Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Alldocube X Tablet with a Super AMOLED Display to Launch for $199 and Up (Crowdfunding)

Alldocube X Tablet with a Super AMOLED Display to Launch for $199 and Up (Crowdfunding)

Allcodube has been making Android tablets at least since 2012, although recently they’ve launched an Intel Gemini Lake Tablet with their Knote5 model running Windows 10. The company is still working on Android tablets however, as they are about to launch Alldocube X tablet with a Mediatek processor, and a 10.5″ Super AMOLED display on Indiegogo. Alldocube X tablet preliminary specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT8176 hexa core processor with 2x Arm Cortex A72 cores @ 2.1 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex A53 cores @ 1.7 GHz, and Imagination PowerVR GX6250 GPU System Memory – 4GB Storage – 64GB flash Display – 10.5″ Samsung Super AMOLED display with 2560×1600 resolution Audio – AKM Hi-Fi chip Camera – 8MP front-facing camera, 8MP rear camera Connectivity – 802.1ac WiFi and Bluetooth USB – 1x USB Type-C port Sensor – Fingerprint scanner Battery – 8,000 mAh with Pump Express 2.0 quick charging Dimensions – 6.9mm thick (All metal unibody design) The tablet will run Android …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on A Closer Look at Mediatek MT8516 Cortex A35 SoM / Devkit for Android Things

A Closer Look at Mediatek MT8516 Cortex A35 SoM / Devkit for Android Things

Mediatek-MT8516-SoM

Earlier this month, Google released Android Things 1.0, the first stable release for the IoT operating system, and announced several certified SoMs (systems-on-module) based on NXP i.MX 8M, Qualcomm SDA212 & SDA624, and MediaTek MT8516 SoCs. However at the time, beside some information about the processor itself, there was not many details about MT8516 system-on-module. Since then, MediaTek wrote a blog post about their Cortex A35 solution for Android Things & Google Assistant, so let’s have a look. First the MT8516 SoM is not exactly what I had expected, but instead a complete single board computer, and this is why they call it virtual SoM (vSOM). Google defines the latter as reference design provided by the chip vendors and certified by Google. Mediatek MT8516 quad core Cortex A35 vSoM / development board specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT8516 quad core Cortex A35 processor without GPU System Memory – 4Gbit (512MB) DDR3L Storage – 4GB eMMC flash Connectivity – 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Android Things 1.0 Released with Support for NXP i.MX 8M, Qualcomm SDA212/SDA624 and Mediatek MT8516 SoMs

Android Things 1.0 Released with Support for NXP i.MX 8M, Qualcomm SDA212/SDA624 and Mediatek MT8516 SoMs

Innocomm-WB10AT

Brillo Project was renamed to Android Things with the release of a developer preview back in December 2014, and the operating system enabling developers and companies to build and maintain Internet of Things devices at scale. The OS has now graduated so-to-speak with the release of Android Things 1.0 with long-term support for production devices, and this was to be expected as several Android Things devices were announced earlier this year. The new release adds supports for new system-on-modules (SoMs) based on the NXP i.MX8M, Qualcomm SDA212, Qualcomm SDA624, and MediaTek MT8516 SoCs. These modules are certified for production use with guaranteed long-term support for 3 years, and development hardware and reference designs for these SoMs will be available in the coming months. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and NXP i.MX7D boards and system-on-modules are still supported, but support for NXP i.MX6UL devices will be deprecated. Check out the hardware page for a full list of supported platforms. Google …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on Acer Iconia One 10 is a 10.1″ Tablet Powered by Mediatek MT8167B Quad Core Cortex A35 Processor

Acer Iconia One 10 is a 10.1″ Tablet Powered by Mediatek MT8167B Quad Core Cortex A35 Processor

