allwinner News - Page 14 of 22 - CNX Software

January 2, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

3D Graphics Acceleration in Linux on Allwinner A80 based Cubieboard4

Allwinner A80 is a powerful octa-core processor found in development boards and TV boxes such as Cubieboard4 or Tronsmart Draco AW80. Some early Ubuntu images and instructions had already been released for A80 Optimusboard and Draco AW80, but none of these featured GPU drivers for 3D acceleration, which to be honest, has limited advantages in Linux desktop distributions since desktop environments and most apps require full OpenGL support, i.e. not only OpenGL ES, and the only ARM SoC that can provide OpenGL support without external graphics card is Nvidia Tegra K1 SoC. Having said that GPU drivers would pave the way for smooth OpenELEC / Kodi user interface support in Allwinner A80 Linux distributions. That’s only one part of the puzzle, since the GPU normally handles the user interface, while the VPU takes care of video decoding. The good news is that CubieTech release updates images for their Cubieboard4 (CC-A80) […]

December 31, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Infocus CS1 A83 (C2107) Android Tablet Review

I’ve already shown some pictures, listed specs and reported Antutu benchmark results for Infocus CS1 A83 Android tablet powered by Allwinner A83T octa core processor. I’ve been using this tablet as my main mobile device for about a week, and for about 3 to 5 hours a day, and I’m now ready to write a full review reporting my experience with this Full HD tablet. General Impressions I mainly use a tablet to browse the web, check emails, play some casual games like Candy Crush Saga, watch some YouTube videos, and Skype calls, and I could not really fault the tablet for any of these applications. Having said that, my reference device is only ThL W200 smartphone powered by Mediatek MT6589T processor with a 5″ display @ 1280×720, and for all the tasks listed Infocus tablet is much better because it’s more responsive, the 1920×1200 is crisp, and the cameras […]

December 15, 2014December 15, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Inphic i8 Android Media Player Supports VP9 and H.265 Video Codecs, Features Allwinner H8 Processor

Allwinner H8 a new octa-core Cortex A7 processor for low cost Full HD media players with H.265 & VP9 codec support, and one the first product using the new Allwinner H-Series processor is Inphic i8, which sells for as low as 349 CNY (~$57) on JD.com and it’s also available on Taobao for 499 CNY (~$80). Some Inphic i8 boxes are available on Aliexpress, but so far all models are based on Allwinner A31s, promoted as quad core processor eight core GPU boxes, so don’t be fooled. Inphic i8 (Allwinner H8) specifications: SoC – Allwinner H8 octa-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 2.0GHz with PowerVR SGX544 GPU up to 720MHz System Memory – 1GB or 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8, 16, or 32GB internal storage Video Output – HDMI up to 1080p, Composite output (RCA) Audio Output – HDMI, and Left / Right RCA connectors Video Codecs Multi-format 1080p@60fps video playback, including […]

December 10, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Linux 3.18 Released

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 3.18 last Sunday: It’s been a quiet week, and the patch from rc7 is tiny, so 3.18 is out. I’d love to say that we’ve figured out the problem that plagues 3.17 for a couple of people, but we haven’t. At the same time, there’s absolutely no point in having everybody else twiddling their thumbs when a couple of people are actively trying to bisect an older issue, so holding up the release just didn’t make sense. Especially since that would just have then held things up entirely over the holiday break. So the merge window for 3.19 is open, and DaveJ will hopefully get his bisection done (or at least narrow things down sufficiently that we have that “Ahaa” moment) over the next week. But in solidarity with Dave (and to make my life easier too 😉 let’s try to avoid introducing any _new_ […]

December 8, 2014December 8, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Allwinner H3 is a Quad Core SoC for Sub $50 4K H.265 Media Players

Allwinner launched their H-series processors (Homlet) for home entertainment with Allwinner H8 octa-core processor, supporting HEVC up to 1080p, which will find its way into media players selling between $50 and $80. The company has now added Allwinner H3 quad core processor, selling for just $6, which will be available in $35 to $50 OTT TV box later this month, and include support for 4K UHD H.265/HEVC video playback. Key features of Allwinner H3: CPU – Quad core Cortex A7 GPU – Mali-400MP2 up to 600 MHz Memory I/F LPDDR2, LPDDR3, DDR3, DDR3L SDRAM 8-bit SLC, MLC, TLC, EF NAND with 64-bit ECC SD, eMMC, tSD, fSD, and efSD Video Decoding – H.265/HEVC and H.264 up to 4K@30 fps, H.264 BP/MP/HP, VP8, MPEG1/2, MPEG4 SP/ASP GMC, H.263 including Sorenson Spark, WM9/VC1, JPEG/MJEPG up to 1080p60 Encoding – H.264 up to 1080p30 Video Output – HDMI with HDCP, CEC, 3D function, […]

December 6, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Allwinner A83T Tablet Unboxing, First Boot, and Benchmarks

Allwinner & HonHai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, sent me an Infocus tablet based on Allwinner A83T processor with eight Cortex A7 cores up to 2GHz, and a PowerVR SGX544 GPU. Today, I’ll list the specifications of this tablet, show unboxing pictures, first boot video, and run Antutu benchmark. Infocus New Tab CS1 A83 / C2107 Specifications The invoice calls the tablet “New Tab CS1 A83”, but Android reports the model as C2107, so I’m not fully sure what will be the actual name. It might well be New Tab CS1 A83, as I could find an Infocus an earlier Infocus New Tab CS1 tablet powered by Allwinner A31. Anyway, here are the specifications I could derive from the device, and running Antutu/CPU-Z on the device: SoC – Allwinner A83T octa-core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 2.0 GHz with PowerVR SGX544MP GPU supporting OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1, OpenCL 1.1, DX 9.3. System […]

November 23, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

AllWinner A80 Octa Core big.LITTLE Processor CPU Usage Under Various Loads in Android 4.4 (Video)

Allwinner A80 is one of the few octa core processors featuring ARM’s big.LITTLE technology currently available on the market. The processor comes with four ARM Cortex A15 (big) cores, and four ARM Cortex A7 (LITTLE) core, and tasks will be scheduled to different processor depending on the load to optimize power consumption on mobile devices. However, earlier big.LITTLE processors like Samsung Exynos 5410 has some serious limitations, as they only supported “cluster migration” meaning you could only use the Cortex A7 cluster or Cortex A15 cluster at any given time, so Exynos 5410 could only make use of four cores at most due to hardware limitations. They also used to be two software implementations: In-kernel Switching (IKS) and Global Task Scheduling (GTS). The former could only handle one type of core at the same, and the latter, which I believe is now used in all new devices, can handle any […]