Ainol launches Novo 10 Hero tablets with dual, quad core CPUs

Chinese device maker Ainol has two new 10 inch Android tablets in the works. Both feature 1280 x 800 pixel IPS displays and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software, but the Ainol Novo 10 Hero II has a quad-core processor while the cheaper Novo 10 Hero has a dual-core CPU.

Gadget Greats is selling the Novo 10 Hero II for $240 and the Novo 10 Hero for $194.

The cheaper dual core model features a 1.5 GHz Amlogic 8726-MX processor with Mali 400 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, front and rear cameras, microUSB, mini HDMI, and microSD card ports. The tablet has an 800mAh battery and features WiFi and Bluetooth.

The Ainol Novo 10 Hero II has a 1.5 GHz Actions Semiconductor ATM7029 qud-core processor and ARM Mali 400 graphics. The rest of the specifications are the same as those for the dual core model.

I haven’t heard much about the ATM7029 processor, but there’s a discussion thread about the chipset at the SlateDroid forum. Just because a processor has 4 cores doesn’t necessarily mean it will be faster than a dual core CPU, but theoretically multi-core architecture can lead to speedier performance especially when running tasks that support multi-threading, or running multiple apps at once.

Multi-core chips can also help keep power consumption low by allowing a tablet to run several cores while achieving similar performance to what you’d get when running a single core at a higher speed.

It won’t be clear whether the Novo 10 Hero II benefits in either of those ways until we start to see some hands-on performance tests.

via xda-developers

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News : New iPad Rivals : Chinese tablets with 2048 x 1536 pixel displays now shipping for under $300

The iPad isn’t the only tablet on the market with a 9.7 inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel display anymore. It’s just the most expensive.

Last month Chinese tablet maker Cube announced plans to launch the Cube U9GT5 Android tablet with a Retina-style display. Now it’s available for pre-order from the Cube website for $266. Or if you’re looking for something in-stock now, Pandawill is offering the Chuwi V99 Retina tablet for $290.

In fact, a quick scan of AliExpress shows plenty of tablets with 9.7 inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel displays — although most of them seem to be labeled Cube U9GT or Chuwi V99. Most are already shipping and cost less than $300 — although not all sellers offer free shipping from China.

On paper there’s no much difference between the Cube and Chuwi tablets. In fact, they may be based on the same design, because that’s the way these things tend to get built in China.

Here’s a run-down of the specs that are common to both models:

• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
• 9.7 inch, 2408 x 1536 pixel display
• 1.6 GHz Rockchip RK3066 ARM Cortex-A9 dual core CPU
• Mali 400 quad-core graphics
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB flash storage
• microSD card slot
• 2MP front camera
• 2MP rear camera
• 802.11n WiFi
• Bluetooth 2.0
• 10,000mAh battery (up to 10 hours)
• Google Play Store

Cube says its tablet also has an HDMI port, and at least one of the listings I’ve seen for the Chuwi tablet says there’s one on that model as well.

Most Android apps are designed for phones and tablets with widescreen displays, while these two tablets have iPad-like 4:3 aspect ratio screens that’s not much of a problem these days, since most Android apps can scale to fit multiple screen sizes.

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Review #Ainol Novo 7 Crystal Jelly Bean 4.1 Tablet

Ainol launched a Jelly Bean tablet – Ainol Novo 7 Crystal. It boasts an HD MVA 7" mult-touch screen (ultra-clear) and Dual Core 1.5Ghz Cpu. This is the new upgrade (MVA screen) replacement to discontinued Novo 7 Elf II.  Below the hood is an Amlogic 8726-M6 Cortex A9 processor, a Mali 400 GPU, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The 7-inch touchscreen display sports a 1024 x 600 resolution, and Ainol chose an IPS panel for wide viewing angles. The tablet will be available in black and white.

Features:

Model: Ainol NOVO7 Crystal 
CPU: 2nd generation ARM Cortex-A9 based AMLogic 8726-M6 1.5GHz CPU 
GPU: Dual-Core Mali-400 
Operation System: Google Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

RAM: 1GB DDR3 
Nand Flash: 8GB(Android System consumes about 2.2GB) 
Shell Material: Plastic 
Screen Size: 7 Inch 
Type: Capacitive Screen (5 points) 
Screen Resolution: 1024 x 600 IPS screen 
Extend Card: Support TF card up to 16GB (Not includes) 
Camera: Yes, 2.0MP Front Camera. 
Gravity Sensor: Yes 
Multi-Touch : Yes, 5 points touch 
Flash: Yes 
Video: AVI/MOV/MP4/RMVB/FLV/MKV (more format supported via 3th party player such as rock player) 
Music: MP3/WMA/WAV/APE/AAC/FLAC/OGG 
Ebook: TXT, PDF, HTML, RTF, FB2 
Email and Browser: Yes, built in 
WIFI: 802.11 b/g/n 
Earphone Interface: 3.5mm 
Battery: 3700mAh 
Language: Indonesia, Dansk, Deutsch, Chinese, English, Spanish, Germany, Italian, French, Latvia, Malay, Nederlands, Poland, Romania, Russian, Greek etc. 
Other Applications : Office, Browser, Gallery, Clock, Calculator, Calendar, Gmail; 
Product Size: 189.3x120x11.2mm

