When comparing budget tablets, I've found the Allwinner based tablets perform poorly vs similarly priced Rockchip and Via chip based tablets.
It seems like you see too many A10-based and A13-based tablets in the same price ranges as tablets based on the Via WM8850 and Rockchip's RK3066, both of which blow the A13 and A10 tablets away (in my hands).
Allwinner a10 is nowhere near as fast as Rockchip RK3066 but look at what is up against
Allwinner a10 is a single core cortex A8 with about 1.2 ghz. Rockchip RK3066 is a dual core cortex A9 with about 1.6 ghz.
Double the cores, 33% more frequency, and finally A9s have about 25% more IPC than A8s. Of course the Rockchip is much faster then the allwinner.
To put it another way (ironically the ratios are perfect for this comparison.). The Iphone 3GS has a single core cortex A8, Iphone 4S has a dual core cortex A9. The Iphone 4S mhz is also 33% higher than the 3GS. Does anyone who has had both phones think the Iphone 4S is similar in speed to the 3GS?
The rk3066 cost about $15 and the a10 cost less than $7. These low end allwinner tablets are being sold for about $41 wholesale, so the bump up in cpu does change the cost significantly.
@$20/piece, I'm looking forward to see these SoC flood the cheaper made phones/tablets. This will definitely raise the bottom performance line denominator for Android devices.
Why get a cheap[er] iphone especially in places like China when you can get these power beasts alternatives at lower/better pricing.
As pugster said, Allwinner chips are apparently $7 in quantity. The super-cheap 7" $40 Aakash 2 tablets for Indian students have (so far) been Chinese Allwinner A13-based gadgets--though they want to shift to actually building those tablets in India, so that may change the part sourcing/design as well.
Yeah, I can imagine these getting attention in the US. They'll never have the marketing of a Kindle Fire or Nexus 7, but you do wonder if insanely low prices plus a standout feature or two (like using Apple's display part) will get some love. Or if they'll get attention from Apple's lawyers at least. :)
This V972 seems like a great opportunity to do some kind of round-up review of "knock-off" tablets. I'm very tempted by the $240 price tag, but its a bit too much for me to simply impulse buy. The korean 1440P monitor experience has warmed me up to compromising on certain secondary aspects of a product in order to get some otherwise very expensive tech ( the high res screen), but I'd like a bit of background first
I agree. Maybe Anandtech could purchase a few of these lesser known tablets and do a full review on them? I would find it deeply interesting, and I'm sure many others would too. Come to think of it, Onda would probably be happy to give you a few tablets in exchange for the amount of publicity they would get.
I'm just curious, how does $20 compare to the current costs of older high end smart phone chips like omap 4430 and MSM8960? Because, based on the Sunspider scores, the A31 falls kind of in between those two chips; that brings up a lot of questions about cost value for new cortex A7 only chips versus older cortex A9 chips particularly when you are spending die space on a bunch of extra cores and money to design the chip.
I'm very happy with the 2 Aniol Flame 7" tablets we picked up for xmas. For 140 euro each including shipping , also came with an otg usb cable, a mini HDMI cable, power adapter.
There is nothing on the market at retail in Ireland that can compare to the value of these and currently 2 different devs have ported 4..2.1 onto the tablet. There can and will be bugs so you just have to research what you are buying and who you are buying from. And they can run XBMC Frodo” Release Candidate 3.
Maybe Anandtech would think about reviewing some to these tablet in the future, the latest and greatest is always cool to read about but the cost can be prohibitive. I wonder how many smart phones would be in peoples pockets now if everyone had to buy them at full price up front ?.
Specs of the Flame CPU: Dual Core AMLogic AML8726-MX 1.5GHz GPU: Dual Core Mali400 RAM: 1GB DDR3 Storage: 16GB Bluetooth: Built-in! v2.1 Screen: 7 inch IPS screen, 1024*800 pixel Screen Type: Capacitive Screen Visible: Angle 180° Extend Card: Support TF card up to 32GB Gravity Sensor: Yes Multi-Touch: Yes, 5-points touch Video: 1080P, AVI/MOV/MP4/RMVB/FLV/MKV support HDMI 1.4 Music: MP3/WMA/WAV/APE/AAC/FLAC/OGG Ebook: TXT, PDF, HTML, RTF, FB2 Dual Cameras: 5 mega pixel rear camera and 2.0MP front camera! WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n Earphone Interface: 3.5mm mini USB out mini HDMI out
These tablets seem pretty tempting, but then I think about the Nexus 7 which is a nice device with a real warranty that sells for $199. For $20 more than the ipad mini knockoff, I'd personally get the Nexus. Same for the 9.7" version. I would buy an Asus TF300T for $300 before spending $240 on the knock-off ipad. $60 is not a gigantic price jump for a product that has warranty support in the United States. That's my take, but I'd still be curious to see a comparison.
The new Archos tablets seem to be using the Allwinner cpus. I'm not fond of china sourced designs, but, I may have to for the 11.6 platinum in screen. I plan on reading some 1080p at just the right dpi. That's going to be my e reader.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
16 Comments
Back to Article
shomizu9 - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
When comparing budget tablets, I've found the Allwinner based tablets perform poorly vs similarly priced Rockchip and Via chip based tablets.It seems like you see too many A10-based and A13-based tablets in the same price ranges as tablets based on the Via WM8850 and Rockchip's RK3066, both of which blow the A13 and A10 tablets away (in my hands).
Roland00Address - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
Allwinner a10 is nowhere near as fast as Rockchip RK3066 but look at what is up againstAllwinner a10 is a single core cortex A8 with about 1.2 ghz.
