Back in January, VIA announced the WonderMedia Prizm WM8950 processor featuring a Cortex A9 processor @ 800 Mhz with a Mali-400 GPU, but recently I have seen a few tablets with the WM8850, the little (or rather the big) brother of WM8950, with the same Cortex A9 but cadenced at 1.2 GHz and Mali-400 GPU.
VIA has apparently not officially announced this new processor, and details are not available on Wondermedia website yet, but the WM8850 targets the same markets as AllWinner A10/A13 Cortex A8 processors and is said to be competitive in price.
And it must be competitive, because I just found an Android ICS tablet based on WM8850 for $72 US (including shipping) on aliexpress (UGoos UG-LMW70) with the following specifications:
- CPU – Via Wondermedia WM8850 Cortex A9 @ 1.2GHz + Mali-400 GPU
- Memory – 512MB RAM
- Storage – 4GB NAND FLASH + microSD card slot (Up to 16 GB?)
- Display – 7″ capacitive touch screen (800 x 480 pixels, 16:9)
- USB – 1x USB 2.0 port
- Video output – HDMI mini with 3D video output support
- Video containers – AVI/WMV/RM/RMVB/ 3GP/MKV/MP4/ASF/VOB/MPG/MOV up to 1080P HD-Definition
- Audio formats – MP3/WMA/OGG/FLAC/WAV/ACC
- Audio I/F – 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, built-in speaker
- Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and 3G via an external USB 3G dongle
- Camera – 1.3M front camera (or 0.3MP depending where you read…)
- Battery – 2300mAH Li-Polymer rechargeable battery, 5 hours working time
- G-sensor: Yes
The memory (512 MB) and screen resolution (800×480) are on the low side, but a tablet with a 7″ capacitive touchscreen featuring a Cortex A9 / Mali-400 SoC and running Android 4.0 selling for that price is quite a bargain, almost too good to be true. It’s not the cheapest, as there are sub-50 USD tablets around but they usually run Android 2.2 with a resistive touchscreen and an ARM11 CPU.
micdigi has a video of another tablet also based on WM8850 which you can watch to give you an idea of the performance. (Warning: the background music can be annoying…)
I finally decided to purchase it (for 76 USD before the 5% discount…). Even it turns out to just be a crappy Chinese tablet, I’ll always be able to use it for hacking on WM8850. That is if VIA releases the kernel source, thanks in advance VIA…
You may find a bit more information and pictures on the manufacturer website, and if you want to purchase it you can do so on Aliexpress. The 5% discount for 72.19 USD including international shipping apparently lasts 4 more days.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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It has apparently been shipped via DHL from Hong Kong. If so, I may receive it by the end of the week.So It has not exactly been shipped yet…
I’ll keep an order “timeline” here as I did for the Mele A1000:
02 June – Order
04 June – Received Aliexpress confirmation with
fakeDHL tracking number04 June – Received seller email (Eternal Team) saying it will be send within 24 by DHL HK after I confirm my address (which I have done).
08 June – I can now track my shipment with the initial DHL number (It left Hong Kong on the 7th of June).
11 June – Received. I had to pay a small amount of custom duties this time around.
Apparently it’s a noname tablet, nowhere I can see Ugoos UG-LMW70 or the model number. I’ve play a bit with it and I’m happy with the performance and the system feels smooth. Antutu shows it slightly faster than the Mele A1000.
The battery does not last very long. The battery was charge at 55%, and you play with about 1h30 before I got a warning of low battery, mainly browsing.
There is a big issue however. When you connect the power supply, it’s hardly usable, because the touchscreen panel just get crazy.
I’ll play a bit more with it, and write a post about my new toy sometimes this week.
@cnxsoft
hi.
it´s the same tablet that EKEN W70??
can it play 1080 movies?
does it works 1080 and hdmi?
sorry about my english.
i’m thinking buy the EKEN W70 but i want it to play movies and some are in full hd and i don´t want to recompress it again to be able to play in that tablet.
could you tell me something?.
thanks.
Hi all , I need to buy a touch screen on wm8850 . Where can I find my order? I live in Russia