WenWM
Member
- Sep 21, 2010
- 24
- 4
The news article was initially published with errors that have since been corrected.
While we wait for the Android tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab, it seems MP4Nation wants to divert our attention to their new Rocktab tablet. Earlier today they sent Androidguys a press release for their new tablet.
This is a rebrand of the Acho C901, which is a newly released Android tablet currently retailing for 880RMB (130USD). This makes the MP4Nation pricing on par with retailing pricing in China.
The Rocktab is a Rockchip RK2808a tablet. Aimed for the low to mid end Android market, the RK2808 has been one of the most popular Android chipsets today, being used in devices such as the Archos 7 Home Tablet.
The interface customization done by Acho is insignificant, providing no feature improvements on top of the original RK2808a SDK by Rockchip. This means it has an ARM9 600 MHz CPU with only 128MB of RAM, with application performance slightly worse than the HTC Dream / G1.
While the Android market is functional on the device, users are limited to applications supporting Android 1.5, which are being phased out and abandoned by software developers adopting newer platforms dominating the Android device market. Buyers need to be aware that the device has been abandoned by both software and hardware developers alike.
The Rockchip RK2808A is limited to Android 1.5, as Rockchip has not continued development on the platform. It is an abandoned platform on clearance from the chipset manufacturer.
The lack of sufficient dedicated Android specific hardware buttons on the device is a serious issue, despite the addition of a dedicated trackball. It will continue to have the full screen application issues exhibited by all Rockchip RK2808A device with a 800x480 landscape resolution. Android 1.5 does not properly support 800x480 screens, resulting in very poor application compatibility.
Needless to say, at this price point, there are few tablets that match the functionality of this device. It supports USB hosting, 720p video, web browsing, and is a decent MP4 player at stock configuration. However, as an Android tablet, it is much wiser to skip this for a device shipping with newer versions of Android such as Android 2.1. Battery life averages 2 hours for newer devices on the RK2808A platform.
Picture Sources:
MIDBBS via Cnpad
Last edited by a moderator:
