Author:

Charbax

Apple to (obviously) use ARM in next Macbook

Posted by Charbax – May 6, 2011
Category: Laptops, Opinions

Apple profits mostly thanks to ARM technology

Apple profits mostly thanks to ARM technology

Semiaccurate.com cites sources, and the whole blogosphere is erupting over the rumor that Apple is preparing to use ARM instead Intel in their next Macbook. Here’s my take on it:

Thanks to ARM technology, Apple has become the worlds second biggest company (valued at $322 Billion) after Exxon Mobil (valued at $411 Billion). Before using ARM, Apple was in near bankruptcy, and then they got the idea to make those ARM Powered iPod. And as the obvious thing in 2007 they introduced the ARM Powered iPhone. The iPhone now stands for more than 50% of Apple’s $70 Billion yearly revenues and the iPhone may actually represent more than 75% of Apple’s yearly $17 Billion profit.

ARM is the best way to make huge profits.

And Apple needs to find all ways to keep making big profits, as their share is priced so high, it can only stay as high for as long as they can find ways to continue to make huge profits.

The iPhone may provide Apple with as much as 334% profit margins. ($150 BOM and $650 average sale price)

The iPad may provide Apple with about 155% profit margins. ($225 BOM and $575 average sale price)

The Macbook Air, while expensive, probably only provide Apple with 64% profit margin. ($700 BOM and $1200 average sale price)

This is Apple’s ARM Powered laptop plan:

Make the thinner, lighter ARM Powered OSX laptop, with a Pixel Qi type screen they could achieve 30 hours battery runtime or more. It would cost them only $300 to make (BOM) and Apple probably thinks they can still sell it for at least $799 that’s a 166% profit margin, nearly 3x more profits for Apple compared to them still using Intel.

The question for Apple R&D is only this one, should they go ahead and use Apple A5 ARM Cortex-A9 (clocked higher than in iPad2’s 861Mhz) with some faster memory bandwidth design, put in there some more RAM and optimize their OSX/iOS mashup software for a release before this years Christmas already? Or should Apple wait for Apple A6 ARM Cortex-A15 and to try and have that ready for mass selling before Christmas 2012 at the latest? How do you think Apple will make that OSX/iOS ARM based OS mashup work for their next Macbook? (post in the comments)

You have to consider, I am not suggesting that Apple will succeed in continuing to keep making so huge profits on ARM Powered devices. I for example believe that the $87 Android Smartphones and the diversity in high-end Android smartphones is a significant threat to Apple’s iPhone profit margins and marketshare*. Though I am definitely sure that Apple will continue to make 100x more profits on their ARM Powered devices compared to their Intel based devices, and that thus Apple is obviously aiming to shift their Notebook line to ARM as soon as possible.

* especially if they continue making design mistakes like the Anntenna not working in left hand and the iOS devices recording your every move for years in an unencrypted cache file any friend/enemy/backdoor-hacker can snoop on over 100 million iOS device users until they manually decide to upgrade with their new 666MB iOS upgrade file.

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3 things Google TV needs from Google I/O in 4 days

Posted by Charbax – May 6, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google, Google TV

1. Support ARM Processors, to be in sub-$100 box. Even run a full Google TV UI “mode” from the HDMI output of every new Android smartphone (expect Google TV to become a part of Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich?)

2. Support apps like BitTorrent/RSS, Seedbox management with SFTP, Rapidshare/Megaupload streaming, make it the easiest way to pirate all movies and TV shows with a remote control on the TV.

3. Unlock Desktop User Agent in the Flash plugin. The only reason TV websites can block Google TV is because of the Flash plugin not hiding itself as a Flash-for-Desktop user agent. It’s only a question of Adobe and Google making the decision (if the rights holders keep blocking them), they can make Google TV unblockable. Even make it easy to sign up for fast and reliable proxy services all over the world if certain online web TV are being region blocked (make it easy for the world to stream US based Hulu/Netflix/Viacom/etc, UK based BBC, French based France Television, etc..).

I expect that Google is going to announce all 3 at Google I/O. What do you expect Google TV 2.0 is going to be like?

I think the Google TV software needs to be in every cheap media player, in every set-top-box, and basically, it needs to make it easy for every TV user to easily get access to all web video in as few clicks and as little typing as possible. It may bring a keyboard into every living room, but that usage needs to be as seamless and easy as possible, start typing the name of the show and hit enter to tune in to that show, show options, live, on-demand, legal free/paid/ads if available, “illegal” BitTorrent RSS-subscribe Seedbox/SFTP-service-for-anonymous one click reliable add to queue. Another cool app would be Sopcast, and also the first use of Sopcast through seedboxes for “illegal” 10mbit/s or more live streaming of every TV channel in the world, basically make it as seamless as possible for people to cut the cable/satellite cord and replace it with full freedom of on-demand media choices if they so want to, all designed for leanback mode.

