Category: Chip provider

Archos wants to provide the G9 tablets for 0.50€ per day with 3G to students in France

Posted by – October 3, 2011

The Archos CEO Henri Crohas today spoke on French radio station France Inter (the audio is in French) to suggest for a Government supported promotion plan to be offered to French students where the student can pay only half a euro per day to get the Archos 80 G9 with 3G stick and with a 3G data connection on a 2-year contract.

The French Government is launching an offer to students in France to get an iPad2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for 1€ per day over a 2-year contract to get the tablet and 3G connectivity. That amounts to 730€. As a counter attack, Archos is suggesting that the Government support a French offer to French students, where the student can choose to get the Archos 80 G9 with 3G stick and with 3G access for half the price 0.50€ per day over 2 years, that amounts to only 365€. Given a choice with such huge price difference, obviously most students will choose the Archos tablet deal and not Samsung or Apple.

Archos is the only Tablet maker in France, and one of the only tablet makers based in Europe. The latest sales numbers for Tablet sales in France show that Archos is biggest Android tablet maker in terms of market share, in front of Samsung. They are of course second biggest tablet maker after Apple, for example last November and December months, Archos had 22% tablet market share in France and Apple had 68%. But that difference may get lowered quickly if the French Government accepts to support providing Archos tablets to all French students at a discounted price, half the price compared to the iPad2, all the while Archos providing a faster processor and far more features such as more video codecs supported, HDMI, 2x USB Hosts, Kick-stand (which makes it much more usable for education) an up to 50% faster processor and more.

Consider that Archos only has 100 employees, and Apple has 50 thousand (500x more). Consider that Archos has a market capitalisation of $200 Million on the Paris stock exchange while Apple is valued at $350 Billion on NASDAQ (1750x more). That Archos has about $40 Million cash to use for launching mass production while Apple has $70 Billion cash that they can use to launch as much mass production as they want (1750x more). And regardless of all that, it seems Archos may find a way in France to single handedly sell more tablets than Apple.

Review: N5Zero Tablet, sub-$100 5″ capacitive Android tablet

Posted by – September 28, 2011

This is my world exclusive review of the new Window88.com N5Zero Tablet. A 5″ capacitive Android tablet to be sold for less than $100 (to resellers). It’s using the Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 Single Core processor at 1.2Ghz, the screen resolution is 800×480, it has 512MB RAM, a MicroSD slot, between 2GB and 16GB built-in flash ROM storage (depending on the configuration, mine has 8GB), no Bluetooth, the graphics are powered by the Vivante Gc800 that does up to 57 million triangles per second and full OpenGL ES 2.0 for fully smooth Flash 10.3 (and soon Flash 11) support, it supports smoothly all the latest Android 3D games, video playback support is 1080p with all codecs but there is no HDMI output.

Most importantly, this cool 5″ capacitive tablet is being sold out of China for below $100 USD! Of course, you have to consider that the low sub-$100 price is for resellers contacting Window88.com and ordering large quantities of the tablet, perhaps 100 pieces minimum, or 500, or 1000, that is to be discussed by interested distributors with the Window88.com people. The final retail price can be a bit higher. In China this tablet is being sold for 699 renminbi on the market, that is $109. But if this tablet gets imported to Europe and the USA, expect a pricing that can be around $139 or more depending on how much margins the resellers want to take.

Rockchip claims that their RK2918 processor has a better performance than the Samsung Hummingbird in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7″, Samsung Galaxy S1 and that it’s also faster than the Apple A4 in iPad1 and iPhone4. That is to be confirmed. Sure enough, this is by far not as fast as the newest Dual Core processors such as the one Samsung promises for the 5.3″ Samsung Galaxy Note, but consider that this Window N5Zero is to be sold to resellers at below $100 and that with software optimizations, with perhaps Ice Cream Sandwich coming, this could be fast enough for many users looking for cheap tablet value worldwide.

