ARM Cortex A8

Two 'ARM Cortex A8' stories December 2011 - October 2012

NYTimes profiles impact of $40 Android tablet in India

The New York Times has a story today on a $40 Android-powered tablet called “Ubislate 7Ci” made by London-based Datawind. The 7-inch tablet is aimed at students in India initially, and it packs an 800-by-480-pixel touchscreen, Android 4.0.3, a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor, and 512MB of RAM, USB port, headphone jack, mic, front-facing camera, and Wi-Fi. The company sold 2.5 million of the tablets so far, and it is about to provide a 100,000 unit to the government for India’s schools:

Mr. Singh says his cost of assembly for a Ubislate is about $37, and he sells it to the Indian government for $40. He keeps the price low by using Google’s free Android operating system and cheap semiconductors found in low-end cellphones. In addition, he says, his company figured out how to make its own touch panel to fit behind the liquid crystal display screen. The LCD is still manufactured by an outside company.

The tablet’s performance looks to be half-decent for the price tag from the video demo below. That is if you can get past its ad-supported apps. However, with recent rumors of a $99 Nexus tablet, we can only imagine what kind of an impact a $50 Nexus 7 could have. According to Gartner, it might be just a year or two before that is a reality.

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Archos announces new Archos 70b tablet: $199 and Honeycomb

Archos unveiled a new tablet to their lineup: the Archos 70b. The Archos 70b is an updated version of the Archos 70 IT Gen 8 tablet, and it is priced at $199 to potentially compete with others. The Archos 70b packs a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 7-inch 1024×600 pixel multitouch screen, and 3D graphics accelerator, 512 MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, front webcam, and Android 2.1 Honeycomb. It is not clear when the device will get Ice Cream Sandwich…if ever.

Most likely seeing some play at CES, the Archos 70b will release in January at $199. This will be a great competitor to the Kindle Fire, due to its front webcam and Android Market support, but most likely will not see sales even close to the Kindle fire that is off to a blazing start. (via CNET)