Rockchip RK3066 is a dual core cortex A9 with about 1.6 ghz.
Double the cores, 33% more frequency, and finally A9s have about 25% more IPC than A8s. Of course the Rockchip is much faster then the allwinner.
To put it another way (ironically the ratios are perfect for this comparison.). The Iphone 3GS has a single core cortex A8, Iphone 4S has a dual core cortex A9. The Iphone 4S mhz is also 33% higher than the 3GS. Does anyone who has had both phones think the Iphone 4S is similar in speed to the 3GS?
pugster - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
The rk3066 cost about $15 and the a10 cost less than $7. These low end allwinner tablets are being sold for about $41 wholesale, so the bump up in cpu does change the cost significantly.amdwilliam1985 - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
@$20/piece, I'm looking forward to see these SoC flood the cheaper made phones/tablets.This will definitely raise the bottom performance line denominator for Android devices.
Why get a cheap[er] iphone especially in places like China when you can get these power beasts alternatives at lower/better pricing.
pugster - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
Actually $20/piece is relatively costly. The Allwinner a10 was estimated to cost around $7 a few months back and the a13 cost around $5.twotwotwo - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
As pugster said, Allwinner chips are apparently $7 in quantity. The super-cheap 7" $40 Aakash 2 tablets for Indian students have (so far) been Chinese Allwinner A13-based gadgets--though they want to shift to actually building those tablets in India, so that may change the part sourcing/design as well.Yeah, I can imagine these getting attention in the US. They'll never have the marketing of a Kindle Fire or Nexus 7, but you do wonder if insanely low prices plus a standout feature or two (like using Apple's display part) will get some love. Or if they'll get attention from Apple's lawyers at least. :)
Activate: AMD - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
This V972 seems like a great opportunity to do some kind of round-up review of "knock-off" tablets. I'm very tempted by the $240 price tag, but its a bit too much for me to simply impulse buy. The korean 1440P monitor experience has warmed me up to compromising on certain secondary aspects of a product in order to get some otherwise very expensive tech ( the high res screen), but I'd like a bit of background firstcoder543 - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
I agree. Maybe Anandtech could purchase a few of these lesser known tablets and do a full review on them? I would find it deeply interesting, and I'm sure many others would too. Come to think of it, Onda would probably be happy to give you a few tablets in exchange for the amount of publicity they would get.coder543 - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
This is extremely interesting. I would love to have some hands on time with these tablets..GNUminex - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
I'm just curious, how does $20 compare to the current costs of older high end smart phone chips like omap 4430 and MSM8960? Because, based on the Sunspider scores, the A31 falls kind of in between those two chips; that brings up a lot of questions about cost value for new cortex A7 only chips versus older cortex A9 chips particularly when you are spending die space on a bunch of extra cores and money to design the chip.doggod - Saturday, January 12, 2013 - link
I'm very happy with the 2 Aniol Flame 7" tablets we picked up for xmas. For 140 euro each including shipping , also came with an otg usb cable, a mini HDMI cable, power adapter.There is nothing on the market at retail in Ireland that can compare to the value of these and currently 2 different devs have ported 4..2.1 onto the tablet.
There can and will be bugs so you just have to research what you are buying and who you are buying from.
And they can run XBMC Frodo” Release Candidate 3.
Maybe Anandtech would think about reviewing some to these tablet in the future, the latest and greatest is always cool to read about but the cost can be prohibitive. I wonder how many smart phones would be in peoples pockets now if everyone had to buy them at full price up front ?.
Specs of the Flame
CPU: Dual Core AMLogic AML8726-MX 1.5GHz
GPU: Dual Core Mali400
RAM: 1GB DDR3
Storage: 16GB
Bluetooth: Built-in! v2.1
Screen: 7 inch IPS screen, 1024*800 pixel
Screen Type: Capacitive Screen
Visible: Angle 180°
Extend Card: Support TF card up to 32GB
Gravity Sensor: Yes
Multi-Touch: Yes, 5-points touch
Video: 1080P, AVI/MOV/MP4/RMVB/FLV/MKV support HDMI 1.4
Music: MP3/WMA/WAV/APE/AAC/FLAC/OGG
Ebook: TXT, PDF, HTML, RTF, FB2
Dual Cameras: 5 mega pixel rear camera and 2.0MP front camera!
WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n
Earphone Interface: 3.5mm
mini USB out
mini HDMI out
TrackSmart - Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - link
These tablets seem pretty tempting, but then I think about the Nexus 7 which is a nice device with a real warranty that sells for $199. For $20 more than the ipad mini knockoff, I'd personally get the Nexus. Same for the 9.7" version. I would buy an Asus TF300T for $300 before spending $240 on the knock-off ipad. $60 is not a gigantic price jump for a product that has warranty support in the United States. That's my take, but I'd still be curious to see a comparison.rupaniii - Saturday, March 2, 2013 - link
The new Archos tablets seem to be using the Allwinner cpus. I'm not fond of china sourced designs, but, I may have to for the 11.6 platinum in screen. I plan on reading some 1080p at just the right dpi. That's going to be my e reader.topgear31 - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - link
Found some interesting videos that test end products using A31:Epic Citadel, 2048x1526 res
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TOUdeBZqRg
"Optimized" Antutu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_uyvL1XCpc
Georgephx - Friday, January 31, 2014 - link
No Bluetooth-whatz up with that?mustkara - Friday, June 27, 2014 - link
I bought a wifi android projector from globaledigital that is using ARMⓇ Cortex™-A7 Dual-corePerformance is good. Togther with wifi connect to network and android os, it is easy to download apps from google play
http://www.globaledigital.com/index.php/holatek-an...