Category: Chip provider

$285 8.9″ capacitive Windows 8 Intel Atom N2600 Dual-core Laptop/Tablet convertible by www.yooe.com.cn

Posted by – April 9, 2012

http://www.yooe.com.cn presents their new 8.9″ tablet/laptop convertible powered by the Intel Atom N2600 processor, it costs about 1800rmb ($285) in bulk.

$158 5″ WVGA MT6575 Cortex-A9 Smartphone presented by yooe.com.cn and runtong.com.hk

Posted by – April 9, 2012

This 5″ smartphone looks pretty awesome for $158, it’s powered by the new MediaTek MT6575 single-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, with Dual-sim slots WCDMA 3G and GPRS. If you are interested in buying this phone, let me know in the comments (maybe I can find a way to make it a grouped purchase through Hong Kong).

Metaio Augmented Reality status on the Texas Instruments OMAP4

Posted by – March 30, 2012

Metaio shows a demo featuring their latest status for augmented reality on the Texas Instruments OMAP4 platform.

InHand Hydra-T3 Ruggedized 7″ Pixel Qi tablet released

Posted by – March 28, 2012

InHand releases their new Hydra-T3 ruggedized 7″ Pixel Qi tablet. It runs on the Texas Instruments DaVinci DM3730 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 and 800MHz TMS320C64X+™ DSP, up to 1GB DDR2, up to 16GB eMMc Flash, the Pixel Qi LCD screen is the 7″ 1024×600 built using a chemically strengthened resistive touch screen layer (I wonder how readable this resistive Pixel Qi implementation is). Having been tested through the military specs MIL-SPEC, MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD-461F it can support extreme temperature, fluid contaminates, solar radiation, fungus, immersion, shock and vibration. It uses a 37WHr redundant 3.7V Lithium Polymer battery for up to 10 hours of battery life. It can run Android 2.3, Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows Embedded Compact 6.

This tablet seems to compete with the Orchard Inc Toughlet which is also a ruggedized 7″ Pixel Qi tablet for military and industrial use. The military and the industry must be very eager to use the Pixel Qi screen for tablets outdoor readability, low power consumption as soon as possible.

Read more about this new Pixel Qi tablet at: inhand.com
Source: InHand press release

900,000 Rockchip RK2918 7″ Tablets purchased by Thailand’s Government for Education

Posted by – March 21, 2012

The 900,000 Scopad SP0712 Android tablets are going to be delivered before the next semester. The first batch of 50,000 tablets to be delivered within 15 days of the signing of the memorandum of understanding (which may mean 15 days from now).

The price per tablet is $82 and to be delivered by Shenzhen Scope Scientific Development. The Chinese Government had suggested four suppliers be considered for the deal including also Huawei Technologies Co, TCL Cooperation and Haier Information Technology (Shenzhen).

I don’t know if those have capacitive screens, what the battery life is going to be.

I think it’s crucial for the successful use of tablets in education for those to include a Pixel Qi LCD screen! Readability and very low power consumption are crucial features for these! Android tablets can become very successful tools for education, but they need to last 20 hours on a battery and not 5 hours! And the screens need to be as readable as paper! And the screen must be usable outdoors!

Not using Pixel Qi I think may be the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful educational tablet initiative! In rich countries, consumers don’t care much, because they always have enough power, they don’t care about reading and they are satisfied just playing video games on the devices, in rich countries, the tablets are just being used as entertaining gadgets for a bit of fun, nearly no productivity happens thus far. If you want to use tablets in education, you really carefully have to think about usability, battery life and productivity.

A $5 keyboard dock design can also be quite crucial for those to actually be usable for productive learning!! A built-in kick-stand I think is also pretty much compulsory.

The Pheu Thai Party promised during its campaigning ahead of last year’s election that, if voted in, it would give a tablet computer to every first-grade student nationwide.

Gp Cpt Anudith said the next step was to draft the agreement and forward it to the Office of the Attorney General for checks. The process would be finished before the end of this month, he said.