China does Electric Cars using Better Place battery swapping

Posted by Charbax – May 3, 2011
Category: Cars, Other

All new cars to be sold in China are to be electric, running on 100% clean renewable energy. All that is needed is political will. China seems to have that political will. They figured they’ve got enough pollution in their rapidly growing cities, they figured they’d like to be energy independent, they figured they need to make all their cars electric now.

Switchable electric batteries are the only solution for the full scale implementation of electric cars for the mass market today. Project http://betterplace.com is implementing a worldwide standard for battery swapping, charging connectors and re-charge infrastructure.

Better Place, China Southern Grid Sign Strategic Agreement Centered on Battery Switch Model

April 27, 2011

Guangzhou Municipal Government Signs Agreement to Aid New Partnership

TEL AVIV (April 27, 2011) – At a signing ceremony today in Israel with officials from Guangzhou, Better Place announced a strategic agreement with China Southern Power Grid Co. (CSG), the world’s eighth largest utility according to the Fortune Global 500. The agreement, which focuses on joint electric car and infrastructure projects in CSG’s service areas, will further advance electric cars with switchable batteries in China. The agreement calls for the companies to open a battery switch station and joint education center in Guangzhou before the end of the year, while working to formalize a joint-venture partnership.

Source: http://betterplace.com

This is relevant on ARMdevices.net because electric cars can have more ARM Processors in them than any other types of cars. An average electric car may have 47 ARM processors in it. Also, those need better wirelessly internet connected interactive in-car navigation systems (probably Android based) than any other car. As those need to make it easy for the driver to find re-charge stations, to find and order a battery swap, to monitor and manage battery capacity and more.

Trim-Slice, compact Tegra2 Desktop, now released for $199

Posted by Charbax – May 1, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, Ubuntu

Here’s a powerful super compact Nvidia Tegra2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-core 1Ghz based Desktop box, for now seems to run something like Ubuntu 11.4 (ARM netbook edition?), but the software support is a process that is a work-in-progress. Their pricing starts at $199 for the basic model, I will try to get a review unit, what do you think about this type of compact ARM Powered desktop?

Haifa, Israel – 30-Apr-2011 – CompuLab is announcing immediate availability of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Trim-Slice miniature computer.

Trim-Slice is offered in 3 configurations –

Trim-Slice Barebone – with 1 GHz Tegra 2, 1 GB RAM, HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet, 4 USB ports, 2 SD slots and RS232 serial port. Trim-Slice Barebone MSRP is $199.

Trim-Slice Value – adds a 4 GB micro-SD card with Linux pre-installed and a USB 802.11n WiFi adapter. Trim-Slice Value MSRP is $219.

Trim-Slice Pro – with 1 GHz Tegra 2, 1 GB RAM, 32 GB SSD with Linux pre-installed, HDMI and DVI ports, Gigabit Ethernet, built-in 802.11n WiFi, 4 USB ports, 2 SD slots, RS232 serial port and a USB Bluetooth adapter. Trim-Slice Pro MSRP is $319.

OEMs and system-integrators can order Trim-Slice in volume with customization of feature set, branding and case finish.

Trim-Slice currently runs Linux and is supported in the mainline kernel revision 2.6.39. Support for other operating-systems is work-in-progress. “We design Trim-Slice with SW developers in mind” said Irad Stavi, Director of Business Development at CompuLab. “Developers that are looking for an open cost-effective high-performance ARM platform are likely to find Trim-Slice an attractive and unique solution that is very convenient for SW development.”

Source: http://trimslice.com/web/pr-11043

What to expect from Google I/O May 10-11th

Posted by Charbax – April 29, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google

Let’s have high expectations for this upcoming Google I/O developer conference to happen on May 10-11th in San Francisco, to be live streamed on the web. The Google engineers have been working very hard for months, even years, on a culmination of new software solutions that will likely dominate most of the devices to be found in the next years of Consumer Electronics tradeshows. Get ready for the biggest most action packed Google I/O event in the history of Google, read my following list of expectations.

1. Honeycomb to get open sourced. While the first Tegra2 based commercial Honeycomb tablets have been released and are being released, I expect Google will announce the opening of Honeycomb and Google’s support to optimize it for all the ARM SoC platforms, all including TI, Qualcomm, Rockchip, Freescale, Marvell, Telechips, NEC/Renesas, AmLogic, all should be getting it! All must get it! If it’s a long shot to expect Google to announce their support for all ARM Processors, them open sourcing it sure will make it happen anyways. I expect that several of these major ARM SoC vendors already have been working on Honeycomb for a while, and they all may start their announcements around Google I/O timing.

