Category: Canton Fair

Highlights from my 2 weeks of video-blogging at 4 conferences in Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Guangzhou China


During these past 2 weeks, I posted 122 videos from my trip in China. Thanks for watching! I have now returned back in Europe. Here are the numbers of videos that I posted from each conference:

Hong Kong Trade Development Council

Hong Kong Trade Development Council

Shenzhen Electronics Fair (April 10-11th): 21 videos

China Sourcing Fair (April 12, 15th): 32 videos

HKTDC Electronics Fair (April 13, 14, 16th): 36 videos

Canton Fair (April 18th): 11 videos

– Videos filmed at the Shenzhen Electronics Market, at Shenzhen company headquarters and at Shenzhen Factories: 22 videos

Here are the trends from these conferences looking at the number of videos that I filmed in each trending chip provider category:

1. Boxchip AllWinner A10 and A13 ARM Cortex-A8 with Mali-400 GPU. 24 new videos filmed. Before this trip, I only had 3 Boxchip related videos on my site, Boxchip has now exploded in popularity among Chinese device makers. It offers a beautifully smooth Ice Cream Sandwich experience for a really low cost. This cheap ARM Cortex-A8 SoC with Mali-400 GPU acceleration for Android 4 ICS might be key to make this solution now very popular: $63 no-name from Shenzhen Market, $47 capacitive Boxchip A13, Aipad Wacom, $120 9.7″ iPad-like, $79 1024×600 7″ IPS from Daza Electronics, FirstView, $85 10.1″ Laptops from Sunlike, $80 1024×600 7″ and $57 WVGA from Bmorn, Boxchip in Game players by Yinlips, $59 A13 from T Link, 1024×600 compact 7″ from Avaid, $49 resistive, Ochang, Yones Toptech, GDB, $60 Apical, $64 Eken, Rocat, Sanxo, 10″ Laptop by Kinstone, 7″ Laptop by Kinstone, 4upad, Yamay.

2. Rockchip RK3066 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 with Quad-core Mali-400 GPU. My Interview with Rockchip about RK3066. The initial benchmarks I’ve heard about on RK3066 place its performance very high. There are already a range of prototypes with RK3066 inside being shown by a whole range of Rockchip partners. Here are my first RK3066 videos: $128 10.1″ 1280×800 by Alldocube, Pipo 10.1″ and 9.7″. Expect lots new RK3066 devices to be released quickly. The SoC and price difference between this and ARM Cortex-A8 solutions may make this one very popular even for cheap/affordable implementations out of China.

3. MediaTek MT6575 ARM Cortex-A9 with SGX531 GPU. MediaTek looks to dominate the low-cost Android smartphone market out of China. Last year, it was the ARM9 based MT6516 (as in my FG8 phone that I used as my main phone for 9 months until I upgraded to a Galaxy Nexus this February) that only supported 2G Dual-sim, which they then upgraded to the ARM11 based MT6573 with 3G dual-sim about 6 months ago, but now the MT6575 is a single-core ARM Cortex-A9 with full Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich support. The MT6575 is likely going to have a huge influence on the new higher performance yet still cheap Android phones to come in the next weeks and months out of China. ICS on sub-$150 5″ WVGA MT6575 Dolphin A80 phone (2), ICS on 5.2″ Hyundai H950 MT6575, $142 Galaxy Nexus clone with MT6575, Zopo ZP100 with MT6575 selling now for $174 street price in Shenzhen (I bought one, I’m waiting for the ICS release within days/weeks), Amoi dual-battery MT6575, sub-$140 5.2″ MT6575 by Daza Electronics, Quality Industrial MT6575, $75 3.5″ MT6575 by Orient and a bunch of companies showing MT6573 solutions: Yooe/Runtong MT6573 7″ Tablet, Long Ten Jie, Sharing, Begin, Dynamax, Vinus, Pusite, Zivi, J8000 and X20i, Zhongyi, Goal, LGTD, Migo, Zhenai waterproof.

4. Rockchip RK2906 ARM Cortex-A8 without HDMI for cheap. As with the Boxchip A13 without HDMI, Rockchip now also releases a new lower cost ARM Cortex-A8 skew without HDMI called the RK2906. The thinking might be that many people in China and worldwide do not have a HDMI or do not need the HDMI output, so they may as well design the SoC without HDMI to save another $2-$5 on the bill of material for the device. I’ve found it in the $49 Rk2906 7″ capacitive tablet by Sawink. Rockchip also launched the RK2908 (also featured in my Rockchip interview video) for cheaper ARM Cortex-A8 Set-top-boxes only.

Processors that I have not yet seen or noticed a lot of on this trip but who may have imminent devices that may quickly gain significant market share out of Shenzhen based device makers:

AmLogic announced their AML8726-MX Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 design. I think I’ve been hearing about a Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 coming from Telechips. But those can not yet be sighted at the fairs as far as I know.