Read about more of the specs here: http://window88.com/chinese/pro_show.asp?pid=36&p_name=Tablet%20PC

Toshiba Thrive 7″ 1280×800 Honeycomb 3.2 tablet

Posted by – September 28, 2011
Category: Tablets, Nvidia, Android

Toshiba is expanding their Toshiba Thrive Android tablet series with this new 7″ version with a 1280×800 resolution, Micro HDMI, Micro SD, running on the Nvidia Tegra2 processor. Robert Scoble tries to get the representative to say something about the price, but he can’t say, Techcrunch says that it’s going to be below $400.

Source: Robert Scoble

Huawei Honor 4″ smartphone, 1.4Ghz Single Core, Gingerbread

Posted by – September 26, 2011

Huawei announces yet another value Android phone. It’s got a 4″ 854×480 capacitive LCD touch screen, a 1.4Ghz Scorpion MSM8255 Snapdragon Single Core processor, 8 Megapixel (with HDR feature), 720p video record, Adreno 205 graphics, 512MB RAM, HSPA+ 14.4Mbit/5.76Mbit, 1900mAh battery, gyroscope, 4GB ROM and MicroSD slot. If they decide to sell this for $199 unlocked (pricing is not yet officially confirmed because the pricing can be a choice by the carriers), this could become one of the worlds most popular smartphones in the coming months.

Slashgear.com: Archos 80 G9 1Ghz review

Posted by – September 26, 2011

The Archos 80 G9 for sale at $299 is hereby the worlds most powerful Android tablet, scoring 987, that’s higher than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the Vellamo benchmark:


click for the full size image

Here is their review: http://www.slashgear.com/archos-80-g9-review-video-25182615/

You can discuss this review and video in the ArchosFans forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=57174

Samsung Galaxy R

Posted by – September 24, 2011

Tegra2 and a 4.2″ Super Clear LCD capacitive touch screen, this smartphone is similar to the Samsung Galaxy S2 but it just has a cheaper processor and screen, so I think it is likely this phone will be about $100 cheaper. But that is to be confirmed.

Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 runs Windows 8

Posted by – September 17, 2011

Video showing Windows 8 running on a Texas Instrument OMAP4430 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, it’s behind glass though they are not showing things react to touch in this video.

Source: anandtech.com

Qualcomm MSM8660 Dual-core runs Windows 8

Posted by – September 17, 2011

Here’s an official video released on the Qualcomm YouTube channel showing Windows 8 running on their latest dual-core ARM Processor.


Source: QUALCOMMVlog

Microsoft also released this video showing that there is no difference between the ARM Powered device and the Intel Core i5 based device:


If you don’t have Silverlight you can download the WMV file here
Source: channel9.msdn.com

Nvidia Kal-El Windows 8 tablet hands-on

Posted by – September 17, 2011

This seems kind of ready to me, why don’t they release this before Christmas?

I guess they still need to do a lot of work on the whole ARM and x86 Intel compatibility system so all the .exe files “just work” on ARM (virtualized, emulated, or whatever trick they are working on..), and for that a bunch of software optimizations still need to be done.

They should be selling or giving those ARM Powered Windows 8 Tablets away at least to the developers during the coming weeks and months? You can right now download Windows 8 Preview Edition at http://dev.windows.com but this is not yet the ARM version of that Preview software.

Source: thisismynext.com

Arnova 10 G2 for $129 or $99 with 1 or 2 year Philly Newspaper subscription

Posted by – September 17, 2011

The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News are doing a special promotion that can interest people living in Pennsylvania USA and would like to save on getting their daily newspaper and at the same time can be tempted by the combination of a subsidized Arnova 10 G2 Android Tablet for $99 or $129 depending on the length of the digital newspaper subscription that is signed.


video source: technicallyphilly.com

I first reported on the Arnova 10 G2 back in April when it was first announced. It is an awesome value device with a capacitive screen and the new Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 processor that can run at up to 1.2Ghz. It’s more powerful than the Apple A4 in the iPad1 and iPhone4, it’s more powerful than the Samsung Hummingbird processor in the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Samsung Galaxy S. Yet, the tablet is now being released named Arnova 10 G2 with a retail MSRP pricing probably between $199 and $229 (to be confirmed in the coming days).

