iPPea Inc announced iPPea TV, an Android 4.0 dongle based on Ingenic JZ4770 MIPS SoC that “brings the ‘smart’ Android experience to any HDMI-enabled DTV for $50 US”. This is the first MIPS based Android mini PC that I’ve seem among all the ARM based floating around.
Here are iPPea TV specifications:
- Ingenic JZ4770 applications processor (MIPS-Based XBurst CPU) @ 1.2 GHz.
- 2GB storage with support for up to 32 GB external storage via a microSD slot.
- 512 MB of DDR2 RAM
- HDMI ouput (up to 1080p)
- 802.11b/g/n Wifi
- USB 2.0 port and micro USB 2.0 OTG port
- Video format – AVI,MKV(XVID/px/H.264),MOV,TS,M2TS, RM/RMVB,FLV,3GP,MPEG,DAT,MP4
- Audio format – AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A
- Picture format – GIF, BMP, JPEG, PNG
- Ebook format: PDF,EPUB,HTML,TXT
- Dimensions – PCB: 80 mm x 20mm x 6.5 mm | mini PC: As small as 95.5 mm x 31.5 mm x 12 mm.
- iPPea TV Dongle is said to draw only 350mA. .
- Android 4.0.3
The device also support 1080p video decoding. You can see the board PCBA in the video below, and watch it in action.
The company claims it will offer OTA upgrade to the device, but I suppose like many other mini PCs (excluding AllWinner A10) you’ll only be able to run Android on it. Oh Wait… They have a developer kit page… oh well, it’s an empty forum for now.. But if you browse further you’ll also see forum sections for programming, and an “operating systems” section with Debian, Android and Linux kernel sub-forums, as well as a “projects” sections. All are empty for now, but there may be some potential here. If Linux is going to run on iPPea TV, the easiest is to use a distribution that supports MIPS, which is probably why they plan support for Debian, but not Ubuntu.
If you wonder about the performance, it’s using the same SoC as Ainol Novo 7 tablet which appears equivalent to AllWinner a10 tablets on several benchmarks (e.g. Antutu: 2816 to 3000).
iPPea TV can be pre-ordered on iPPea eStore for $50 + $15 shipping (worldwide) and is expected to ship by the end of July. The package also includes a USB power cable and a micro USB to USB cable. They also have optional accessories such as a 3D + gyro wireless key mouse ($22), a USB RJ45 LAN adaptor ($12), an HDMI extension cable ($8) and a 360 degree HDMI connector ($8).
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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You could also check out Dingux/OpenDingux projects (http://wiki.dingoonity.org). They have 2-3 years of experience with Linux on Jz4740.
@ Dmitry
Thanks for the links. The kernel and bootloader on Ingenic website could be a bit too old to run a recent Linux distribution however.
The Ingenic JZ4770 has a 65nm CMOS process, Antutu 2816-3000, and only 350mA@5V. Fantastic!
Too bad it has Mips core, because many programs are written for ARM processors.
Oky Guy’s, One more android MiniPC disguised as gamebox from some celebrity tech designer with some extra dough.
Do check it.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console
All I want to add in this 2GB ram instead of 1GB and a microsd slot. Or may be I’m missing something.
Over to seniors.
@ Gabe
It should not be a problem (on Android) except for applications that use the NDK such as games. MIPS announced that Fruit Ninja and Opera will be ported to MIPS, and Fruit Ninja developers claimed it was very easy with Android NDK that already supports MIPS.
@ max
Yes, that’s a clever marketing coup, and it works as they almost raised $2 million.
Why did you need 2GB RAM? I mean what kind of application requires this amount of RAM ? Or is it for multitasking ?
There are so many of these STB-stick things now it’s getting confusing. Maybe worth putting them in a specs comparison table, with some notes on what distros they’re known to run etc?
Multi Tasking yes… + it’ll help running any Linux distro smoothly. And if added cost is just $2 why not, I mean my problem with manufacturers is that they don’t give you an option to choose higher configuration hardware , or may be they don’t want to.
Just like Intel or Apple release an updated version every year and let the Benjamin’s flow… 🙂
This might sound little offtopic, But I want to plugin here.
I’m saying this as I’ve seen an intel Q6600 Quad on some underground Russian forum way back in 2002 (they used to sell stolen high end hardware, Including perfectly working rocket engines :))
But intel released the damn chip in the year around 2004-05 I think. I know they need testing time etc. But its more like the music composer’s who keep composing tunes and creat a music bank. And then release it one by one as market demand and money requirement arrives.
/rant over 🙂
@ Onebir
As long as you know which processor your stick uses, that easy:
* AllWinner A10 – Android, and basically any Linux distribution that supports ARM.
* All Others – Android
iPPea TV might support Linux, but we’ll have to see.
@ cnxsoft
I see what you mean, but I’m not sure it’s quite so simple… eg AFAIK the Mele A2000 is the only one with a a SATA interface. That makes it ideal for a NAS.
But it’s more complicated to get it to run Linux than most of the A10 units, which just need properly prepared SD cards. (That also seems to be true for the sticks without SD card slots.)
And as units with different processors are released, and various distros are ported to these, possibly with different RAM requirements, things get even more confusing…
@ Onebir
All the software for A10 has been developed on the Mele A1000 (and Mele A2000 to a lesser extend), so you can also simply use an SD card, load the program and there you go.
The mini-PC units basically use the same firmware as the one for Mele A1000. It’s just it might be easier to find SD card images hosted online for mini-PCs because they are more popular than the Mele.