Soldierknowsbest reviewed the Augen Gentouch 2 (same as Augen Gentouch 78 ??), one of the first Android tablet available (Cost around 150 USD). Basically, his advice is to avoid it, the device is terrible: poor touch screen (resistive), no multitouch, navigation requires to use external buttons, Android Market not working, some dodgy battery usage… On the hardware side, Augen Gentouch uses Telechips 8902 @ 600 Mhz, 256MB DDR2, 2GB Internal Storage, Wifi etc… Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)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. www.cnx-software.com
Media Player based on SMP8653 – Magic Box HDP500
Magic Box HDP500 manufactured by gmini (apparently a Russian company) is a new media player featuring the 500-Mhz SMP8653 chipset from Sigma Designs. It does not use Android OS yet, and as far I know no company has yet released SMP8653 Android based products. Having said that, it comes with most of the connectivity you would expect from a decent set-top box: USB connector (device: USB storage,host: laptop/PC connection), Audio/Video Composite ouput, Component (YPbPr) output, HDMI and optical digital audio output and and Ethernet port. On the software side, it is a full featured 1080p media player, with video, music and picture galleries, Internet Radio, UPnP support… It could also be used as a NAS with the USB host connection to your PC. The missing features are: no support for digital TV (e.g. DVB-T, DMB-TH), no Wifi support, no web applications/web browser, no movie download (BT/Emule), no Real media video […]
Android STB – WebTube HD
Here’s another Android Set-top-box that may come to the market soon. I do not have much information on this product, except it’s made by mnex – a Korean company. (Update: although the youtube video says otherwise, the design seems to belong to Innodigital (See Webtube HD details). The video below shows it supports Android web browser, Youtube, Google maps and interestingly an application market especially designed for TV (TV Application Market). Apparently, they control the box with a normal remote control, no track ball or touch pad, nor do they seem to have support for wireless mouse and/or keyboard. The demo looks good, although a bit sluggish. See for yourself: Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)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. www.cnx-software.com
Digital Signage Video Walls by Samsung
[ad#Google Adsense – Wide Banner] Here’s an interesting video of “Samsung ID” video wall solution using MagicInfo Pro content and device management software. The different monitors are assembled like Lego and allowing you to create different shapes. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)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. www.cnx-software.com
Yet Another Android Tablet by Foxconn
Here’s a video of another Android tablet, a 10″ tablet made by Foxconn, aka Hon Hai Precision Industry Company. There seems to be quite a few tablets coming on the market (See Allgo Tablet) that should keep the prices down. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)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. www.cnx-software.com
IPAD Killer – Allgo Android Tablet
Ok, the title is a bit over the top but the Allgo tablet reference design running android would only cost around 35 USD to manufacture (15 dollars for the board, 15 dollars for the touch screen display and 5 dollars for the battery). So you’d be able to browse the web, read e-books, flicker through your pictures and access a wide range of applications through Google app store for less than 100 USD (retail) compared to the IPAD retail price of 499 USD that would seem like a bargain even though the performance is not as good as the IPAD (but still acceptable) as you can see in the video below. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)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. www.cnx-software.com
ARM-based Android Set-Top-Box
Last month, I posted a blog entry about demo featuring Sigma Designs Android STB that was shown at CeBit last January. AFAIK this is still being developed and there is still no Android STB products based on Sigma Designs Chips that can be purchased. Earlier this month, another company Webia Technologies demo’ed an Android STB (HDMI 1080p – ARM 11) whose factory price would be 50 USD, which is well below the price of a similar Sigma Designs STB based on SMP8640 or SMP8650 series. They also showed a smaller box that can support 720p and selling for 25 USD (Factory price, not retail price). You can see the demo below showing both set-top-boxes. Interestingly enough, I was unable to find Webia Technologies website or other previous news about this company. All I found is Webia Technologies is supposedly registered in Hong Kong. Update: After searching which ARM-based solution may […]
Digital Signage Features – A Quick Guide to Select Your Digital Signage Solution
There are a lot of different digital signage solutions around and it may be difficult to find which one is right for you since there can be quite a few different features and options. So I’ll do my best to explain the main features to guide your choice if you are planning to purchase a digital signage solution (embedded signage player, content management software and server). I’ll focus this post on the digital signage player, but bear in mind the content manager software is equally very important. [ad#Google Adsense – Wide Banner] Hardware features Video outputs: composite, component (YPbPr), VGA, DVI, HDMI, LVDS The capability to output simultaneously to different video outputs maybe an advantage if your plan is to use one player to output to several monitors. Video resolution: Standard Definition (e.g. NTSC) vs. High Definition (e.g. 1080p) This is a simple choice based on costs and whether you […]