Sure there has been some delays for this capacitive RK2918 tablet, I do not know why. Maybe Archos spent a few months selling the RK2818 tablets before ramping up production capacity and perhaps also having Rockchip try to have Honeycomb working on it. But more likely, Rockchip will try to use Ice Cream Sandwich directly for those, depending on the compatibility and ease of porting of that next version of open source Android with these ARM Cortex-A8 tablets released now.

This makes sense. The idea of the $99 10.1″ capacitive tablet is awesome. Here are some of my suggestions though for Philly to make this work in the most positive way:

– The $10/month subscription needs to include unlimited free access to all the worlds newspapers and not just the 2 newspapers. The economics are that people will not necessarily read more articles if they get access to more content.

You have to think big. I know it may be hard or impossible for the people of the Philly newspaper to reach out to all the other newspapers of the world and agree on some kind of Netflix-pricing to include full access to all the newspapers.

The idea is that you make it more attractive to more people inside and outside of your target market to want to subscribe to this idea. You write content in English. I think it makes no sense to limit yourself to a limited geography. You can write regional news in your current edition, but you can partner with all the other newspapers and let people read those other newspapers if they want.

Make the cake bigger together with others and your slice of the much bigger cake will be much bigger than your small cake.

Logically, the digital access subscription does not have to exclusively be consumed on that tablet. I guess that any other device can login and access that subscription plan. Simply build on your current Android app, and simply let it search and access the real format newspapers from all the other newspapers that you can partner with.

Here is Philly’s calculation and the customers options today:

– $199 or $229 is the unsubsidized Arnova 10 G2 price likely going to be when released within a few days from now.
– $99 with 2-year $10/month subscription = Total $339 for the Arnova 10 G2 with the 2-year digital newspaper access = $229 Tablet and $55/year digital subscription
– $129 with 1-year $13/month subscription = Total $285 for the Arnova 10 G2 with the 1-year digital newspaper access = $229 Tablet and $56/year digital subscription
– No tablet digital subscription price today = $3/week = $156/year
– No tablet normal paper newspaper by mail subscription price today = $7/week = $364/year

This can be a huge success for Archos and for newspapers but they have to continue on this plan and they need to pick up the phone and make some national and international agreements with all the other newspapers, join forces, subsidize Awesome ARM Powered Android Tablets to make people understand the value of technology and of the content.

Huawei Mediapad, 1.2Ghz Dual-core 7″ 1280×800 Honeycomb Tablet

Posted by – September 5, 2011

This is the new Huawei Mediapad Android Honeycomb tablet, to be released with Honeycomb 3.2 installed, full Google Marketplace support, it runs on a Qualcomm 1.2Ghz Dual-core processor and comes with an impressive 1280×800 screen, HDMI output, USB and more.

Super Clear LCD vs Super AMOLED Plus

Posted by – September 5, 2011

You can see in this video that the Super Clear LCD is brighter than the Super AMOLED plus. While Super AMOLED has real black, for the rest, is the Super Clear LCD better? It might be Samsung is now making this Super Clear LCD Tegra2 version of the Galaxy S2 in Galaxy R to either both slightly lower the price and perhaps also to satisfy the demand as they might not be able to manufacture them fast enough.

Hannspree SN-10T4, OMAP4430 based 10.1″ capacitive tablet

Posted by – September 5, 2011

Hannspree is releasing this new Honeycomb tablet based on the Texas Instruments OMAP4430 processor.

