Acer announced a set of Android tablets this afternoon that are sure to make people pause before they put an order in for the holiday season. The 7 inch Tablet looks like a belter and you can be sure that Acer will compete heavily on price.
The 7 inch model on the left (neither model has a name yet) will come with a dual-core 1.2Ghz Snapdragon CPU, 1280×800 resolution screen, 3G, Wi-FI and we hear, Android 2.2 with Flash 10.1. With front and rear cameras it looks like it will be suitable for Google application certification so we should see the Market and Google applications on this.
The 10 inch tablet on the right above, looks to be aimed at the home market and will also be a dual-core device. HDMI-out, dual-cams and ten-point multi-touch, indicate a high-end experience. Interestingly, reports are saying that this one has a dual-core Tegra 2 CPU at 1Ghz. Maybe there’s a gaming slant here.
There’s also a 4.8 inch super-wide-screen device with 1024×480 resolution on the cards. The strange resolution might be very good for landscape browsing.
Without full specs and pricing it’s difficult to position the devices but it looks like Acer is taking the tablet market seriously because Windows Tablets were announced too. I can’t believe all these devices are going to make it to the same markets but CeBit in March will certainly be interesting!
We didn’t get a huge chance for hands-on as we stumbled across the Toshiba press event at IFA today and with the device locked to the wall, without and sort of Internet connection and without any supporting technical staff, it was difficult to do a good test on the Toshiba Folio 100. We want to go back and ask about pricing, Google apps and Android 2.2 availability for the keyboarded version that we’re doing extended testing on, the AC100. I’ve published a video on YouTube (below) that might give you a few snippets of information about the Folio but we’ll be back over the next few days with more information. We promise!
Tegra2 testing begins tonight because within the next few hours I expect the AC100 to be delivered.
The Toshiba AC100 is the first Tegra2 device to hit outside Japan and only the second true smartbook to hit any global market. We’ve already reviewed the Airlife 100 so now its time to see if Toshiba and Tegra can bring anything new to the table.
Oh, and of course we’ll be running an Email Notification Rave so bring a few beers and join in. “‘Here come the emails!”
Live VIDEO Q&A and chat session on Carrypad.com/live tonight at 2200 Berlin time (1600 New York, see other locations. Approx 11 hours from the time of this post.)
JKKMobile will join to help moderate this independant review session.
We’re sorry for the late notice but with IFA creeping up on us it’s now or never! We hope you can drop in. (parts of the session will be recorded.)
At an ARM event in Taipei this week I was fortunate enough to have a few minutes with a Tegra 2-based tablet prototype known as ‘Harmony.’ It’s a fairly standard tablet with a capacitive touchscreen and weighing in at the 700gm iPad-weight. You’ll see more details in the video below.
The interesting thing was the SunSpider javascript benchmark I did. As you might know, SunSpider is a well-recognized test of a browser’s ability to run javascript and it serves as a good data point for working out how fast a processor is. As far as I know, most, if not all, the javascript processing is done by the CPU.
You’ll see a result of 9.8 seconds on the video which is about the same as you’d see on the iPad. The iPad uses what we believe is an ARM A8 core, or at least something very similar. However, that doesn’t mean that dual-core Tegra 2 is only as powerful as a single-core A4 CPU because the two browsers are vastly different. The javascript engine on the iPad is super-fast where the engine used on the Android 2.1 browser isn’t.
Android 2.1 on Tegra 2 9 seconds (Tegra prototype shown in video)
Android 2.2 on Snapdragon 1Ghz 6 seconds. (Nexus One, Google V8 engine)
Android 1.6 on Snapdragon 1Ghz 24 seconds (Xperia X10)
Chrome on Atom 1.6 2 seconds (average netbook, Google V8 engine)
As you can see there, the Android browser is at least 4 times less efficient in processing javascript on version 1.6 than it is on 2.2. I suspect that version 2.1 is close to 1.6 in its efficiency too which means that the Tegra 2 is over 200% faster than Snapdragon. Given that it has two cores, it’s not surprising. A single A9 core (in my estimate) brings about 20% more raw CPU performance over A8 so the figures look correct.
Add in the 4X improvement that you’ll see with Froyo’s Google V8 processing engine and there you go! Tegra2 with Froyo will be able to process javascript as well as a 1.6Ghz netbook. Just imagine what the 1.2Ghz dual-core Snapdragon will do!
We’ve already seen that ARM can beat Atom in certain low-end Atom scenarios and cross referencing to some other figures I have seem to confirm that ARM is going to challenge Atom in raw CPU. If only they could sort the operating system out and get some productivity apps going, we’d have some interesting smartbooks out there.
Chippy Sidenote: 2 cores needs 2x power! It would be interesting to work out the CPU drain figures under these javascript test conditions. Also note that system performance is not directly related to CPU performance. A lot of work has to go into a lot of other hardware and a lot of other software to get a system running ‘fast.’ Please remember that when Intel and ARM enter the clock-speed game over the next few years!
The tablet featured first in the press conference but there were no product announcements. We’ve actually left the event to head on out to the ASUS press conference.
The tablet has the “ability to allow is to enjoy nearly all the content that we would like to enjoy on a computer today” says Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who went on to talk up the potential market for tablets, his excitement and of course, the Tegra 2.
Surprisingly, he then said “have patience” and went on to explain that devices should come to market in the fall. Just how long is this Tegra story going to drag on?
The tablet featured first in the press conference but there were no product announcements. We’ve actually left the event to head on out to the ASUS press conference.
The tablet has the “ability to allow is to enjoy nearly all the content that we would like to enjoy on a computer today inch says Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who went on to talk up the potential market for tablets, his excitement and of course, the Tegra 2.
Surprisingly, he then said “have patience inch and went on to explain that devices should come to market in the fall. Just how long is this Tegra story going to drag on?
The UK company ICD (Innovative Converged Devices) has an interesting product called the Ultra. Its a 7 inch device based on the Nvidia Tegra 2 platform and runs Android. (Detailed overview here.) We weren’t able to see it running so we can’t confirm if this is a true Google Android phone device or just a build based on the open-source components. Like the Mobinnova Beam, if it comes with Google apps and the Marketplace, it’ a good indicator that Google are taking the non-voice segment seriously.
It’s not confirmed right now but the Mobinnova Beam could be the first non-voice Android device to get the full Google seal of approval and if it does, it could become quite the mobile all-rounder.This is the lightest 8.9 inch laptop-style device we have in the product database!
The Beam is coming to AT&T with HSPA and Android with a 3D UI and a super light weight of around 820gm. That’s lighter than any other netbook out there thanks to the small, 24Wh battery and fanless processing platform based on Nvidia Tegra 2.
Sizing-wise, the Beam is slightly deeper than the EeePC 901 but significantly thinner. In terms of battery life, we’re looking at an on-net, in-use life of 8-10 hours (estimated) which means you really could leave this device on, and connected, all-day.
Pricing and availability is unknown right now but we’re watching this one very carefully. If it gets Google approval, it could signify the start of Android-based productivity and that’s why we’re reporting it here on UMPCPortal. This has pro-mobility potential.
