Ainol have always surprised us with their Android tablet offerings. The first tablet we came by was their Novo 7 which was the first tablet to get ICS of just $99, but alot has changed since then and $100 get’s you a whole lot more.
The latest Ainol Novo 7 tablet costs slightly more than the original at $112, but for that little extra it offers a whole new level of low-cost tablet performance.
Gizchina News of the week
A new ‘Owl” Quad-core CPU sits at the heart of the little tablet, with a quad-core GPU. Ainol are boldly claiming that this new set-up improves performance by 200% over their dual-core models!
The display is a 7-inch 1280 x 800 HD model and the tablet also features HDMI out, 1080p video support, micro SD card slot, 16GB of internal memory, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS.
no info on which processor it uses, what spec camera(s) it has, whether the screen is ips or how much ram it has.
Looks decent though. You can already get 7″ tablets with RK3066 dual core 1.6ghz cortex a9 and quad mali 400 mp4 for £71 delivered to uk.
Think OWL is the work name of the ATM7029 processor.
This new processor is a quadcore A9 setup. (posably not true, rumours around baidu, slatedroid etc). Together with this four cores is a GC1000 GPU which is fairly weak.
Just recieved the Hero II today and its just ”ok” for the price (its using the same chipset). I would go for the RK3066 for now as it seems to have a better GPU and on par or a little better dualcore CPU.
Tho this is a new manufacturer and so there can be a lot of optimalisation in this stage that can boost up this tablet(s) a bit.
Some other tablets out of ainol’s hands do use a A31 processor from Allwinner. People where a little sceptic about it at first but when reading around i do here a lot of positive things around, its good in price, preformance of the CPU i Ok and it has a good battery life. The GPU on the A31 is just ”great” comparing to there competiors.
Third we have the RK3188, it will be the new CPU power hub around. Only thing i am afraid off i the 4 cores taking lots of energy (despite of being produced on a smaller nm). The GPU is just ”mwha” as its the same as was in the RK3066 (it should have been replaced for a MP450).
But then there are no tablets out there with this chip set so there could be some flaws in the performance (or just get a big + above the competitors).
Only time will tell i a assume :D. till that time i would spare my monney on buying this tablet and go with a A31 or soon comming RK3188 tablet.
The real problem isn’t focused about Vivante’s GPU horsepower (which I consider enough to play everything ATM, even in some tasks it does better than mali 400) but about its compatibility side. 3D applications are optimized or, at least, made for working in major platformas such as Tegra, PowerVR or Mali. I think Vivante could have more incompatibility issues than those three and that’s a very huge handicap.
Rockchip made a quad-core chip with same GPU but not clocked at same speed. While the GPU at RK3066 is clocked at 250Mhz per core the one in RK3188 is clocked at 533Mhz per core, so it will be a huge increase of performance IMHO.
I wouldn’t buy a tablet with Amlogic but I’ll defenitely buy one with RK3188. Don’t worry, I’m sure Rockchip have thought about including mali T624-T628 in the next RT32x chipset, which we will see in a year or a little more. High end Mali GPU’s already reached PS3/360 graphics and I don’t think they will need much more time till they reach Wii U.
Long life to Mali 😀
Can you please suggest a trusted / tested tablet (Quad core or dual core) with good performance – overall and with graphics, within a $200 range?
The primary requirements are for:
1. HDMI
2. Battery Life
3. Sound (Stereo)
4. Hi-Res screen (if possible, else ok)
Thanks, in anticipation!
J
I miss the CPU speed in your news letter
They said rockchip have heat problems..