This is a big deal because it is the first truely tablet optimized OS ever made. See my video interview with Matias Duarte a product manager on Honeycomb UI design at Google.

2. Ice Cream Sandwich to be shown for the first time. One of the reasons Google said they delayed Honeycomb open sourcing was to provide an integration of the new Honeycomb features that can scale down to Smartphone sized screens, and that also means to certain previous Froyo tablets which may not either be totally compatible with at least the initial Honeycomb source code. Basically, it may be Gingerbread with Honeycomb’s improved multi-tasking, improved widgets, improved web browser and more on top.

While Google will integrate the full optimizations for flashy impressive Dual-Core next generation super smartphones, I also expect Google to bring a light version of Ice Cream Sandwich suitable for Sub-$50 Android smartphones to reach 2 Billion more people around the world. See my initial video review of the $87 FG8 Android Smartphone that I found a couple of weeks ago in Shenzhen China.


3. Chrome OS to be released and open sourced. I expect a dozen Chrome OS notebooks to be released during the show, half of which to be ARM Powered, possibly using Tegra2, TI OMAP4 and possibly also the Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual-core, if not even more SoC to be demonstrated with Chrome OS installed. Google and ARM having optimized the V8 javascript engine on ARM, they should be achieving awesome speeds for multi-tab heavy javascripts and flash web browsing. Although that may require new optimized memory bandwidth on those processors for them to perform fast enough for all consumers not to notice any slow downs. The big deal is also for Google to demonstrate full offline functionality, even video editing, photo editing working perfectly offline and online in Chrome OS. They need to show very impressive 3D games support in Chrome OS. Other native code functionality in Chrome OS. They will announce the pricing schemes for consumers being able to buy those Chrome OS notebooks starting in June, price could be as low as $99 for a unsubsidized ARM Powered Chrome OS notebook, but they will unveil subscription plans at $10 or $20 per month to include HSDPA/LTE wireless bandwidth, the bandwidth that can easily be topped up for people who need more wireless data.

This is a big deal because it finally makes ARM Powered laptops a mass market possibility. Sure enough, Ubuntu 11.4 Netbook Edition is fantastic also on ARM, but Chrome OS will make Linux and ARM Powered laptops for the first time a reliable choice for the consumer buying laptops on the mass market.

4. Google TV 2.0 for ARM to be open sourced. This improved UI, with full Google Marketplace support. I expect it to work on all the ARM Processors, including even the cheapest platforms such as Rockchip, Telechips, AmLogic and more. I expect Google to fork two versions of Google TV, one Full and one Basic, the Full version doing all the advanced HDMI pass-through, overlay stuff and IR blaster, the basic version doing just HDMI out and WebTV only. If TV networks in the USA still want to block Google TV regarding it as their worst enemy and trojan horse, Google and Adobe will probably unlock full undetectable Desktop User Agent Flash support, making it impossible to block full screen Flash playback. Adobe and Google still may want to fight it over with the TV networks to get some kind of distribution deal still, but if their lawyers don’t come to an agreement, Google simply will be forced to unlock full access that cannot be detected in a full Desktop class web browser on the TV. Expect though Google to announce Movie distribution deals with all the major Movie production companies, at least for the USA. I expect Google TV 2.0 to be released worldwide. Pricing to start at $59 for an unsubsidized ARM Powered Google TV basic box.

This is a big deal because it makes the ARM Powered Set-top-boxes a useful mass market opportunity. Easy video-on-demand on the TV can change how people watch TV.

5. Google’s Social Network premieres. I am expecting them to come with the first really useful social network. Not some wall for stalking old high school connections, and not some for following famous people’s SMS messages, and not just the types of experimentations that were Wave/Buzz, but something now really useful to the point people will be using it to find new colleagues, find new friends, do new activities locally and far away, create new content in new collaborations, be productive socially but also enable a new type of fun through social, once they succeed this is going to be a big deal and will make people wonder why tech bloggers have regarded so highly of Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin/Friendfeed.

What do you think Google will announce by the Google I/O conference on May 10-11th? Post your ideas in the comments.

LG to make ARM processors

Posted by Charbax – April 27, 2011
Category: Opinions

LG has announced that they are licencing the ARM Cortex-A9, ARM Cortex-A15 and ARM Mali-T604 architectures. LG wants to lower cost, differentiate and lower their time to market bringing new ARM Powered Smartphones, Tablets and Set-top-boxes to the market. 3 months ago at CES, I filmed the following interview with LG SmartTV product manager where he explains some of how LG is planning to use ARM in their lower cost and higher performance LG SmartTV Set-top-boxes to come:

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How soon will AMD start to make ARM processors?

