Before one more site identifies the unknown Android MID as the SMiT MID-560, which it obviously isn't, I'd like to officially announce that the touchscreen device is indeed just a concept created by Chinese chip maker Rockchip to show off its new RK2808 720p-decoding chipset. This is exactly what Pocketables reader sere83 suggested two weeks ago (see this comment), when my tipster sent in the first set of images that started this wild goose chase, and today PConline has confirmed it with some new photos and two videos of the 5-inch slate in action.
In the videos below, you'll see demos of the UI, on-screen keyboard, web browsing, scrolling, and multiple window interface. Even in its engineering concept form, the unnamed unit looks quite nice and performs rather well.
Whether anyone will ever release this particular device in its current form is unknown, but I'm sure it won't be long before more Rockchip-powered Android MIDs begin to appear in tech headlines.
The design is really sexy. Like an Ipod touch big brother.
haha, so it was true after all! thanks for the mention
. imp3.net are pretty good with info, some times hard to decipher the old google translationns though. Nice to have finally solved the mystery though!
Now in terms of the device…it’s looking pretty tidy. Scrolling looks a little laboured on the browser though, fluidity definitely needs some work, hopefully this is just a software issue. But general responsiveness and page loading times/speed look pretty damn good.
I’ve been keeping a close eye on a couple of the RK2806 based HD PMP’s like the Ramos T11 and Oppo s39 which both have flash based Ui’s which actually look pretty nice. The RK2806 looks pretty capable in terms of HD video playback too so hopefully the RK2808 will have been slightly improved and tweaked for MID use. Hard to really say how well this chip actually performs although from the demo it seems like it could have potential.
I’m hoping it will show some significant improvement over Samsung/ARM 6400 series cpu’s as used in the SmartQ 5/7 MID’s. The SmartQ MID’s video playback performance was very dissapointing and the use of an overly heavy weight OS like ubuntu really did them no favours, (although the wince6.0 version was an improvement). The Meizu M8 which is also Samsung/ARM 6400 based and obviously the Iphone seem to make alot better use of the hardware decoding I think as they both show improved video performance, mind you they are significantly smaller devices. Software wise Apple really did make amazing use of that chip though, a really credit to their engineers.
Hopefully some Chinese or other manufactur will pick up on this though and start cranking out some HD capable android MID’s. The one advantage Rockchip do have is that their chips tend to be pretty cheap. Touchscreen RK2806 based pmp’s are currently going for arouund 699RMB/$102 in China atm and I can’t imagine hardware wise an RK2808 based android device would be much different, apart from perhaps a wifi module thrown in.
Also if someone could port HTC’s sense UI to one of these bad boys that would be unbelievable, the sluggish Qualcomm/ARM cpu in the HTC hero really doesn’t do that amazing looking UI justice.
If someone manages to bring one of these in at around $200 i’m most definitely sold.
Unfortunately, This device might not see the light of day. On the brighter side, This device just opened up countless posibilities for future MIDs. They proved that a MID can have sexyness combined with amazing features.
As far as sense UI, I don’t see any reason why it cannot be ported to any Android OS. It’s just a matter of time.
I’m sure someone will come out with a better MID before (if) this is released. I agree with Jethro of the countless possiblities this has opened.
One thing that would really keep me from buying this device (at this stage of the development of it, I’m assuming it’s a prototype there) is the icky-poo back-lighting artifacts at the bottom of the screen that are really prominent.