After many delays allegedly due to Freescale i.MX6 CPU delivery issues, Hiapad HI-802 mini PC appears to be now available for purchase on Aliexpress for $99 including shipping. This HDMI dongle features Freescale i.MX6 Quad, 1GB RAM and 8GB Flash.
The specs on Aliexpress are similar to the original announcement, except the internal NAND flash size is 8GB instead of 16GB:
- SoC – Freescale i.MX6 Quad Core Cortex A9 @ 1.2GHz with Vivante GC2000
- System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM
- Storage – 8GB Nand Flash + microSD card socket
- Connectivity
- 802.11b/g/n
- Build-in Bluetooth 2.1
- No 3G support.
- Video Output – HDMI (Up to 1080p60)
- Video Container Formats – 3GP,MPEG4,AVI,RMVB,MKV,FLV etc. support 1080P HD Resolution
- Audio Formats – MP3/WAV/AMR/AAC;
- USB – Micro USB 2.0 OTG + USB 2.0 Host
- Power Supply – 5V/1.5A
- Dimensions – 102 x 38 x 10 mm
- Weight – 45 g
This Android 4.0 (ICS) mini PC comes with a 5V/1.5A power supply, a USB cable and an English user manual. It can support 1080p@60fps video decoding, as well as H.264 1080p@60fps & 720@100fps video encoding.
Beside the powerful quad core Cortex A9 processor, what makes HI-802 really attractive is the openness of the platform, as Freescale released full documentation, as well as Linux and Android Source for i.MX6. This should allow the developers’ community to port diverse Linux distributions on top of Android and Ubuntu provided by Freescale, without spending time reverse engineering the SoC specs like is the case with Chinese SoC from companies such as AllWinner or Rockchip.
Thanks to Gabe.
[Update: There is also GK802 on Geekbuying ($99) which is based on Freescale i.MX6 but with a different casing. Geekbuying explains they only have 30 Beta samples. So I’m not sure of the status of the device on Aliexpress (I’ve asked) The shop on Aliexpress (Kimdecent) replied they’ll have 50 samples which should ship by the end of next week (~15 December).]
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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Purchased one when they had PayPal button opened, before they replaced it with armdevices website. So still have no information. I can understand that it takes more than 1 month to deliver to Kazakhstan from China, but they could at least write on their website the status …. A bit angry.
Hardkernel’s U2 seem to be better choice … more expensive but faster…
So, how long until we’ve see a neo-itx esque board with the same SoC?
@Alex
I’m not sure they have sent it to you yet… They had problem with receive i.MX6 and bugs with the firmware. GK802 still have firmware bugs according to discussions on ARMTvTech.com forums.
@lex
There is the Seco Q7 + pico-ITX board (http://www.seco.com/en/item/secocq7-pitx/), but it’s targeted to industrial applications. I guess we have to wait…
Does XBMC support hardware accelerated video decoding on Freescale i.MX6 SoC devices yet?
Maybe they should sponsor Team-XBMC with a bunch of Hi802 so that they can add support?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the HI802 has the EXACT same bugs as the GK802. I’m pretty sure they use the same android build. I have a GK802. It’s quite nice. At 720p I got a 10155 in antutu. At 1080p I got 9827. It feels smoother than the RK3066 devices. There a a few bugs, but a couple of those were related to my older 720p HDTV not reporting proper EDID information. (same thing with the motorola lapdock) I picked up another 1080p HDTV and it’s been a much better experience. Wifi works well and connects at 150mbps. It… Read more »
@deadhp1
Forgive the naive questions here…
1. I’m looking for one of these type of devices, HDMI stick, that I can completely create my own Android distro for. If this stick has a git repo where I can start from please point me to that. Will it have drivers for all the hardware including video and video codecs?
2. For booting from the SD Card, is it the standard setup for Android devices?
@deadhp1
I suppose ~10,000 is in Antutu 2.9.4, right? It would be disappointing in Antutu 3.0.
Using a microSD instead of NAND flash should surely affect performance, no?
@Harley
You may have already seen it, but they had a demo with XBMC (Android) – http://youtu.be/aqN13B_TUes?t=1m12s some time ago. I doubt it has HW acceleration yet. For Linux, the media libs appears to be available, so it may come sooner rather than later.
Kimdecent (Aliexpress) replied the manufacturer said it would be available on 11st Dec. So they expect shipment as late as on the end of next week. They only have 50pcs.
Tested again in antutu 3.0.2 just now.
720p: 10109
1080p: 9643
I’ve got a bunch of stuff installed on this now. So that may come into play a bit.
Also it’s only running at 996mhz.
The lower cpu speed is really what is holding this back at the moment.
The freescale imx6 is a bit on the low end for quad core soc’s.
The GK802 is comes with ICS.
I’m pretty sure that score would be better with a newer android build. I saw a decent difference in scores between ICS and JB on other devices.