So far, I had not seen that many devices based on Arm Cortex A35 64-bit cores which promise better performance than Cortex A7, while consuming 32% less than a Cortex A53. But Mediatek released MT8167B quad core Cortex A35 last year supporting 1080p30 video decoding, and HD+ (1280×800) displays. There’s also a Mediatek MT8167A SoC clocked at a higher 1.5 GHz, capable of handling higher resolution 1920×1200 displays, and 1080p60 videos. Acer Iconia One 10 tablet – also released last year – is powered by MT8167B SoC, and comes with 2GB RAM,  32GB storage, and a 10.1″ HD+ Display. Acer Iconia One 10 (B3-A40) specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT8167B quad core Cortex A35 processor @ 1.30 GHz with Imagination PowerVR GE8300 GPU System Memory – 2 GB DDR3L RAM Storage – 16 or 32GB storage, Micro SD Card slot up to 128 GB Display – 10.1″ IPS touch screen display; 1280×800 resolution (HD+) Audio – Stereo speaker, 3.5mm audio jack …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on $210 GPD XD Plus Handheld Android Game Console Launched with Mediatek MT8173 Cortex A73/A53 SoC

$210 GPD XD Plus Handheld Android Game Console Launched with Mediatek MT8173 Cortex A73/A53 SoC

Not everybody is willing to spend around $650 on the recently announced GPD Win 2 portable Windows game console, and for people with a lower budget and happy to play Android games, the company has now launched the expected GPD XD+ console with GeekBuying and GearBest taking pre-orders for $209.99 including shipping. GPD XD+ will be an upgrade of the previous GPD XD console with Rockchip RK3288 replaced by a more powerful Mediatek MT8176 processor, and RAM capacity increased to 4GB. The rest of the design is pretty much unchanged. GPD XD Plus specifications: SoC – Mediatek MT8176 hexa-core processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.1 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.7 GHz, and Imagination PowerVR GX6250 GPU System Memory – 4GB RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash (GearBest shows 64GB instead), micro SD slot up to 128GB Display – 5″ 720p capacitive touch display Video Output – 1x mini HDMI Audio – Dual speaker, via HDMI output, …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments on Rockchip RK3288 To Be Phased Out Soon? GPD XD+ Android Console To Get Mediatek MT8176 SoC, 4GB RAM Upgrade

Rockchip RK3288 To Be Phased Out Soon? GPD XD+ Android Console To Get Mediatek MT8176 SoC, 4GB RAM Upgrade

[Update: I have now seen an email exchange with ASUS replying that Rockchip RK3288 will still be in production for 5 years, so GPD claims that manufacturing will stop for RK3288 may be incorrect, or misunderstood Update 2: Rockchip has now confirmed RK3288 will not be phased out. So I’m guessing there may have been info lost in translation with GPD simply not manufacturing their own RK3288 board anymore] Rockchip RK3288 32-bit Arm processor was first spotted in a company presentation in the summer of 2013, before being announced – with some confusion (Cortex A12 vs A17) – at CES 2014 in January. The quad core Cortex A17 processor had then its moments of glory with inclusion in products such as Chromebooks (2015), and ASUS Tinker board SBC earlier this year. Another product based on the processor is GPD XD Android game console, but according to a report on reddit, GPD will soon launch an upgraded version call XD+ powered …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Linux 4.13 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.13 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 4.13 and a kidney stone…: So last week was actually somewhat eventful, but not enough to push me to delay 4.13. Most of the changes since rc7 are actually networking fixes, the bulk of them to various drivers. With apologies to the authors of said patches, they don’t look all that interesting (which is definitely exactly what you want just before a release). Details in the appended shortlog. Note that the shortlog below is obviously only since rc7 – the _full_4.13 log is much too big to post and nobody sane would read it. So if you’re interested in all the rest of it, get the git tree and limit the logs to the files you are interested in if you crave details. No, the excitement was largely in the mmu notification layer, where we had a fairly last-minute regression and some discussion about the problem. Lots of kudos to Jérôme …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Linux 4.12 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.12 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 4.12: Things were quite calm this week, so I really didn’t have any real reason to delay the 4.12 release. As mentioned over the various rc announcements, 4.12 is one of the bigger releases historically, and I think only 4.9 ends up having had more commits. And 4.9 was big at least partly because Greg announced it was an LTS kernel. But 4.12 is just plain big. There’s also nothing particularly odd going on in the tree – it’s all just normal development, just more of it that usual. The shortlog below is obviously just the minor changes since rc7 – the whole 4.12 shortlog is much too large to post. In the diff department, 4.12 is also very big, although the reason there isn’t just that there’s a lot of development, we have the added bulk of a lot of new  header files for the AMD Vega support. That’s almost exactly half the …

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