Chinnapat Bhumirat, secretary-general to the Office of Basic Education, said: “The G to G contract and MoU agreement are not that different, and the Chinese government will help us deal with the supplier and get as low a price as possible.”

Mr Chinnapat said the first batch of about 50,000 tablets would be sent to Thailand within 15 days of the MoU being signed. A team of 1,000 experts will train 15,000 teachers and supervisors nationwide on tablet use in early May.

According to Rockchip, here are the 3 key points for the Rockchip Tablet solution to win governmental tender projects:

1: RK2918 has the highest cost-performance for governmental tender projects;
2: RK2918 MID has already passed CTS certification from Google both on Android 2.3.5 and Android 4.0.3 version, which is the most important thing for governmental tender projects;
3: RK2918 has its good reputation for its well software-supporting service from Rockchip Electronics among its clients all over the world.

Source: bangkokpost.com

brightsideofnews.com: Huawei U9510 Ascend D Quad XL Benchmarked

Posted by – March 17, 2012

Brightsideofnews.com provides this benchmark of the HiSilicon K3V2 powered Huawei U9510 Ascend D Quad XL phone comparing it with some of the other super phones on the market:

According to this benchmark (which I don’t really know how it was measured and what it really means in terms of real Android usage performance):

Huawei K3V2 processor managed to beat NVIDIA Tegra 3, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8660, Samsung Exynos, TI OMAP4 right off the bat. At 1280×720 resolution (HD Ready), the HiSilicon K3V2 and its GPU managed to achieve 25 frames per second, with the closest follower being Qualcomm Snapdragon and its Adreno 220 GPU with 18 fps. In the same benchmark, NVIDIA Tegra 3 with its ULP GeForce GPU only managed to reach 12 frames per second.

Source: brightsideofnews.com

Read more at: huaweidevice.com

More benchmarking: phandroid.com

Archos 101 G9 Turbo 1.5Ghz for $259 on Woot.com today only

Posted by – March 17, 2012

Only today, the Archos 101 G9 Turbo 1.5Ghz is being sold for $259 at http://sellout.woot.com/

It’s basically better than the iPad3 and for half the price! Here are some of the reasons I think it’s better than the iPad3:

1.5Ghz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 vs 1Ghz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9, Kick-stand, HDMI output, full sized USB-host port for 3G/4G/LTE dongle (for now only 3G is on the market for Europe/Asia), that full sized USB host can also be used for USB Keyboards/Mice/Hubs/Hard Drives etc, second USB-host through Micro-USB with adapter, Samba/Upnp file streaming, full codecs up to MKV 1080p high profile full bitrates with up to DTS audio (meaning any video you download from the Internet just works natively), Android Ics Cream Sandwich runs on it and is open unlike iOS (meaning you can install any app you want through any app store you want and customize the OS as you want), the 1280×800 10.1″ capacitive screen is decent although the next generation of 10.1″ 1920×1200 screens are coming (obviously for more expensive prices), etc.

Found via: carrypad.com

Zenithink ST-Ericsson U8500 3G 7″ 1024×600 Tablet for $150

Posted by – March 15, 2012

Zenithink shows their new ST-Ericsson U8500 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 based tablet designed by ontim with a built-in 3G HSPA+ modem, bluetooth, WiFi, and a decent 1024×600 screen resolution. The price is $150 for an order of at least 1000 units. They also show a $65 AmLogic based Android set-top-box with a built-in DVB-T tuner.

RightFriend Electronics Technology shows ARM and x86 tablets

Posted by – March 15, 2012

RightFriend Electronics Technology shows some Freescale i.MX51/53 based tablets, AmLogic and some x86 based Windows 7 tablets.

Boeye Sibrary RK2818 fast refresh E Ink e-reader

Posted by – March 15, 2012

Boeye shows a Pearl E-ink based e-reader using the Rockchip RK2818 processor and a software optimization for fast page turns. They claim it’s as fast as the latest Kindle Reader.

