[F&LSuperstore]

Great writeup. You are very spot on. The current single core rockchips, boxchips & amlogics almost identical to one another. Can't wait to see the race for the next dual core chipped machines.

 

[F&LSuperstore]

Just bought the ZTPad 10`` Cortex A9 Android 4 is the system the better of all?
Was cosidering ipad but saw this and thought it was decent for price. Although not that well up on tech stuff

I've seen them all and it has the most solid build and good speed for its price. I've dropped a few here and they still work good. My gripe on all of the 10" coming out of China is battery life. But we have found a solution for that.

 

[F&LSuperstore]

Rockchip are showing off their RK3066 chip tablets @ HK Fair. This ARM chip will also be 40nm like 8726-MX.

In one of the pictures, you can see the RK3066 clocked @ 1.6GHz!!! =)

http://pbpai.net/10/show.php?itemid=32197 (in Chinese)

Not only are they coming out with 2 core CPUs but the clock speeds have jumped by 500-600MHz too. This will give a *major* CPU performance jump. This is why people are best to hold off buying *expensive* tablets until these come out. At earliest, 1-2 months for MX and 3-4 months for RK3066.

The CPU performance difference will be major. As for GPU performance, hard to say. A10 & 8726-M1/M3 appear to have dual core Mali400 GPU. So, difference between A10 & 8726-MX in GPU benches maybe very small and minor. ie, maybe get similar gpu bench results but 8726-MX will run everything very smoothly.

PS, this is the same to what happened with iPad1 (single core, Cortex A8) to iPad2 (dual core, Cortex A9). The 8726-MX should be close to or better than iPad2 GPU performance. The RK3066 should pass iPad2 and hopefully reach iPad3 GPU performance. At least the performance gap between iPad2 & Tegra3 tablets will now become very small with these new dual core A9 chips coming out.

Great news. This will make them formidable gaming machines. The future is mobile. I can see it clearly. I bet World Of Warcraft has an Android/OSX solution here real soon.

Edit: But they need to get this Mali-400 GPU driver thing fixed and China needs to find a way to share the info because right now the way it is it's useless.

 

[F&LSuperstore]

I bet these tablets come out more like June or July.

Technology is moving way to fast. Tablet mfgs will stop supporting older tablets within 3-4 months now compared to a year. As a retailer this is kind of scary to me.

 

[F&LSuperstore]

Thanks for the background info. Do you know whether the company Alldocube has anything to do with Cube themselves?
Cube's website www.51cube.com.cn doesn't seem to mention them. I suppose it could be a vendor who only sells cube tablets (hence the name). I thought the Merimobiles price seemed high but 256$ (approx 160 uk pounds) would be reasonable

I guess I will have to continue waiting patiently

Wait it out and find someone that actually "Has Stock"

I only take pre-orders on tablets I know I have on order and I am owed. These tablets are still in pre-production. The PCBs haven't even been mapped out yet.

If you wait a week or two longer I bet you will be able to buy the same 9.7 IPS tablet from a world responsible vendor for 10-20% of the price that Cube will sell it for.

 

[F&LSuperstore]

Yes, it seems in the charts that AllWinner is going to come out with A15. Dual core Cortex A9 with quad core Mali400 GPU.

The A15 should have similar CPU performance to 8726MX/RK3066. Usually, CPU performance varies by no more than 10% at the same clock speed (ie, MHz).

As for GPU performance. It will be quad core Mali400 so same # and type of GPU found in RK3066. The only real difference will be GPU clock speed. RK3066 GPUs are 250MHz clock speed. A15 may clock @ 300+ MHz. So, GPU performance could be super great on it. Exynos 4210 clocks @ 266MHz. But they also show 4210 benches with GPU @ 400MHz. Overclocked to 400MHz?
http://bbs.1pad.cn/thread-45666-1-1.html

AllWinner A10 showed up in tablets about 9 months after Rockchip 2918 tablets came out. I do not expect A15 for another 8-9 months from now. But MAYBE as early as 6-7 months. Hard to guesstimate on release dates. =)

That would be a much not-so-honest thing to do. People will think Cortex A15s are out. I wish they would change their labeling.

 

[F&LSuperstore]

I strongly agree too. Some people will buy this because they think they are getting A15 CPUs when most likely will be only A9s.

I am very curious to see what they come out with. Right now everyone is doing 40nm which tops out at 1.5GHz for CPU speed. So, if they want faster CPU speed they will have to go with 28-32nm to get to 1.8+ GHz. I believe they will do 40nm just like everyone else. So, no advantage there unless they decide to do quad core CPU.

Right now RK3066 has 4 X Mali400 @ 250 MHz and is GPU performer for them to beat. Only way AllWinner A15 can do this is with 4 X Mali400 at higher clock speed, ie. 300-400 MHz or newer Mali-T604. I highly doubt they will go with Mali-T604 since more expensive. Also, Rockchip does 250MHz because they use the low power version. 8726-MX uses 2 X Mali400 @ 400MHz but those are the general power GPUs which use up more battery power.

In order to impress, AllWinner will need either quad core A9, dual core A9 @ 28-32nm w/higher clock speed, 4 X Mali400 @ 300-400 MHz or 2 X Mali-T604. It will be interesting to see if their next chip is similar to RK3066, slightly better or really much better. I think 1.5 GHz dual core is enough CPU power. Much better to have stronger GPUs. Though having both would really make it stand apart from RK3066.

If they skipped the Dual-Core and went straight to quad I would be impressed. I have a funny feeling they are trying to corner the budget market. And judging by my own experiences of Allwinner tablets I've sold with extremely low return rates they are doing a very good job of it.

The Elf II & Ramos W17Pro are pretty sick tablets. I have to say I'm going to keep one, probably a W17, for myself and retire my old Tegra II clone. This year is starting to get exciting for me. These tablets will be ready and perfected by Christmas. Last year a lot of the good tablets were coming out around September/October. I'm glad they are getting these out as fast as possible. Bringing products to market properly during the biggest shopping season of the year is/was a pain in the ass. I never ever got around to making a review video for the C91.