Posted by Charbax – April 27, 2011
Category: Opinions, GlobalFoundries, AMD

AMD’s spin-off GlobalFoundries is already a major player in making ARM processors for Qualcomm, Broadcomm, STMicroelectronics and more. Now there are some talks about AMD considering to launch an ARM processor:

Speaking to EE Times during a discussion of ARM’s first quarter financial results CEO Warren East said: “AMD is a successful company selling microprocessors. ARM is in the business of licensing microprocessor designs. It is perfectly natural that we should have been trying to sell microprocessor designs to AMD for about the last ten years. Hitherto we haven’t been successful.”

East also said: “AMD has signaled they are going through a rethink of their strategy, and that must provide a heightened opportunity for ARM. They might use ARM microprocessors in the future and you’ve got to expect that we would be trying to persuade them of that.”

“ATI was actually an ARM licensee for some of its work in mobile applications so AMD did technically become an ARM licensee.” Qualcomm then bought the mobile graphics division from AMD for $65 million.

If negotiations were starting today they would probably focus on ARM’s forthcoming Cortex-A15 multicore-capable processor core. But East declined to rule out the possibility of licensing Cortex-A8 or Cortex-A9 to AMD.

Jem Davies, VP of Technology for ARM Holdings (who I video interviewed at ARM Techcon about the Mali-T604) will host a keynote at the upcoming AMD Fusion ’11 Summit in June 13-16th in Bellevue, Washington. He will likely discuss the future of heterogeneous computing, which is becoming a hot word from the world of supercomputing (GPGPU, GPU Computing) to the world of ultra-low power devices that are relying on System-On-a-Chip silicon (SOC), such as smartphones and tablets.

Source: eetimes.com and brightsideofnews.com

How soon do you think AMD will officially announce that they will make ARM processors and what do you think they will be? Post your thoughts in the comments.

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Latest Android Tablet/Smartphone Trends out of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, at 3 tradeshows

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Top Video Lists, China Sourcing Fair, HKTDC Electronics Fair, Shenzhen Electronics Fair, Geniatech, Android

Following is my summary and my top-20 videos filmed during 10 days spent in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, at 3 tradeshows, filming, interviewing, uploading and posting 97 videos from the Shenzhen Electronics Fair (April 8-10th), China Sourcing Fair (April 12-15th) and HKTDC Electronics Fair (April 13-16th). With all those many videos posted, it can be hard for you to look through all of them to find out which are the best. That is why I now always summarise my best videos in a post in the Top Video Lists category. Many awesome new ARM Cortex-A9 tablets and cheap smartphones were shown.

New major ARM processor trends from the Shenzhen and Hong Kong tradeshows and markets:

Based on the overwhelming amount of new videos filmed related to those new processors, I added 3 new Chip provider categories to ARMdevices.net:

– AmLogic, I filmed 9 new videos: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] (in order of most to least interesting), it’s a new low-cost Single-Core Cortex-A9 processor, clocked at 800Mhz for now, it can be found in the first sub-$100 Cortex-A9 tablets (resistive). The performance of these are likely better than 1Ghz Cortex-A8, but I will test this on my Kinstone AmLogic tablet sample (that I bought for $130 (850 renminbi)) and report in my upcoming second part video-review soon.

– Mediatek, I filmed 10 new videos: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] (in order of most to least interesting), this low-cost ARM9 processor seems to win big in the Chinese made emerging Android smartphones market. It’s absolutely amazing how cheap some of the Mediatek MTK6516 based Smartphones are being sold at, I bought a $87 FG8 Mediatek MTK6516 based Android Smartphone (that looks similar to a HTC Desire with its casing design). With Mediatek’s upgraded ARM11 3G-enabled MTK6573 Smartphone processor coming up, they may again make big wins in the Chinese smartphone market and bring sub-$100 maybe soon sub-$50 Android smartphones to the worldwide (not only emerging) mass market. Amazing.

– NEC/Renesas, I filmed 7 new videos: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] (in order of most to least interesting), about 2 years ago, NEC Electronics and Renesas merged and out of that merger is coming this new NEC/Renesas EV2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core 533Mhz processor, the SoCs based on it are very low priced. Consider this to be the Japanese ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core entrant. Some of my reports claim that a nice capacitive tablet design based on this processor can be sold in bulk for as little as $110, $125 or $135. I bought a sample from Livall.cn for $171 which I will soon video-review further.