Tapkid cappsu, 9.7″ children’s Android tablet

Posted by – March 15, 2012

Cappsu provides a new 9.7″ IPS capacitive Android tablet they call the Tapkid, customized and optimized for children to use. With custom software, user interfaces, parental controls and more. This is made by Boeye. They throw it on the floor and say it’s unbreakable.

Archos G10 xs, Archos Elements and Arnova 50€ announced

Posted by – March 15, 2012

Archos had an investors event in Paris today, they showed a teaser video for the next generation Archos G10 xs series:

The keyboard dock magnetic screen protector is awesome. But I’d like them to use the kick-stand and attach the thin keyboard dock like a Laptop in a way there’s a mouse pad that can be used. Archos has always innovated using Kick-stands, I hope they continue and I think using the kick-stand is the best way to make the thinnest, coolest ARM Powered Tablet/Laptop convertible. If possible the kick-stand angle can be adjustable. If you’re in an airplane and the space is limited, you don’t need to use the kick-stand, the tablet can rest against the seat that is in front of you. I think the keyboard should also fit behind the tablet when the keyboard does not need to be used. Preferably in a way so that the kick-stand can also still be used even when the keyboard dock is magnetically fixed behind the tablet.

Archos claims to have technology that makes G10 the thinnest tablet on the market. Something about patented paper-thin steel assembly technology. Archos has always been good at fitting huge battery capacity in extremely thin designs. I hope that Archos manages to make a deal with Pixel Qi and use the 10.1″ 1280×800 sunlight readable screen on this one. That’d provide for 20+ hours of battery life, sunlight readability, Kindle Reader competitiveness for reading and use for education and work, and it’d use much less power thus enabling a form factor and weight in the ultra-light class of 400-something grams for a 10″ tablet. Perhaps best to use Neonode’s IR touch technology instead of capacitive for least reflections and best readability.

For the processor on Archos G10, I think that one can expect either the OMAP4470 1.8Ghz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 with SGX544 graphics or even the OMAP5430 with SGX544 graphics which can also run upwards 1.8Ghz in frequency or more. It depends if Archos plans to release the G10 already from mid-year or if they don’t plan to release it before the end of the year.

I don’t know if Archos will continue to sell that 3G Stick solution in G10. Maybe there is a way to allow for a modem module of any of the 3G/4G/LTE types to be manually added by the user, under full warranty, in some slot on the back of the device without it having to be through a USB host port. Maybe the multi-mode wireless modems are now so cheap, can even be included on the same CPU dye, that maybe they just included it by default even on the cheapest G10 tablet and provide just an unlocked SIM card slot on the side.

Archos did mention making one Windows 8 on ARM based Tablet/Laptop convertible by the end of the year. I hope they make sure to make it dual-boot the latest and greatest Android also.

Archos Elements brings Google Certified tablets at as low as 100€/$100. My guess is that Archos Elements brings the Rockchip RK30 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 performance and higher capacitive screen resolutions than Arnova at extremely competitive pricing.

The new Arnova with Ice Cream Sandwich are going to be sold for as little as 50€/$50 at retail price!! My guess is 50€/$50 is the 7″ WVGA Dual-touch or single-touch resistive type with an RK2918 512MB RAM and Ice Cream Sandwich. It goes up to 150€/$150 retail price for what I think is probably the 9.7″ IPS capacitive RK2918 1GB RAM and Ice Cream Sandwich tablet. Basically with the new upcoming Arnova G3/G4 you get $49 basic alternative to the Kindle Fire and a $149 better-than-iPad1 tablet. Those are amazing low-priced targets for mass consumer retail Ice Cream Sandwich tablet pricing.

Archos is the top Android tablet seller in the major European markets, about equal to Samsung, in front of Asus, Acer, Motorola, Dell, LG, Toshiba and others. Archos CEO Henri Crohas sees a great opportunity to expand that lead with his company. Archos has announced a 32.9 Million € gross profit margin for 2011 on a yearly revenue of 171.4 Million €. They have announced an agreement to borrow upwards tens of millions of Euros more from one of the leading French banks Societe Generale (in exchange for stock guarantees, probably something similar to a capital increase, basically adding new stocks for cash to be used for the expansion) which Archos can use to further accelerate the mass production and mass distribution of their tablet series in the coming months.