@Fueler I’m not sure if they have a git server setup. You should check freescale and see if they offer the android sources.(I believe they do). The sd card boot setup on the imx6 devices is a little weird. From what I’ve seen of the android image: The u-boot is in unpartitioned space at the beginning of the drive(starts at 0x400) The boot.img is in the first partition, but is not formatted. I grabbed the boot.img with dd by doing a dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=boot.img bs=512K. I was able to split the boot.img.ramdisk.gz and boot.img.kernel using split_boot.pl So that part is… Read more »
@deadhp1
I forgot about the lower frequencies that partially explains the relatively low scores. Different Android versions may also explain it.
Rockchip RK3066 tablets score about 12,000 ~ 13,000 in Antutu 3.0 (http://dragondevs.com/index.php?/topic/993-battle-of-the-rockchips/.) If i recall correctly RK3066 HDMI dongles are clocked lower, so they may be closer to 9,000. Still not far from i.MX6.
@deadhp1
@Fueler
Yes, Freescale provides Android ICS source code in a tarball. They also have a git but it seems outdated. There’s a lot of doc about i.MX6 which can be overwhelming at the beginning, so I posted a summary in another post.
http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/11/18/freescale-i-mx6-resources-development-boards-documentation-source-code-and-tools/
@deadhp1 Do u think should I get this for my lapdock? or because it’s not reporting the proper EDID information to the screen may be a big issue for the lapdock and do u think is it fixable?
Thanks for the info deadhp1.
Ok guys, who already got it, please tell us of it really has UART/I2C pins as promised here: http://www.hiapad.com/?p=1970 ?
@Murad When I boot it up with the lapdock it displays 740×576. If I boot it up with an external power source and wait 8 seconds before opening the lid it will display at the proper resolution. This also works on tv’s with upsupported EDID’s. However it can cause problems with audio(on tv’s) the lapdock seems to be fine after that. @Paul It has those pins. I’m just waiting for my 3.3v usb to serial adapter to come so I can get a working uboot for linux on it. Ideally I’d like to setup the uboot so that it boots… Read more »
Ive just found a coupon “mainagame5” which will save you $5 making it $84.
Geekbuying is first to the market! They are calling it the “Zealz GK802” They’ve got 500 pieces of the GK802 in stock. http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Unii-GK802-Fresscale-i-MX6-Quad-Dure-Cortex-A9-DDR3-1GB-RAM-8GB-ROM-TV-Box-Dongle—-Black-312807.html They have fixed many of the problems I found with the beta firmware, and are shipping with a different charger/usb cable that will actually allow you to connect to your computer. The HI802 will not have this charger/cable. Which means it will likely have problems connecting to your pc. The HI802 also will not feature any firmware fixes I have pushed for. So if you actually want some support it might be worth it to buy the… Read more »
Finally, Kimdecent has to sell it for $99, not $89 as previously indicated.
Bad news about Hi802:
“Now we decide stop selling this model now.
It have many problems now, Includes unstable firmware, USB port don’t work, don’t compatible with many mouse/ keyboard.
Some website Online video stream not work, etc. (we try to install the GK802 firmware and the problem is same)
We sold out xx pcs and many customers complain now. We will wait for a new firmware and estimate the quality again.”
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) I’ve got two GK802’s now. (a beta device and a production version) I can say that the firmware doesn’t seem unstable. My production version has been running almost constantly since I got it. I don’t think it’s crashed once that I can remember. My beta GK802 hasn’t been as lucky since it now has serial lines soldered to it for linux dev purposes. It spends most of it’s time waiting for new kernels to build. So you can imagine that when it’s running it’s not all that stable.(Unless I put a micro-sd with android in it.) I… Read more »
@deadhp1
“My beta GK802 hasn’t been as lucky since it now has serial lines soldered to it for linux dev purposes. ” => linux soon? 🙂
(There are stores on Aliexpress sellilng GK802 & Hi802’s from $95 shipped at the moment BTW)
i got one off aliexpress for $89, the mail tracker says it’s not even in australia yet. do the issues affect this (a hi802), if so what do i do? also how can i put ubuntu on it?
@deadhp1
QUOTE:
“I can tell you that the mouse/keyboard will not work if you’re using a different adapter than what came with it.
The HI802 did not come with this adapter, so the usb port will not work.”
What lead are you talking about ?
I have the GK802 and i did not get a USB lead for inserting keyboards ?
I only a otg power lead to PC which you can only plug in if the ‘power lead’ is unplugged.
Which means i cannot power up the gk802 to add a keyboard.
????
I was talking about the ac adapter which plugs into the micro-usb port.
It seems that without this adapter the full size usb port doesn’t work right, it acts like a usb hub.
In earlier versions of firmware/hardware for the GK802 if I powered it from my computer and plugged a mouse into the GK802 I wouldn’t be able to use the mouse on the GK802, instead the mouse would get installed on my computer. It would then work on my computer.
The factory has developed a beta version of linux for the GK802!
http://blog.geekbuying.com/index.php/2013/01/02/good-news-zealz-gk802-will-support-ubuntu-and-linaro-soon/
It’s much farther along than mine is(working u-boot and working wifi)
I can’t wait to test it!