posted by Charbax – March 3, 2010

DSK Digital is launching this Texas Instruments OMAP3 600mhz ARM based full Linux computer system for a whole bunch of low power, even solar powered computing for on the field healthcare, e-government and teacher training applications.

usmart Sun Power Technology Limited Windows XP Intel Atom 4.8″ laptop/tablet form factor

Posted by Charbax – March 3, 2010

usmart Sun Power Technology Limited is showing what they say is the world’s smallest x86 computer, comes with a 4.8″ screen, Intel Atom 1.60ghz processor, 512mb RAM, USB port, WiFi, MicroSD slot, removable battery that lasts 2 hours of Windows XP usage. It should cost below $500 if it becomes available. This device when I touched it for a few seconds it seems to be very hot and it was actually shaking because of the small fans that are inside. Though this is a hand made early prototype.

Hard Kernel ODroid Android gaming device

Posted by Charbax – March 3, 2010

This is the first Android device with such a gaming buttons layout. It’s affordable available at around $300 unlocked at http://hardkernel.com but does not come with a 3G modem, only WiFi. It does have a pretty snappy ARM Cortex A8 processor from Samsung clocked at 833mhz, with 512MB DDR2 memory, a 3.5-inch capacitive touch screen display and 720p video playback through its built-in HDMI output. This is for now the Developer Edition of this ODroid product to be released in March 2010, followed by commercial editions of this product, to hopefully include full emulators for all game consoles ported to Android up to N64 and Dreamcast games if this device’s 3D acceleration and processing power will be able to handle those emulators and if developers port those to this implementation of Android.

MAG Digital presents Windows CE that looks like Android in a Tablet

Posted by Charbax – March 2, 2010

This is a 7″ Windows CE tablet, but with a very interesting user interface, comes with GPS, HDMI output, based on a Telechips processor that playsback 1080p video, is based on Windows CE that I think is made to look like Android.