My top-20 best Shenzhen/HongKong April 2011 videos:

1. Archos 7c Home Tablet, RK2918 Capacitive, Archos are building amazing value tablets based on the Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz processor, with great capacitive touch screens, and they are bringing that to the definitely sub-$200 price range. As I am probably the biggest Archos fanboy in the world (I’m the admin and founder of http://forum.archosfans.com), I found it super fascinating to meet their expert staff and visit their Shenzhen headquarters.

2. Arnova 10 capacitive RK2918 to be released in May, at possibly $229 MSRP, for this 10.1″ capacitive Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz tablet, it’s hard to find better value 10″ tablet. Consider this kind of price is for a product that will be massively available at all retail stores in Europe and the USA, that price is the retail price, including all import taxes, fees, margins and everything. I believe Archos can make huge sales of their new Arnova line, especially now that they are able to bring ARM Cortex-A8 performance and nice capacitive screens to these entry-level priced devices.

3. Best of Shenzhen: $87 Android 3.5″ capacitive phone, MTK6516 FG8, that is my initial video review of my new FG8 $87 Android Smartphone. Mediatek MTK6516 based, with Android 2.2 Froyo and a 3.5″ HVGA Capacitive touch screen. This is amazing to see how cheap the Android smartphones are getting. Check back for my further video reviews coming up to show the performance and features of this cheap smartphone platform.

4. Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 1: Hongda Factory tour, a fascinating look inside of a small Shenzhen consumer electronics factory. That day they are manufacturing Intel Atom based netbooks, the day before they were making cheap Freescale i.MX51 based tablets for utopiacn.

5. Geniatech explains their AmLogic Cortex-A9 Single Core Set-top-box, an interview with the product manager on this sub-$100 AmLogic based set-top-box, watch this to get an idea how the potential upcoming Google TV on ARM based set-top-box makers are planning their global sub-$100 ARM Powered Set-top-box market entry.

6. $95 Cortex-A9 Tablet Review, Kinstone KS-UMD070A9, my initial review of this sub-$100 (bulk, resistive) ARM Cortex-A9 AmLogic 800Mhz Single Core tablet. I’ve got the review sample right here, so I will post a further full video review with benchmarks, video codec tests and other speed tests as soon as I get the time, check back for that.

7. Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 3: Richtechie.com, Freescale i.MX51/53 PCB designer, have a look behind the scenes at a PCB designer in Shenzhen. This PCB design house makes Freescale i.MX51 motherboards and they are working on their upcoming i.MX53 based PCB designs. They work with utopiacn.

8. Archos at the Shenzhen Electronics Fair, not much news in this video, it’s just interesting to see how Archos has a big booth at the Shenzhen Electronics Fair and uses it to do sales of their devices towards growing their sales in the Chinese mainland market.

9. Catwalk girls show Tablets and Smartphones in Shenzhen, just fun if you would like to see how the Tablets and Smartphones are the center of the trendy topic at the Shenzhen Electronics Fair.

10. NEC/Renesas EV2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core 533Mhz in videos with Livall.cn, Gaia, Ebot, Quality Industrial and TAL Electronics.

11. Rockchip Rk2918 in a Set-top-box, this could power a sub-$50 ARM Powered Google TV Set-top-box.

12. Honeycomb at the Rockchip booth (just keyrings for now..), once you get Honeycomb on the Rockchip RK2918 (could be happening by Google I/O on May 10-11th?), that could create the most explosive disruptive mix for the tablet industry. Also check-out my video of the Rockchip RK2918 based laptop which could also provide great value for an ARM Powered laptop running Chrome OS or Honeycomb.

13. Review: $120 Hero H2000 MTK6516 Android Froyo Powered iphone4-copy, my initial video review of my new $120 iphone4-clone that seems to run Android 2.2 super smoothly on this 3.5″ HVGA capacitive touch screen Mediatek MTK6516 based Hero H2000 smartphone. It’s probably manufactured by Karasnn.com.

14. Epudo Telechips Cortex-A8 tablets, the new Telechips 8803 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz processor may be reaching stability for Android Gingerbread support. Telechips 8803 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz Gingerbread also featured in videos with Digilink and huashiguang.

15. MID123.com Hummingbird Gingerbread Tablet, Gingerbread seems also to be reaching stability on the Samsung ARM Cortex-A8 Hummingbird processor platform.

16. Karasnn.com Hero Android MTK6516 Smartphones, interview with one of the potentially leading Mediatek MTK6516 based Android smartphone makers.

17. Meizu M9, $380 Android phone with Retina Display, interesting to see a 3.5″ Retina Display and the Samsung Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8 1Ghz processor in this new Meizu M9 phone. At $380 unlocked it’s expensive, but surely less expensive than an iPhone while having pretty similar hardware performance. Meizu has several stores in the Shenzhen electronics market area, they seem to be a relatively big smartphone brand in China.