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Review : Ultrathin 7 Inch Hyundai Hold X Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Tablet PC

The product is a 9.6mm Super Thin HYUNDAI HOLD X RK3066 Cortex A9 Dual Core – 7 inch Capacitive Screen Android 4.1 Tablet PC 1GB RAM, it built in 8GB memory and support TF card expansion up to 32GB which allows enough space for you to download freely, built-in camera and HDMI and bluetooth.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean : The Worlds most popular platform gets even better . It is the fastest and smoothest version of Android yet . Jelly Bean improves the simplicity and beauty of Android 4.0 and introduces a new Google experience on Android . Google’s new Android 4.1 OS for phones and tablets is faster, more voice-friendly and re-imagines search to save users time.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Operating System offers you :  fast and fluid real-world performance, Google Now takes work out of search, simple, beautiful and beyond smart, expandable and actionable notifications, voice Search faster than Siri, emarter keyboard and offline voice typing, easy to delete unwanted photos, widgets work like magic, seamlessly take and share photos, accessibility and android beam.

Specification:

Model	Hyundai Hold X
CPU	Rockchip RK3066 Cortex A9 dual core, 1.6Ghz
GPU	Mali 400 MP4 GPU Quad Core, Support OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 and Open VG1.1
OS	Android 4.0.4
RAM	1GB DDR3
Hard Drive capacity	16GB nand flash (upgrade to a further 32GB)
TF card slot	Up to 32GB
Display	7” IPS 5 Point-touch 1024X600 capacitive screen
Camera	Front 2MP
Wifi	Support 802.11b/g/n wireless network
OTG function	Support
G-Sensor	Support
Video player	1080P,720P,AVI,MKV(H.263.HP),RM/RMVB,FLV,MPEG-1,MPEG-2
3G	Not built in, support external 3G dongle: E1916, ZTE AC2736, HUAWEI E1750, HUAWEI EC122, HUAWEI EM770W
Bluetooth	Support 2.1EDR
Flash	Support Flash 11.1
HDMI	1080P
Extend Port	1 x Mini USB
	1 x TF Card slot
	1 x Earphone Jack
	1 x Mini HDMI
Battery	3.7V, 3700mAh
Working time	Video 5-6 hours, Music 30hours
Color	Black
Including	1*Hyundai Rock X tablet PC
	1*User Manual
	1*USB cable
	1*Power Charger

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Review : Kimdecent Droid $72 Stick T10 mini PC: Android 4.1 and a Rockchip RK3066 CPU

Kimdecent’s latest Android mini PC is a USB thumb drive-sized computer-on-a-stick with a dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software.

It’s called the Kimdecent Droid Stick T10, and you can pick one up from AliExpress for $72.

This isn’t the first Android Mini PC we’ve seen, or the first with a Rockchip RK3066 processor. But it is the first RK3066 model I’ve seen to ship with Android 4.1.

The little computer has ARM Mali 400 graphics. It also has a full-sized USB 2.0 port, 2 mini USB ports, a micro SD card slot and an HDMI port, so you can plug in a display, keyboard, mouse, remote control dongle, or other peripherals to run Android apps on a TV or monitor.

It also features 802.11b/g/n WiFi and comes with the Google Play Store built-in. The spec sheet also says it runs Adobe Flash Player 11, despite the fact that Adobe doesn’t officially support Android 4.1.

Unfortunately Rockchip offers little to no support for Linux, which means that it’s unlikely we’ll see a fully functional version of Ubuntu, Fedora, or other desktop Linux operating systems ported to this device anytime soon.

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News #Ainol Novo 7 Crystal: $120 tablet with Android 4.1, Amlogic 8726

The Pipo U1 isn’t the only cheap Android 4.1 tablet with a dual core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU. Ainol has introduced a new 7 inch tablet powered by a 1.5 GHz Amlogic AM8726-M6 dual core processor with Mali 400 graphics.

It’s called the Ainol Novo 7 Crystal. The tablet runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and it’s available for purchase from a number of retailers for $120 or less.

The tablet has a 1024 x 600 pixel capacitive touchscreen display with a 170 degree viewing angle. It has 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage, and a microSD card slot for extra storage.

The Ainol Novo 7 Crystal has a 2MP front-facing camera, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, a mini USB port and mini HDMI output.

