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Here comes China: $95 Cortex-A9 Android tablet (video review)
- sswam 16y agoif this is for real not vapourware it would be stunningly good value for money
- geuis 16y agoIf its a touch screen, why is there a mouse connected?
- SwellJoe 16y agoWhy not watch the video? He connects a mouse to show how it works on a big monitor via HDMI.
- geuis 16y agoObviously I watched the video. My question was about the need to connect a mouse to a device that has a completely usable touch screen interface. Connecting the external display device via hdmi should not blank out the tablet and force the use of a mouse. Rather, one should be able to use the tablet's screen as the control interface.
- whiskers 16y agoI'm not sure it does "blank out the tablet and force the use of a mouse". If you've got your video going to an external display then that is where you're going to be looking. It's not possible to interact using the touch panel if you aren't looking at the touch panel itself. So either plug in a mouse or keep glancing back and forth between the TV and the device. * Making the entire devices touch screen a big trackpad during HDMI output would probably be nice though!
- xiaoma 16y agoIt's not possible to interact using the touch panel if you aren't looking at the touch panel itself. But I do that all the time with my Wacom Bamboo tablet, both with the pen and with touch input. What makes it impossible in the case of this device?
- stcredzero 16y agoWith a mouse, you can hover and see the position of the cursor. With the touchscreen, the device doesn't register your finger until you tap (click)
- muyuu 16y agoThe Atrix does this. However, it's not so trivial that it should be always expected just yet.
- jambo 16y agoYou see the touch functionality at the start of the video. It looks like it doesn't drive the onboard display and the TV at the same time, which explains the need for another input method (though emulating a trackpad on the screen, if possible, would be nicer).
- CountSessine 16y agoChinese Android tablets have actually been around for quite a while now - google 'Apad'. They're all really quite awful - awful battery life, bad touch screens, and really poor build quality have been the rule. This will change, of course - but for now just don't expect that you're going to get a Xoom/iPad quality tablet for really cheap.
- mooftard 16y agoWhy will it change of course? Apple will move on to a better screen allowing others to actually make a tablet?
- inoop 16y agoPeople always forget about battery life. It's nice to have a device with good numbers, but if it can't hold a charge for longer than two hours it's pretty useless.
- stcredzero 16y agoNot true. I used the tc1100 tablet like I use the iPad now. All I did was buy an extra power cord and put it by the bed.
- nl 16y agoSite down, but I think this is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1aRbgqA6mE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1aRbgqA6mE
- nl 16y agoThis looks pretty decent for the price. Obviously it's not an iPad, and it probably has a resistive touchscreen, but if the screen is ok (some are better than others) and it really is an Cortex A9 then it might be the best of the Chinese tablets. I think the best cheap one currently available is this: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/1080p-7-touch-screen-lcd-google-android-2-2-tablet-pc-w-wifi-hdmi-camera-tf-usb-cortex-a8-1ghz-57770 http://www.dealextreme.com/p/1080p-7-touch-screen-lcd-google... That is a Cortex A8 1GHz, with capacitive touchscreen for ~$200. If you want cheap, and shipping now then this is ~$100: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/7-touch-screen-lcd-google-android-2-2-tablet-pc-w-wifi-camera-tf-arm-v5-349-79mhz-70053 http://www.dealextreme.com/p/7-touch-screen-lcd-google-andro.... It might be fine for a single-use application (recipe browser in the kitchen, etc), but it's pretty underpowered for much else.
- Legion 16y agoThe article said: * 7" resistive (capacitive available for about $30 extra) That's a $30 I absolutely would be spending.
- fungi 16y agoi moved from n900 resistive to nexus s capacitive a month ago, and it's not that bigger deal. but i suspect that the n900 capacitive was high quality then your average cheep as chips chinese tablet so the comparison is probably useless.
- jbermudes 16y agoUnless you want to use a stylus...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- martythemaniak 16y agoWell, this is what a whole lot of the world will be using. Now hundreds of millions of other people will be able to own a tablet.
- angusgr 16y agoI noticed something fishy. The /proc/cpuinfo BogoMIPS value reads off as 569.5 in the video. A PandaBoard 1Ghz Cortex-A9 reads around 2000 per processor[1]. I realise the Bogo means _bogus_ but AFAIK within a CPU model it should still scale linearly against clock speed. Probably a sensible explanation for this, but at the same time this is the class of device where there really is no guarantee between spec claims and reality. For instance the advertised "600 & 800Mhz" WM8505s turned out to be 350Mhz CPUs in reality. [1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=4&chap=9 http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=4...
- angusgr 16y agoProbably a sensible explanation It could be as simple as "runs at 250Mhz during early boot" but it also might not be. :)
- whiskers 16y agoIf you look at the CPU info it also shows it supports a range of frequencies from 200Mhz to 800Mhz and that the current running speed is ~280Mhz. So presumably the CPU scales between 200 and 800Mhz based on demand to improve battery life and the bogomips score was produced at a lower clock speed.
- angusgr 16y agoExcept cpufreq (kernel CPU frequency scaling) isn't running during the early boot stages when the BogoMIPS value is calculated. Like I said, it's possible the bootloader starts up at @250Mhz or so and leaves the kernel to later switch up to 800Mhz. I don't know why you'd design a board like that though (normally you want to boot nice and quick), but you never know. Also, even though cpufreq reports in Mhz those values will be extrapolated in the kernel from a base frequency & clock multiplier registers somewhere else, so it can easily be out by a constant factor. Once some benchmarks come out it should become more obvious if there's anything to this.
- astrodust 16y agoInteresting device, but the presentation is making me crazy. I've seen war correspondents look more chill when there's bullets flying. If this device is going to ship in volume, Windows Phone 7 will sell about zero units.
- tintin 16y agoProblem with cheap devices like this one is battery life. You are lucky if you can keep it up to 2 hours. And the touchscreens are not the best in the world. Even the capacitive ones. But if you just keep it connected and don't worry about stiff fingers it can be a great device!
- 6ren 16y agoI doubt it's "as powerful as a PS3", but it shows the console-killer potential of phone+HDMI. A PS3 has 8 (faster) cores, so Moore says wait 4.5 years. Of course, it's the games that count; and of course sony/ms/nintendo saw this threat long ago, and have their own phone-consoles plans (IHMO).
- neuroelectronic 16y agoBy then, consoles will have advanced by 4.5 years though.
- 6ren 16y agoYes; the crucial question is whether consoles will exceed what customers can use (i.e. overserve/overshoot). There exists evidence that it's happening already: xbox360 and ps3 are quite old, but still selling very well, despite PCs growing more and more powerful (a longer gap than previous generations); the popularity of nintendo wii (though I believe sales are much less now); the popularity of simple online flash games; the popularity of xbox "arcade" games (some of which were web games). This has been discussed on HN before. If your customers don't need more performance, it doesn't matter how more you offer them. Yes, disruption.
- neuroelectronic 16y agoPS1 sold well into the life of the PS2 though. There will always be a need for more power in gaming, I beleive because the peripherals will need that power.
- Killah911 16y agoWhile it is no iPad, the price point is certainly interesting. It could easily be a laptop substitute in third world countries, especially if the battery life is anywhere close to Apple's iPad. I could also see a lot of businesses (especially mom & pop shops) opting for one of these devices.