18. Trend Technology (HK) Ltd does Android Tablets, discussion with an insider how to get those tablets made and distributed.

19. Performance test on AmLogic ARM Cortex-A9 Android Set-top-box, testing the performance doing web browsing and more on this AmLogic development board. It seems fast!

20. Ramos booth tour, featuring Ramos W18, 9.7″ capacitive ARM Cortex-A9 AmLogic Android Tablet, Ramos has nice new products. Also check my videos of the Ramos T8Pro and Ramos V70/T11Pro/T11AD.

While in Shenzhen, I filmed following 5-part series of videos showing a bit of the Behind the Scenes of Shenzhen, the capital of the world for consumer electronics manufacturing:
1: Hongda Factory tour
2: utopiacn, Apad Android Tablet maker
3: Richtechie.com, Freescale i.MX51/53 PCB designer
4: Walking around the Shenzhen smartphone market
5: 3Gnet Factory Tour

Flying back from Hong Kong to Copenhagen using the excellent and cheap airline Qatar Aiways, they can provide free stop-over in Doha (that can be booked using their Multi-city online booking feature), also check these 3 videos that I filmed, they are not very tech related, but they show the atmosphere in an interesting Middle-eastern Golf country:
1. Arrived in Qatar
2. Walking the Souq Waqif, the Corniche and checking out the Doha skyscrapers at night
3. Desert Safari with Arabian Adventure Qatar (includes a fun Video-review of the NEC/Renesas based dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 533Mhz capacitive 7″ tablet from livall.cn)

Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 4: Walking around the Shenzhen smartphone market

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Smartphones, Exclusive videos, MediaTek, Shenzhen Electronics Fair, Android

There are about 5 huge malls on and around the Shenzhen Electronics street on Shenzhen Hua Qiang Bei, with up to 7 floors in each of these mall buildings that take an hour to walk through each floor if you want to look carefully and ask each booth about prices and what they have. Full of all kinds of electronics. This video features walking a bit around some parts of the Smartphone and Feature phone market in Shenzhen, see a bit of how the athmosphere is there. This is where I found my $87 Android Smartphone and my $120 Android powered iphone-copy.

Also watch my other videos in my series “Shenzhen Behind the Scenes“:
1: Hongda Factory tour
2: utopiacn, Apad Android Tablet maker
3: Richtechie.com, Freescale i.MX51/53 PCB designer
4: Walking around the Shenzhen smartphone market
5: 3Gnet Factory Tour

Nokia copy phone at the Shenzhen Electronics Market

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Smartphones, Exclusive videos, Shenzhen Electronics Fair

Look into what the new Nokia logo with Microsoft software might look like, or not.

Goolge copy phones at the Shenzhen Electronics Market

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Smartphones, Exclusive videos, Shenzhen Electronics Fair

This is what the secret new Android Ice Cream Sandwich might look like, or not.

Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 5: 3Gnet Factory Tour

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Smartphones, Factory Tours, Exclusive videos, Shenzhen Electronics Fair

Check out how they manufacture and test phones at the 3Gnet Shenzhen headquarters.

Also watch my other videos in my series “Shenzhen Behind the Scenes“:
1: Hongda Factory tour
2: utopiacn, Apad Android Tablet maker
3: Richtechie.com, Freescale i.MX51/53 PCB designer
4: Walking around the Shenzhen smartphone market
5: 3Gnet Factory Tour

3Gnet shows mockup of upcoming Qualcomm 8255 based Android tablet

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, Shenzhen Electronics Fair, Android

For now it’s just a mockup, 3Gnet is working with the Qualcomm Snapdragon development kit to prepare this Qualcomm 8255 based Android tablet.

3Gnet makes Intel Powered UMPC designs

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Intel, Shenzhen Electronics Fair, Windows

They make some of the famous Intel powered UMPC designs. I still think that those seem to be expensive, heavy, thick and slow to use which is why the ARM Powered tablets are #winning.

Shenzhen Hongda Technology manufactures $260 14″ Intel Atom laptop

Posted by Charbax – April 22, 2011
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Intel, Shenzhen Electronics Fair, Windows

Another look into the factory of Shenzhen Hongda Technology (see Shenzhen Behind the Scenes 1: Hongda Factory tour) where they manufacture for example this $260 14″ Intel Atom powered laptop.

Archos dominates tablet sales at Hong Kong Golden Computer Market

Posted by Charbax – April 21, 2011
Category: Tablets, Exclusive videos, Opinions, Rockchip, Texas Instruments, HKTDC Electronics Fair, Archos, Android

Archos surely seems to dominate in terms of nearly every store in Hong Kong that sells tablets have a range of Archos Gen8 tablets for sale right there at prime shelf space, while very few have the iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab for sale. It seems consumers and gadget retailers in Hong Kong Electronics Market regard Archos as great value, even as there might be cheaper “Archos Home Tablet” or “Arnova” grade tablets also being sold there, consumers who want high-end experience for low to mid-range pricing, still overwhelmingly choose the Archos tablets.