The tablet makes the new $159 Amazon Kindle Fire look expensive — especially since Ainol says its tablet ships with the Google Play Store preloaded. You can always load the Amazon Appstore, MP3 store, and Kindle app yourself if you want to access content from Amazon’s stores.

On the other hand, the Ainol Novo 7 Crystal only promises up to 5 hours of battery life from a 3700mAh battery, which falls a few hours short of the run time you’d get from a Kindle Fire or Google Nexus 7.

Ainol’s latest tablet measures 7.4″ x 4.7″ x 0.4″ and weighs about 12 ounces.

via Android Tablets

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Review : Teclast A10 Dual Core RK3066 Android Tablet 9.7 Inch

Teclast A10 tablet is a new dual-core tablet on the basis of hot sale product A10T development. It uses slim metal body design, configuration 9.7 inch HD IPS screen, plus quad core Mali400 GPU and built-in 1.6GHz dual-core A9 processor, coupled with 1GB DDR3 memory and the latest Android 4.0.4 system, which can provide users with more fluid experience.

9.7 inches LG original wide viewing angle IPS screen, 4:3 aspect ratio, area, IPS screen also has a response speed faster, the images blur-free, uniform response speed, no color shift, 178 degree omnidirectional depending on the characteristics. The screen resolution up to 1024 x 768. Users regardless of browser pictures, watching movies, or browsing the web, playing games can get a clearer visual experience.

Teclast A10 dual-core support Flash Player 11 for smooth playback 1080P full HD video and can be backward compatible. Body set HDMI digital HD output interface, and support HDMI1.4 specifications. In addition, A10 dual-core set front camera, also meet the user’s camera to take photographs, or WiFi networking video chat needs.

Highlight:

• High Antutu Score: 7882 (chart listed below)
• High Quality Ultra-thin Metal Design
• Super Fast start-up speed, software installation speed, web browse speed
• 9.7" IPS Capacitive Touch Screen, the same with Ipad
• Battery capacity of 6000mAh and low power consumption
• Less heat release
• Rockchip RK3066 1.6GHz Dual Core
• Apply the Latest Android 4.0.4 System
• RAM 1GB ROM 16GB

Specification:

Model	9.7 inch Teclast A10
Operation System	Android 4.0
Screen	9.7 inch IPS 5 Points Capacitive Touch Screen
Resolution	1024×768 pixels
CPU	Rockchip RK3066 1.6GHz Dual Core
GPU	Mali400
RAM	1GB
ROM	16GB
Webcam	Front 2.0 MP
Wireless	Wifi 802.11b/g/n
3G	No
G-sensor	Support
Bluetooth	No
HDMI	Yes
Power
Battery	6000mAh
Working Time	Up to 7-9 hours
Power Device	AC Adapter Input 100/240V
Device Specification
Color	Silver
Dimensions	243x187x12mm
Net Weight	625g
Software Support
Office	Support MS Office Word, PPT, Excel
Gaming	Built-in 3D Accelerator. Support 3D gaming
Email	Gmail, POP3/SMTP/IMAP4
Others
Multi-Media
Video	AVI, MP4, FLV, 3GP, MKV, WMV etc.
Audio	MP3, WMA, OGG, AAC, WAV FLAC etc.
Picture	JPG/BMP/PNG/GIF
E-Book	PDF, TXT etc.
Ports	1 x Mini USB
	1 x TF Card Slot
	1 x HDMI Slot
	1 x DC Jack
	1 x Earphone Jack
What’s in the box	1 x Tablet PC
	1 x Charger
	1 x mini USB Cable
	1 x OTG Cable
	1 x User’s Manual

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Review Dual Droid TV Stick based on #Rockchip RK3066 with 2GB RAM & 16GB Flash

Lately, there seems to have been a fair amount of interest for a Rockchip RK3066 mini PC (aka UG802) running Android 4.0, and the first mini PC to feature a dual core processor. I’m often reading people complaining about the lack of RAM on those devices, and some others would rather run most things from flash than an SD card for performance reason.

Dual Droid TV Stick

But you might be able to get a more powerful mini PC soon, as deadhp1, a reader of this blog would left lots of feedback about Ug802, have been talking with manufacturer to design an HDMI TV stick based on UG802 platform, but with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB Flash, and the processor would be clocked at 1.6GHz instead of 1.2 GHz. The device is called “Dual Droid TV Stick” with the slogan: “Two brains are better than one”. The specifications would be as follows:

• OS – Android 4.04
• SoC – 1.6Ghz Dual Core Cortex A9 RK3066 SOC with Mali 400MP4 Quad Core GPU
• RAM – 2GB RAM
• Storage – 16GB NAND Flash+ microSD card slot
• Connectivity – Wifi b/g/n with Direct Connect
• Video output – Male HDMI 1.4
• USB – USB 2.0 host port + micro USB port for power

However, for this to happen, manufacturers would need a minimum order of around 1.000 pieces to cover the cost of development and bring the price to an acceptable level, which is why deadhp1 launched a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo.com. The first 100 pieces would be sold for $115 and the subsequent sponsors would have to pay $125. You also need to add $10 to $15 for shipping.

