

Here comes China: $95 Cortex-A9 Android tablet (video review) - dstein
http://armdevices.net/2011/04/09/95-cortex-a9-tablet-review-kinstone-ks-umd070a9/

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nl
This 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...](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) 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-
andro...](http://www.dealextreme.com/p/7-touch-screen-lcd-google-
android-2-2-tablet-pc-w-wifi-camera-tf-arm-v5-349-79mhz-70053). It might be
fine for a single-use application (recipe browser in the kitchen, etc), but
it's pretty underpowered for much else.

~~~
pippy
> It might be fine for a single-use application (recipe browser in the
> kitchen, etc), but it's pretty underpowered for much else.

Does anyone actually tablets like this? I can only imagine such a tablet at
the bottom of a draw underneath the hometheater warranty.

You might as well splash out on a device you're going to use

~~~
angusgr
_You might as well splash out on a device you're going to use_

I have two of that device's immediate predecessor, the $100 WM8505, and I
support this assertion.

I've used them mostly for messing around, reverse engineering, and playing
with and actually hacking on (most of mine spend most of their time in pieces
with a serial header soldered on them.)

They're fun for that, although even that can be a little tiring due to (a)
crappy hardware quality, (b) crappy vendorware closed software.

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CountSessine
Chinese 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.

~~~
inoop
People 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
Not 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.

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angusgr
I 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...](http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=4&chap=9)

~~~
whiskers
If 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
Except 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
Interesting 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.

~~~
scotth
I kind of liked it. It was exciting.

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6ren
I 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
By then, consoles will have advanced by 4.5 years though.

~~~
6ren
Yes; 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
PS1 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.

------
tintin
Problem 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!

------
nl
Site down, but I think this is the video:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1aRbgqA6mE>

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Killah911
While 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.

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martythemaniak
Well, 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.

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sswam
if this is for real not vapourware it would be stunningly good value for money

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geuis
If its a touch screen, why is there a mouse connected?

~~~
SwellJoe
Why not watch the video? He connects a mouse to show how it works on a big
monitor via HDMI.

~~~
geuis
Obviously 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
I'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
_It'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
With 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)