Samsung Galaxy S2 White

Posted by – September 5, 2011

Samsung releases this white version of the Samsung Galaxy S2 Android Smartphone. This is likely the best phone on the market, so if you prefer to have a white version of it, you can consider getting this one.

Samsung Galaxy W

Posted by – September 5, 2011

Samsung releases this new medium range Samsung Galaxy W, it has a 3.7″ WVGA LCD, an unknown 1.4Ghz processor (please write in the comments if you know which processor this has), it runs Gingerbread for now.

Archos G9 Tablets official $ USD pricing confirmed

Posted by – September 4, 2011

Archos is releasing the G9 tablets worldwide in the coming weeks, scheduled for global release by the end of September. Here are the official $ USD prices:

Archos 80 G9:
8GB 1Ghz: $299
16GB 1.5Ghz: $329
250GB 1.5Ghz: $369

Archos 101 G9:
8GB 1Ghz: $369
16GB 1.5Ghz: $399
250GB 1.5Ghz: $469

For the confirmation if 8GB 1Ghz versions have 512MB RAM and 16GB and 250GB 1.5Ghz versions have 1GB RAM, you have to wait another few days or weeks for Archos to give us an official confirmation on the RAM capacity. As far as I understand, they may still be testing out the different types of RAM and capacities based on the latest Honeycomb 3.2 software most optimized for the high memory bandwidth of the OMAP4460 processor, to determine which type and capacity of RAM to use. Though these 1.5Ghz tablets are probably right now coming out of those factories so Archos should be able to confirm this at any moment now. Let’s try again tomorrow and the day after, when the engineers are not on their week-end break and can give us an answer.

Coupoint.net $65 1Ghz Single-core HiSilicon ARM Cortex-A9 Android set-top-box

Posted by – September 4, 2011

Here’s the first time that I see an Android set-top-box with the new HiSilicon ARM Cortex-A9 Single-core processor made by Huawei. This seems to be a pretty smooth Android set-top-box implementation for the price, though obviously, just as for all other Android set-top-boxes, this will only really be useful once the Google TV software is finally open sourced for ARM Powered devices, which is expected to happen next month when Ice Cream Sandwich is released and open sourced. It’s very interesting to see this new HiSilicon ARM Cortex-A9 processor from Huawei.

My take on Samsung at IFA, awesome but perhaps misplaced

Posted by – September 4, 2011
Category: Opinions, Samsung, IFA

Probably the highlight of this IFA show for me has thus far been the unveiling of the awesome Samsung Galaxy Note (2), Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE and Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 for reasons of the pure awesomeness to see the new high resolution Super AMOLED screens in action (4.5″, 5.3″ and 7.7″) and to get a feeling of the upcoming probable Nexus Prime hardware experience.

There is some talk on blogs about Samsung removing the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 from the showfloor today on http://www.techmeme.com/110903/p15#a110903p15 and this has now become the conspiracy theory here in Berlin around the IFA show.

I do not believe for one second that Apple has any authority over Samsung at IFA, regardless of the bogus lawsuits going on in bogus court rooms in Dusseldorf, Netherlands and Australia. Samsung is paying the IFA consumer electronics show millions of euros for their hall, over many years, Apple never spent one single cent at IFA or at any other trade shows worldwide for that matter. Apple thinks they are too cool to compete in trade shows, Apple does not want people to think of them as a mere competitor in a market.

Here’s what I think Samsung might be thinking right now, and what I have been saying from the first second I saw their latest devices:

1. Samsung is now the worlds leading Smart Phone manufacturer, in front of Apple.

2. Just like Apple, Samsung makes much higher profit margins on the smartphones than on the tablets.

3. Even with the new Super AMOLED factory now in function in South Korea, Samsung can simply not output enough Super AMOLED screens of all the different sizes and types before this Christmas sales.

4. The 7.7″ Super AMOLED screen is awesome and all, but Samsung cannot justify the extra cost of manufacturing 7.7″ Super AMOLED vs continuing to use LCD on Tablet sizes.

