UDOO QUAD vs BeagleBone Black vs Wandboard Dual vs ODROID-X2 vs Raspberry Pi

UDOO QUAD is a development board featuring both Freescale i.MX 6Quad and an Atmel SAM3 Cortex M3 MCU, that’s currently having a very successful campaign on Kickstarter, as the total amount pledged is now close to $500,000 US. UDOO decided to put a comparison table against four other ARM Linux boards they consider their main competitors: the BeagleBone Black for its numerous I/O options, Wandboard Dual, also a Freescale i.MX6 powered board, the ODROID X2 for its powerful Exynos 4412 processor, and Raspberry Pi model B which is ubiquitous. The Cubieboard board would also have been an interesting addition, but they did not include it. As you would have guessed the green parts in the tablet shows the winner for each features according to UDOO team. These 5 boards vary greatly in terms of price, and since this is not included in the table above, I’ll mention  the price of […]

Geniatech PT115m and PT115e USB DVB-T Sticks Let You Watch Digital TV on Tablets and mini PCs

Last month, I wrote about Geniatech WiTV, a device with a DVB-T or ISBT tuner acting as a Wi-Fi access point that let you watch TV on any Wi-Fi enabled devices. I’ve just discovered Geniatech PT115m (microUSB) and PT115e (USB), tinier and probably cheaper products, which allow you to watch free-to-air channel (DVB-T) by connecting them to the USB or microUSB port of your tablet or mini PC. Both devices have the following key features and specifications: Geniatech HiDTV app for Android Watch DVB-T TV on Android tablet, with support for Electronic Program Guide, HDTV (1080i), and Automatic Station Searching Digital Personal Video Recording Input Terminal – VHF/UHF,  Receive Frequency – TV 48.25 ~ 863.25 MHz DVB-T Compliant,  2K to 8K FFT Size, Punctured Codes: 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 4/5, 5/6 and 7/8, Bandwidth: 6/7/8 MHz Stream capture – PES & TS Video Format – mpg-II Main Profile & Main Level/H.264 Mpeg4 […]

Tizen Shows Up in Smartphones, Ultrabooks, and Cars

I’ve seen a lot of tweets about Tizen in the last fews days, mainly because Tizen Conference 2013 just took place. First there’s been Tizen 2.1 SDK release, and few demos have surfaced,  showcasing Tizen in their target devices: smartphones, tablets,smart TVs, laptops, and In-vehicle infotainment devices. Beside all the work done, the companies behind the project will also offer $4 million to developers who publish apps on Tizen store. There will be 9 categories. The best 3 games will get $200,000 each, and the best apps in the other 6 categories $120,000 each. Tizen App Challenge will start on June 3, 2013, and you can see details for this program here. Let’s see the demos. First Tizen in Samsung developer smartphone running Qt 5.1, and the usual Qt5 Cinematic Experience demo, as well as 2 others apps, both super smooth. (via TizenExperts). You can find more information in Qt […]

Olimex A20-OLinuXino Prototype, AllWinner A20 SoM In The Work

Yesterday, Olimex showed their new A20-OLinuXino board. This AllWinner A20 board is still a prototype, and there are currently 3 of them only, but the good news is that it appears to be working, 50 developer edition boards will be manufactured shortly, and mass production should start in June. AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 can clearly be seen in the middle of the board, but if you look close to the top left, you’ll see a marking: “A10-OLINUXINO-MICRO”. That’s because, as planned, they managed to design one PCB for both AllWinner A10 and A20 processors, and they’ll sell both versions. Olimex A10/A20-Olinuxino boards have the followings specifications: SoC – AllWinner A10 Cortex A8 processor or AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor, both  running @1Ghz System Memory – 512MB or 1GB DDR3 memory depending on model Storage – 4GB NAND Flash (optional), 2x microSD card slot, and SATA connector […]

Kimdecent QC802 Review

QC802 is one of the cheapest RK3188 mini PCs available on the market, as it sells for just $76 on Kimdecent aliexpress store ($73 after you get an Aliexpress coupon). AndroidPC.es got one sample, and posted a review in Spanish. I’ll post a summary in English of this review, but first let’s have quick look at the specs: SoC – Rockchip RK3188 quad core Cortex A9 @ 1.6 Ghz + Mali-400MP4 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8 GB internal flash + micro SD slot (up to 32GB) Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n + Bluetooth 2.1 Video Output – HDMI (male) USB – 1x USB Host 2.0, 2x micro USB ports including one for power, one USB Host (or OTG?) So the specs are comparable to other devices. QC802 Unboxing Pictures The package contains the device itself, a 5V/2Apower supply, an HDMI cable, a micro USB to USB […]

Smartvote SmartCandy is a Tiny RK3066 mini PC with an External Wi-Fi/USB Cable

To date, the smallest mini PC I’ve even seen is probably CX-01 powered by Telechips TCC8925 Cortex A5 processor, but Smartvote, a Hong Kong based company, has designed an even smaller device based on Rockchip RK3066 called SmartCandy, a feat achieved by locating the Wi-Fi module and full USB ports in an external cable. SmartCandy specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 @ 1.6 GHz + Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + microSD slot USB – 1x USB OTG Video Output – HDMI 1.4a Dimensions – 68 x 29 x 12mm That’s it, no Wi-Fi, no full USB ports. Luckily, it’s sold with an external cable / box that you can connect to the microUSB port to add: Wi-Fi – 802.11 b/g/n USB – 1x or 3x USB port, depending on model Ethernet – With 3x USB port model only The device runs Android 4.1 […]

Digia Brings Qt to Embedded Android Devices with Boot to Qt

Digia has recently announced Boot to Qt Technology Preview, a commercial offering that provides a solution for the creation of user interfaces on embedded systems. For the first version, they stripped out Android of Java, or other unnecessary parts (Zygote, SurfaceFlinger), added Qt/QML, and tested it on on ARM and x86 hardware. Boot to Qt includes the following main features: A light-weight UI stack for embedded Linux, based on the Qt Framework – Boot to Qt is built on an Android kernel/baselayer and offers an elegant means of developing beautiful and performant embedded devices. Ready-made images – We have images for several different devices which include the Boot to Qt software stack, making it possible to get up and running with minimal effort from day one. Full Qt Creator Integration – One-click deploy and run on hardware and a fully featured development environment. Simulator – A VirtualBox based simulator which allows device development […]

How to Find Configuration Options Quickly in Make Menuconfig

If you’ve ever compiled the Linux kernel, you’ll know make menuconfig is the command line used to unset/set options, disable/enable modules in order to match your hardware and requirements. I used to simply browse in the menu to find the option, and just remember the correct path. Sometimes I just looked at .config to locate the option I needed, and the possible path in make menuconfig. The first time you use a new option it can be time consuming. But I’ve just found there is a better way via Google+. “/” is actually available in make menuconfig, just like it is in vi/vim. If you want to enable NFS server in your kernel, press “/”, and search for NFSD. It will show the list of results with “NFSD” strings. NFS server support is right at the top, and the path is shown to be File Systems->Network File Systems. The neat […]

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