PVRMonitor Displays real-time CPU and GPU performance for PowerVR enabled Android Devices

Imagination Technologies has some advanced tools such as PowerVRTune in their Powervr Graphics SDK, but they’ve now released a simple tool called PVRMonitor to display real-time CPU and GPU usage for Android devices featuring PowerVR GPUs. In some firmware, Android’s Developer Settings have options to enable CPU and GPU usage, but in my phone for example, this is not available, so this app may be handy to check whether your system or app is taking too many resources. Inside the application, you can select the overlay position, whether to show all CPU cores with CPU load averaged over 200ms, or over one second. You can select five hardware blocks to display: CPU Total Pixel – Load in percent of the pixel processing hardware including texturing, raster operation and  fragment shader processing. If nothing is modified on the screen it should be zero, and if it is too high during games […]

AMLogic Processor Roadmap: Quad core Cortex A9 (M8), and 64-bit ARM processors (M9)

We already knew AMLogic is about to release a quad core Cortex A9 SoC, previously codenamed AML8726-M8, but recently renamed to M80X family with 4 different SoCs, but the company has now officially announced the new M8 family, as well as M9 that will feature 64-bit ARM Cortex A5X cores with Mali T7XX GPU. Onda V975m, the first tablet based on M802 processor, was also part of the announcement. Price: 999 CNY (~$164). The new products line is divided as follows: M801/M802 Quad core Cortex A9r4 @ 2GHz with Octo-core Mali-450MP GPU @ 600MHz 4K2K video decoding, Full 1080p decoding (multi-codec), and 1080p H.264 encoding Dual channel DDR3/LPDDR3 up to 4GB 64-bit SDRAM bandwidth HDMI 1.4 up to 4K2K OS – Android 4.4 Kit Kat (Dec. 2013), Google TV version 4 BGA package, 28nm HPM M803/M805 Quad core CPU with Quad core GPU 1080p H.265 decoding, and 1080p HW encoding […]

ThL W200 Smartphone Review (Mediatek MT6589T)

I’ve received ThL W200, a smartphone powered by Mediatek MT6589T SoC, at the beginning of week (Check specs and unboxing pictures), and after about a week of use, it’s time for a review. First I’ll go through my first impressions, test of different features such as the camera, GPS, and Bluetooth, and finally run some apps to get system information and benchmarks for this phone. ThL W200 Review This smartphone feels very light, but the build quality is good, and as explained in my unboxing post, comes with power, volume -/+, and menu/home/back buttons. You’ll also find rear camera + flash, front camera, the light sensor, and the notification light. First impressions The phone boots to the standard Android home screen, as shown above, with English as the default language, and comes with Google Play Store, and no Chinese apps. The 720p screen provide a sharp and clear display, and […]

Geniatech ATV1800 Android TV Box To Feature AMLogic Quad Core Processor & Android 4.3

A few months ago, we learned AMLogic was working on a Quad core Cortex A9 SoC with the new ARM Mali-450MP6 (8 cores) GPU called AML8726-M8. It turns out AML8726-M8 may not only be one processor, but a family of processors (M801, M802, M803, and M805) according to a recent article in Chinese. This SoC was going to be part of Geniatech ATV1800 Android STB, but specifications were not available. More details have now surfaced. Geniatech (aka Mygica) ATV1800 Enjoy TV Specifications: SoC – AMLogic M801 or M802 Quad core Cortex A9 @ 1.6 to 2.0 GHz + ARM Mali-450MP6 GPU System Memory –  2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND + microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p, and composite Audio Output – HDMI, Stereo RCA output, and optical SPDIF (TBC) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, built-in 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth USB – 4 USB 2.0 […]

Mediatek Boasts True Octa-core MT6592, and GTS big.LITTLE MT8135 SoCs

We already knew Mediatek was working on MT6592, an Octa-core Cortex A7 processor for smartphones, and MT8135, a quad core bit.LITTLE processor for tablets, but in the last few days, the company revealed a bit more information about its two new application processors, mainly to show how better there are compared to the competition. Mediatek MT6592 Octa-core Cortex A7 With Exynos Octa (5410), Samsung was the first company to release an ARM powered Octa-core application processor, but Meditak explains their solution is better because MT6592 can use all 8 cores simultaneously whereas Exynos 5410 is limited to 4 at at time, and the claim is true because Samsung big.LITTLE implementation choice. Exynos 5420 will change that however, as soon as this month, but Mediatek obviously did not feel necessary to mention this details. The company expected those 8 cores to improve current applications such as : Advanced web browsing – […]

Kaiboer F4 / Ugoos UT1 Quad Core Media Player Is Now Available for as Low as $116

K-R42-1 (aka CS918 aka MK888 aka …) has been one of the first Rockchip RK3188 Android TV Boxes available on the market, and can be purchased for less than $90 US. Kaiboer F4, discovered at the end of June, has similar specs, but comes with 2 Wi-Fi antennas, potentially improving Wi-Fi reception. The only problem. until now, was that it was not available for sale, but this has now changed, and you can purchase it for $116 including on GeekBuying, renamed as Ugoos UT1. It’s also available on Aliexpress at higher prices at the time of writing. [Update: Dealsprime sells it for $109.99] Kaiboer F4 / Ugoos UT1 Specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3188 up to 1. 8 GHz with Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8 GB Flash + 1x SD card Video Output – HDMI, and AV Audio Output – HDMI,  AV, and optical S/PDIF […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MDP Benchmarks

A few days ago, I saw some benchmark results showing Xiaomi M3 smartphone powered by Snapdragon 800 SoC getting a ridiculous score above 80,000 points in Antutu, but thought it was really odd, and it turned out to be a fake Antutu screenshot. The actual scores for Snapdragon 800, are much lower, yet one of the fastest mobile platform ever, according to benchmarks performed by Engadget, which hold of Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Tablet and Smartphone MDPs. Engadget provided comparison of the benchmark for 12 devices, but I selected the 4 most powerful of the lot in the table below.   S800 MDP tablet (MSM8974) S800 MDP phone (MSM8974) Samsung Galaxy S4 (Exynos 5 Octa) Nvidia Tegra 4 ref device Quadrant 2.0 20762 22022 13326 16436 Vellamo 2.0 2997 2914 1977 N/A AnTuTu 3.x 35783 33828 28167 36305 SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms) 543 566 732 499 SunSpider 1.0 (ms) 657 674 N/A N/A […]

Rockchip RK3168 Powered Tablets Are Starting to Show Up for Sale

Rockchip first showcased a tablet prototype with RK3168 dual core processor at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair in April, showing lower power consumption compared to RK3066. At the time, tablets based on this processor were still in development, but this has changed as a few RK3168 tablets are now showing up in Aliexpress. Prices for 7″  Android tablets such as Cube U25GT PRO, are now about $110 as low as $75 including shipping, but this should come down as more sellers provide the devices. Cube U25GT PRO is an updated version of the U25GT pictured above. Here are the specifications of the PRO version: SoC –  Rockchip RK3168 @ 1.2 GHz with PowerVR SGX540 GPU System Memory – 512 MB RAM Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + micro SD card slot Display – 7″ 5 point touch capacitive screen (1024×600) Camera – 0.3MP front camera Connectivity – Wifi 802.11b/g/n + […]