5. Samsung needs to make about 50 million Smartphone sized Super AMOLED Plus screens during these next few months, there is no space in their factory to also make 7.7″ such screens, and it basically costs 3x to 4x more to make a 7.7″ Super AMOLED screen compared to a 4.5″ size, cause you can fit upwards 3x to 4x more smartphone sized screens on their manufacturing process.

6. Super AMOLED screens are beautiful to look at, bravo. But the LCD manufacturing process is operating at about 40x larger scale worldwide. Also, advances in LCD screens cannot really justify the cost difference in manufacturing those expensive Super AMOLED screens.

7. The reason Samsung can make Super AMOLED screens today even though I would guess the Super AMOLED Plus screen costs 2x more than the highest-end LCD, is that Samsung is still making $250 profit or more per smartphone when they sell them upwards $500 through carriers and unlocked.

8. My main complaint on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 form factor is that it is too wide to fit normal jacket pockets, I cannot fit it inside of my jacket pocket. That means that it makes it much less likely people will carry it around everywhere, but that it would have to mostly stay at home. While being shown at IFA, the device did have a sticker saying something like “this may not be the final design”, maybe Samsung has figured out from mine and others comments at the show, that if they really want to release a 7.7″ tablet, they may have to consider trying to cut more of the bezel off of the device.

Here are some pictures comparing the my Archos 70 Internet Tablet that I have used every day for the past 11 months because I can carry it everywhere in my jacket pocket vs the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7″ shown at IFA that simply does not fit in jacket pockets so has to stay at home:

While the Samsung Galaxy Note also is fantasticly awesome, my suggestion to technology fans is not to expect that Samsung can manufacture enough of those 5.3″ HD Super AMOLED screens before the end of this year. Also, Samsung may be realizing that it may be very hard to sell the feature of using a stylus on top of a capacitive screen, it may be too hard for them to lower the lag time and increase the accuracy enough to make it usable. In which situations does mass market consumers really want to use a stylus often? I can think of situations such as collaborating in real-time on annotating text, but I don’t think a light emitting Super AMOLED screen is the right type of screen for that usage.

So where does Samsung go from here? My guess is that they will focus as much of the Super AMOLED factory as they can on making 4.3″ and 4.5″ screens for the upcoming Nexus Prime = Samsung Galaxy S2 = Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE = Verizon Droid Prime, etc. This is where they are getting the most profit. And while the Samsung Galaxy Note might come out, and can definitely sell plenty more than Dell Stream 5 did a year ago, I think Samsung is probably going to use LCD for the Tablets that they’ll release before the end of this year. My guess is Samsung may release updates for their 7″ and 10.1″ tablets before the end of this year, and those will likely use LCD and not Super AMOLED.

In the medium term, I guess that AMOLED may be phased out again, but it already cannot be considered a failure in any way, it has provided Samsung with a unique differentiator in their market share gaining activities in the most important smartphone market. By the time AMOLED factories may be closed in 2-3 years, the quality of LCD at that time will have increased so much, with technologies such as Pixel Qi, IPS and FFS, that it will not make sense to make any AMOLED anymore. Most importantly, the profit margins on smartphones will quickly be reduced as the smartphone becomes a commodity, the profit margins will not anymore allow for the price difference that there is between LCD and AMOLED.

RFTech $89 Telechips capacitive Android Tablet

Posted by – September 3, 2011

RFTech presents $89 Telechips ARM11 tablet and the $111 Telechips ARM Cortex-A8 tablet. You can find more information at http://rftech.com.cn

PocketBook A10 Android Tablet

Posted by – September 3, 2011

PocketBook launches their new PocketBook A10 Android Tablet. It has a 10.1″ capacitive touch screen and uses the Texas Instruments OMAP3621 1Ghz ARM Cortex-A8 processor with 512MB RAM.