ABI Research recently speculated that Archos as being the third largest tablet maker worldwide in 2010. If Apple still has 85% in Q1 2011 and with 4.69 million iPads sold, that means Archos would have had to only sell 110 thousand tablets worldwide between January-March 2011 to remain at that 2% 2010 ABI Research speculative worldwide tablet market share.

My theory, Archos probably has more than 6% global tablet market share today

Archos officially released their Q1 earnings at 39€ Million ($56.7 Million) (up 158% from a year before), if an average Archos tablet is sold at $150 to retailers, that would mean Archos may have sold 378 thousand tablets between January and March 2011, that’s thus probably more than 6% worldwide tablet market share for Archos if Apple has 85%.

One things for certain, while the global market share is one thing, another is regional tablet market share, Archos was shown to have over 22% tablet marketshare in November-December 2010 sales for tablets in France, and may thus also have much higher than 6% tablet marketshare in markets like Germany, England, Hong Kong and even the USA.

Another thing to consider, Archos can only have as much marketshare as it can afford to build for.

If you consider Apple may have about 80% tablet market share in Q1 2011, and Archos let’s say 8% in that same period, here are some of the differences between those two companies:

  • Archos has less than 150 employees mostly based in France, $56.7 Million Q1 2011 revenues, Market Capitalisation at $215,34 Million, probably has less than $20 Million in the bank to use for production enhancements, sales channels increase, marketing, manufacturing capacity increase, and R&D investments.
  • Apple has 49,400 employees (329x more than Archos) mostly based in the USA, $24.6 Billion Q1 2011 revenues (433x more than Archos), Market Capitalisation at $223,77 Billion (1039x more than Archos), probably has over $40 Billion in the bank to use for production enhancements (2000x more than Archos), sales channels increase, marketing, manufacturing capacity increase, and R&D investments.

This is why Archos has started today issuing a capital increase of upwards $43 Million, a call to their investors to invest more money in new Archos stock. If investors answer the call (by May 4th), Archos may triple their bank account size, thus having more money to spend on increasing production capacity, smoothing sales channels, optimizing software/hardware R&D efficiency, and may gear up for trying to reach upwards 24% global tablet marketshare by the end of the year.

Considering the many new entrants to the tablet market, including major ones like Asus, Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, etc, it might be hard for a small company like Archos to reach 24% marketshare in such a rapidly growing market. But who knows, in my opinion, it’s mostly a matter of cash, investments and being able to provide the best value. While Archos may triple their sales having 3x more cash in the bank for tripling production capacity (considering they can easily sell everything that they make), that does not mean they would triple their marketshare if the tablet market at the same time more than doubles in size. They might go from 8% to 12%, something like that. And if the tablet market triples in size they could remain at 8% in a 3x larger market.

ARM receives Queen Award for best UK Enterprise

Posted by Charbax – April 21, 2011
Category: ARM

HM Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kin...

The Queen of England gives ARM an award

A Grant of Appointment has been conferred on ARM by Her Majesty the Queen, on recommendation from the Prime Minister, for an award to recognize the innovation that ARM has driven as the world’s leading supplier of low-power, high performance semiconductor intellectual property (IP).

Some key facts:

  • In 2010, the ARM partnership shipped over 6 billion ARM processors, bringing the total ARM processors shipped to over 25 billion.
  • 5 billion cellular connections in the world, ARM present in 95% of mobile devices shipments across all standards from 2G to LTE.
  • 4.5 billion devices shipped in 2010 that include ARM-based chips.
  • ARM-based chips cover a broad range of application areas, from sensors to high performance networking equipment.
  • Average of 2.7 ARM chips per mobile phone, with smart phones containing between 2 and 5 ARM-based chips per device.
  • Approximately 250 companies have licensed ARM processor IP.
  • There are over 800 Partner members of the ARM Connected Community, a diverse ecosystem comprised of silicon, software, tool, foundry and other service providers from all points in the semiconductor value chain.
  • ARM employs over 1900 people with offices around the world, including design centers in France, India, Sweden, and the US.

Source: arm.com
Found via: @ARMCommunity

Set-top-box Media players for sale at the Hong Kong Golden Electronics Market

Posted by Charbax – April 21, 2011
Category: Set-top-boxes, Exclusive videos, HKTDC Electronics Fair

Most Set-top-box Media players sold at the Sham Shui Po Hong Kong Golden Electronics Market are Realtek based, some are Sigma designs, no ARM Powered set-top-boxes available there yet. Here’s an interview with a salesperson at the Capital shop in that Sham Shui Po Golden Electronics Market about some of those media players that they have for sale.

