The price of quad core Android mini PCs keeps dropping and MK809III (aka QC802) is now available for just over $60 with Rockchip RK3188 SoC, 2GB RAM, and 8GB flash. The recent price drop is not quite large enough to be newsworthy, but one reader (and commenter) noticed something interesting in one product description.
So this seller is apparently able to sell MK809III with 4GB RAM and 16GB Flash. 4GB RAM is probably overkill for Android, but it could be useful for those who want to run Linux.
The sellers told him MK809III with 4GB RAM (and 8GB Flash) is available for $75, but the minimum order quantity (MOQ) is 20 pieces. I’ve also contacted the seller myself, and initially was told about the “MOQ 20” requirement, and that both 4GB RAM/8GB flash and 4GB RAM/16GB Flash could be made available. But when I asked about the price and lead time, I was told, after a few minutes, that 20 pieces is actually too little for the factory, so they must collect orders. Nevertheless, with some patience, this could mean we’ll soon be able to buy RK3188 mini PCs maxed out with 4GB RAM.
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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Shame it’s not one of the box-format ones. But maybe hints that a 4GB RAM model would sell will encourage more manufacturers to make some…
How is Linux on RK3188 coming along? 🙂
First we need a working linux for rk3188 sticks, then we need hardware accelerated drivers / modules, then we can dream about 4gb ram sticks (although I’m not sure how much ram can be addressed, 3Gb or 3.5gb under 32 bit arm soc)
Have not yet dived in into actual driver design of the ARM arch, but as the main components of that 32-bit x86-world 3.0-3.5GiB per 4GiB comes from the fact of PCI memory mapping, that is not present in those RockChip ARM devices, it might actually come fully usable for end user, only block of memory that is taken out for I/O is after all taken out already from 1GiB memory devices too (i.e. 946MiB available, instead of full 1GiB).
So an stick with 4GiB memory might expose to the user “only” 3.92GiB or so.
@onebir
Personally still haven’t been able to compile an Linux3188 kernel that I could end up in production machine, the coding quality is so horrendous on ARM specific bits that GCC-4.8 is having hard time even passing with just warnings. 🙁
And to be able to compile through it all, means disabling the bits that actually would make the stick usable as general desktop, looking way worse that I thought from just using ready made kernel binaries. :-S
But at least most of the code drop is still fairly readable, so maybe somebody brave enough will take all those separate kernel source blobs floating about, and merge them all into one for restyling into Linux kernel quality code, is not impossible, just ridiculous amounts of work, as there are clear signs that the coding is originating Winsnooze people, and their space/tab indentations.
And need to translate a whole lot of Chinese comments into Chinglese (likely via Google translation, and then try to figure out what it actually actually was supposed to say).
should be great for when ubuntu touch is out.
hope we get all the drivers too.
@onebir
Oh, and obviously need to check the code with llvm/clang to be sure the code passes the mustard.
@anon
Thanks for the info, anon; still tough going then 🙁
Perhaps the 20 (+?) MOQ creates a commercial opportunity for Linux-savvy retailers to sort this out, and ship a 4GB stick or (better) box? Even if they have to release their work under GPL (right? :s) it could be a while before other retailers realise there’s a market for the 4GB version.
I also wonder if this might not suit the company that commissioned the 2GB Cubieboards even better for this purpose?
Maybe the best way to get these onto the retail market is to bug dx:
http://dx.com/Feedbacks/ProductRequest
(or indeed the original sellers?)