You can discuss this post in the forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=63964

I’m on the BBC (on YouTube)

Posted by – March 13, 2012

Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC interviewed me at Mobile World Congress last week about my Motorola Kopin Golden-i Augmented Video-blogging system. By the end of the year, thanks to the fast moving world of Technology, we’ll all be walking around with compact wearable computers, augmenting our reality, it’s going to be awesome!

ZTE Tania and ZTE Orbit

Posted by – March 12, 2012

These are probably some of the cheapest Windows Phone devices to be released on the market. They are waiting for the Tango version of the Windows Phone software before releasing these.

LePhone Z1 MT6573 4″ and 3.5″

Posted by – March 12, 2012

Blephone shows a 4″ capacitive MT6573 Android phone.

Megan and Camille’s technology show, showing Desktop Android features on the external monitor using MHL

Posted by – March 12, 2012

Here’s a video by two young MHL experts. 50 million MHL devices were shipped in 2011 according to Techcrunch.com. One of the most important improvements in Android that I am looking forward to is the increase of Desktop features on Android (also demonstrated in this video: Using a Mobile Device as a Desktop Computer and Part 2: Using an Android Device as a Desktop). The usability being improved when Android is being used on a Monitor or HDTV using the MHL output of some of the latest modern phones having the latest fastest Dual-core and Quad-core ARM Processors.

The point is that the latest smartphone processors with MHL output to a monitor or TV and a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse and some of the latest Android user interface features such as Chrome for Android on Ice Cream Sandwich should provide for as smooth a Desktop experience as using an Intel Atom netbook!

ZXD 5″ Smartphone MT6573 $120 (dual-sim, HSPA), MT6575 $130

Posted by – March 10, 2012

ZXD Technology Development Limited shows really low cost 5″ 800×480 capacitive smartphone based on the Mediatek MT6573 (ARM11 650Mhz HSDPA Dual-sim) for $120 in 5.0″ and $110 for 4.3″ 800×480. The upcoming MediaTek MT6575 ARM Cortex-A9 Single-core based Smartphone (1Ghz HSDPA Dual-sim) is going to cost only $10 more on each! Consider the $120, $110 prices are for orders of 1000 units at the minimum. ZXD says they do their own manufacturing in Shenzhen China.

The point here is that you get a Galaxy Note like experience at 5″ for $120 (ARM11) $130 (Single-core ARM Cortex-A9), Galaxy S2 like experience at 4.3″ $110 (ARM11), $120 (Single-core ARM Cortex-A9), all Dual-sim, the capacitive screens seem fine! ZXD also does cheaper Android phones with smaller screens all the way down to $50 for bulk orders!

Check back for much more on the latest Cheap/Affordable crazy good sub-$150 (bulk price) value Android smartphones that I am going to film here on ARMdevices.net over the next weeks and months!

Appear, Kopin Golden-i Software provider, won 2nd price at CeBIT


Based at the Kista Science City, Mobile City in Stockholm Sweden, Appear talks about integrating their industrial systems software into the Motorola Kopin Golden-i headmounted computer. Here at CeBIT they talk about how people working in the railway, airports etc industries can use the Golden-i in the next level of their augmented reality system.

Gearomat, vending machine based on a web shop application

Posted by – March 10, 2012

Gearomat hacks a vending machine with a 7″ Tablet touch screen to process the orders through a web shop.

Sony Xperia S review by Mike Demuth

Posted by – March 9, 2012

Mike Demuth @aeqx is one of the worlds top Sony fanboys, admin on the top Sony Ericsson forum (now discontinued) of se-world.info. He provides a review of this new latest high-end Sony Android Smartphone the Sony Xperia S at CeBIT 2012 in Hanover.