It’s still unclear which accessories (cables, power adapter…) will be provided with the stick from the Indiegogo page. You should get a pretty good Android experience on this stick, but you may not be able to get a proper Linux port due to Rockchip policies with regards to open source software.

This product is still at the development stage, and it should available sometimes in December 2012.

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Eight-Core ARM GPUs Could Bring Console-Class Graphics to Your Smartphone

Right now, ARM graphics aren't exactly bad. The Samsung's Galaxy SIII with its quad-core Mali 400 GPU leads the pack in mobile prettiness, but the upcoming ARM GPUs, scalable to eight-cores, could blow it out of the water.

While we're still waiting on the next generation of Mali chips which includes the T604 and the T658, ARM is already teasing three more upcoming models: a quad-core T624, and the eight-core scalable T628 and T678. OK, but how much better are these babies going to be? Fifty percent, without needing more power. According to ARM, they're shooting to handle "console-class gaming," 4K and 8K videos, and the ability to jack up the UI of phones and tablets to a nice 60fps. Sure, the Tegra 3 GPU is already scalable to 12 core, but ARM is pretty ubiquitous.

On top of all that, ARM's also making a bid to try and standardize mobile graphics with a brand new codec: Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC). According to ARM, ASTC will be able to handle all kinds of different bit-rates, color standards, and textures. If it works as well as ARM hopes, this should mean that developers would stop having to make explicit codec decisions based on platform, which would make it that much easier to have apps be multi-platform.

Exciting as that all is, there's no word on when we can expect to start seeing these things. But if they can manage to live up to the hype, the answer is "not soon enough." [Engadget]

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Review Oval Elephant Android / Linaro mini PC HDMI Stick

Since Rikomagic MK802 and Zero Device Z802 mini PCs have gone viral and started the Android mini PC craze, this type of device has been popping a bit everywhere… The latest interesting device I found is Oval Elephant Mini PC based on AllWinner A10 processor with 1 GB RAM and selling for 71.49 USD. They have appears to have a whooping 11 in stocks now to be shipped on the 3rd of July, but they are also taking pre-orders and if there is enough demand (over 1,000 pieces), the price would go down to 68 USD.

Oval Elephant mini PC Prototype

The device pictured above is just a prototype, and they have decided to replace the HDMI mini male output by a proper HDMI output (probably male). As I said before I prefer this form factor, especially since you can just connect mini BlueTooth dongles (no sure that one works with Android / Linux though) to add BT connectivity and use your BT wireless keyboard and mouse.

Here are the specs of the device:

SoC	Allwinner A10/ 1GHz Cortex-A8 with Mali-400
RAM	1GB DDR3
Storage	4GB NAND Flash
	Micro TF card,max 64GB
Connectivity	Wireless 802.11b/g/n
USB	Micro 5pin USB / USB2.0 OTG
Audio	AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A
Video	WMV/ASF/MP4/3GP/3G2M4V/AVI/MJPEG/RV10/DivX/VC-1/MPEG-2/MPEG-4/H.263/H.264
HDMI	Full HDMI port (not mini) 1080P&2160P
HDMI ESD	3xRailClamp0502B
Power Chip	AXP209

Some of the specs on the Oval Elephant are blatantly wrong (e.g. Adreno GPU – AMD Z430), so I modified it on the list above. The specs have now been updated.

You would not normally mention things like HDMI ESD and power chips in a product spec, but they did that because MK802 designers took some shortcuts that can potentially fry the device… and Oval Elephant chose to use a more reliable design. It has also been reported that they will include UART pins on the board so that hackers can “play” with low level software.

By default the device will come pre-loaded with Android 4.0, but they also plan to release XBMC and Ubuntu Linaro images. Using Linaro image for end-user devices is probably not something you would not normally do, as it may not be as stable as the proper Ubuntu release, but those are the best distributions for ARM development as you get the bleeding edge features with monthly releases of the image.

The package includes the HDMI stick, a wireless mouse and a mini USB cable to power the device.

The price does not include shipping, so in the case of the US you’ll have to add about $11 (now reduced to $7.95). Currently it seems it will only ship to select countries. For example, shipping to Thailand is not available.The site has been updated and they can now send to Canada for $14.95 and Worldwide for $19.99.

Go over Oval Elephant page to learn more about their device. Bear in mind that this is a new site (Dec 2011) and a least part of the checkout is not encrypted via SSL. To be fair, I could just go to the address and contact details part, and I’m now waiting for my account to be activated. So I did not go as far as the payment info page.

Via: J1nx’s Place

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