A bit can be seen featuring the ST-Ericsson U8500 and low-cost skew U8410, I expect several more devices to be shown soon out of China featuring these. Also offering potentially great value Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 for smartphones and connected tablets. I think ST-Ericsson wants to position their Dual-core Cortex-A9 to compete with Single-core Cortex-A9 solutions.

Broadcom can be found just a bit. Sprodcom was showing some.

I hear rumoring of impending Freescale i.MX6 devices, up to quad-core but I guess possibly also great value lower priced Single and Dual-core devices to come.

Renesas announced their MP5232 1.5Ghz Dual-core Cortex-A9 with integrated LTE modem back at Mobile World Congress. But I have not yet found devices featuring that. I wonder if they plan to regain Chinese makers interest with a faster low-cost successor to last year’s EV2 533Mhz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9.

Qualcomm seems to have upgraded the MSM7227 with skews that use the new faster ARM Cortex-A5 instead of the previous year’s ARM11. I am not sure if I have noticed that on this trip. I get a bit confused as they still call it MSM7227 or MSM7225, they add a T or an A at the end, I forget which is the new Cortex-A5 design.

Telechips also has a new Cortex-A5 processor which I first saw in March at CeBIT in the Valueplus Tizzbird HDMI stick, but I am also not sure if I have seen any other devices on this trip using that yet.

Begin shows Phones and Tablets at the Canton Fair

Posted by – April 23, 2012

Showing some MT6573 based phones.

Sowill Technology Park shows Freescale and AmLogic tablet designs

Posted by – April 23, 2012

Out of the Shenzhen University, they are showing some tablet designs based on the Freescale and AmLogic processors.

Yinlips shows 7″, 5″ and 4.3″ Android game players

Posted by – April 21, 2012

Yinlips is showing their new portable Android game consoles using the Boxchip A10 which has the Mali-400 GPU which seems to playback all console game emulators smoothly up to N64, maybe even newer. They are showing 4.3″ resistive, 5″ resistive and capacitive and 7″ capacitive portable game players.

Meotec shows new 9.7″ Tablet design using RK2918

Posted by – April 21, 2012

Meotec uses a lot of aluminium etc in their new 9.7″ private design.

Action shows tablets at the Canton Fair

Posted by – April 21, 2012

They are showing an original 9.7″ Tablet casing design.

Gadmei Tablets at the Canton Fair

Posted by – April 21, 2012

Gadmei shows interesting 8″ 1280×800 and 1280×768 tablets powered by the AmLogic single-core ARM Cortex-A9 platform.

Coby Tablets at the Canton Electronics Fair

Posted by – April 21, 2012

Coby is one of the major Chinese tablet makers. Here are some of their latest ones shown at the Canton Electronics Fair.

The 2″ Android Watch at the Canton Electronics Fair

Posted by – April 21, 2012

At the Canton Electronics Fair, I found perhaps the supplier or the partner of DVIP Phaeton that I filmed last CES that was showing this 2″ MT6516 based Android wrist watch.

Dynamax shows MT6573 phone with keyboard

Posted by – April 21, 2012

Includes a 5″ capacitive screen, runs on MT6573, the next design next month will incvlude the MT6575 processor, it includes a compact keyboard on the side of the device.

Amoi shows MT6573 and MT6575 phones at the Canton Fair

Posted by – April 21, 2012

Amoi shows an MT6575 Android phone with imminent ICS support, the price is about $130 for bulk orders. It includes 2 batteries, total capacity is 2530mAh so you can remove one battery while the other still powers the phone. The full MediaTek features are of course included, including Dual-sim card support WCDMA/GSM, in mass production by the end of this month.

Video-blogging at the Guangzhou Canton Electronics Fair

Posted by – April 21, 2012

I’m Video-blogging at the Canton Electronics Fair! Dozens more China videos to be posted in the hours, days to come.

I’m going to video-blog at the Canton Fair

Posted by – April 17, 2012
Category: Canton Fair

Thanks to a short storm over Hong Kong yesterday night and thanks to the easy flexibility of British Airways, I’m allowed to extend my stay in the Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou region for another few days for free! I hear that the Canton Fair is pretty big so I’m now on the train on my way to the Canton Fair! I’m going to be looking for MT6575 phones, RK3066 Tablets, more Boxchip innovation, see what people are doing with all the other chips, I think that fair is going on until April 19th, so I’ll video-blog there 2 days. I also have upwards 20 more videos from the HKTDC Electronics Fair and the China Sourcing Fair that I am going to post here in the hours and days to come.

Let me know in the comments or to my email charbax@gmail.com if you know of any awesome exhibitors and devices at the Canton Fair that you think that I should video-blog! Do you have any suggestions for things to do in the Guangzhou Canton Fair area? The name of a really good/cheap hotel in that area? You can also call me to my Zopo ZP100 MT6575 Dual-sim phone:

Chinese number: +86 1 7557 9692 (April 17-19th)
Hong Kong number: +852 9555 7482 (April 19-20th)