Chrome OS laptops pricing speculation/rumors appear

Posted by Charbax – April 21, 2011
Category: Opinions, Google, Chrome OS

Google Chrome Icon

Chrome OS devices to be cheap

Neowin.net says sources confirm the first Chrome OS notebooks are going to be sold starting around late June or early July and the pricing might be innovative using subscription model tied with ones Gmail account.

The search giant is planning on using an unconventional form of distribution to customers. Google will be selling the devices as part of a subscription based model with Gmail to customers.

According to our source, Google plans to make the notebooks available for $10-$20 a month per user, and will provide hardware refreshes as they are released as part of the package, and will replace faulty hardware for the life of the subscription. On top of this, Google will make the devices available for a one time payment as a normal retailer would.

Here’s the type of pricing that I am expecting.

At retail without subsidy:

ARM Cortex-A9 Powered Chrome OS notebooks:

– $99 (10.1″, 2GB RAM)
– $149 (12.1″ or 13.3″, 4GB RAM)

Intel Atom Powered Chrome OS notebooks:

– $149 (10.1″, 2GB RAM)
– $199 (12.1″ or 13.3″, 4GB RAM)

Subsidized on 2-year subscription plan:

ARM Powered Chrome OS:
– 10.1″, 2GB RAM, Free with $10/month/100mb or $20/month/1GB 3G/LTE data plan.
– 12.1″ or 13.3″, 4GB RAM, $49 with $10/month/100mb or $20/month/1GB 3G/LTE data plan.

Intel Powered Chrome OS:
– 10.1″, 2GB RAM, $49 with $10/month/100mb or $20/month/1GB 3G/LTE data plan.
– 12.1″ or 13.3″, 4GB RAM, $99 with $10/month/100mb or $20/month/1GB 3G/LTE data plan.

How the 2-year subscription works:

– The $10/month/100mb or $20/month/1GB 3G/LTE data plans can easily get more bandwidth added to them through one-click bandwidth increase option in settings at a rate something like $1/100mb or $10/2GB type of increments, such extra bandwidth could be added and be used during a month after being added for example. Bandwidth addicts might spend a lot of money on a lot of 3G/LTE bandwidth this way.

– Google could sell these Chrome OS plans to Gmail.com and Google Apps users. The ARM Powered Chrome OS notebook might get 1 free hardware upgrade/exchange per year (with 2-year subscription contract extension), the Intel Powered Chrome OS notebook might allow hardware upgrade/exchange per year for a $99 payment (with 2-year subscription contract extension).

– Google might include a bunch of online storage with this subscription, for example 100GB, storage space usable for Gmail, Docs, Picasaweb and other upcoming Google Cloud Storage services. All data on a Chrome OS notebook (as well added through SD card or even USB hard drive) can automatically get synchronized with the Google cloud storage services. More storage can also easily be purchased in a one-click process.

– Also part of this subscription system, Google takes a consumers payment informations, either credit card or even direct bank account informations, and provides one-click shopping solution as well across all Google Checkout services. Thus monetizing more online sales and also making it easier for consumers to buy things online.

Things to consider about Chrome OS:

Consider an ARM Powered Chrome OS is super thin, super light, runs 10-30 hours on a battery depending on without/with Pixel Qi, consider also all Chrome OS laptops have larger screens, better keyboards, faster boot, faster web browsing speed, better web apps support, they are safer to use, unhackable, uncrackable, no virus possible, they are easy to replace as all data is synched on the cloud, but still HTML5 web apps will work offline, including even advanced apps like video and photo editing, they can even support all the most advanced 3D games. Consider also Chrome OS laptops can easily manage offline storage, either built-in, even hard drive slot or external USB storage and SD cards.

What do you think Google’s Chrome OS pricing will be like? Post your ideas and suggestions in the comments.

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Cloudy Hong Kong, Peak Tram, Star Ferry, Skyscrapers

Posted by Charbax – April 21, 2011
Category: Exclusive videos, Tourism, HKTDC Electronics Fair

About 10 minutes after the last part of this video, there was a huge thunder storm over Hong Kong. They told me it may have been a long time ago there wasn’t that much rain over Hong Kong. This video features going down the Peak Tram in Hong Kong on a cloudy day, then going on the Star Ferry from Central Pier to Tsim Sha Tsui. I managed to jump on a subway to Sham Shui Po Electronics Market to buy a bunch of stuff and make more videos before flying back.