houstonbofh wrote on 01/06/13 at 09:07:39:

Actually HDMI 1.4 goes well beyond 1080,  HDMI 1.4 spec is now up to a resolution of 4096 pixels wide by 2160 pixels high over a single link. This is  otherwise known as 4K when you are looking at the specs of what your graphics card or drivers are supporting as well as hardware that is coming out as well.  The A10 chips are capable of the 2160 resolutions as well, but I haven't seen any monitors out there yet that have 2160 resolution yet.

You have also got to remember when they are talking about the specific names of SD and HD it really only applies to televisions and not computer equipment.  SD resolution as refered to TVs was 640x480 then the jump to HD is now either 720 which is 1280x720 or 1080 which is 1920x1080 for the norm.  On the horizon is the newer 4K stuff which I have yet to see hit the market myself, although I could be wrong.

Yup, as promised, it's got a total of 76 cores on it ....

http://liliputing.com/2013/01/nvidia-pulls-the-wraps-off-tegra-4-quad-core-ar...

Intel has finally posted up some real technical specs on their proposed five new vaporware processors that are supposed to be 7 watt processors.

They aren't.   Intel has simply invented a new metric to make their existing current draw chips look better.   Lying, in other words.

http://liliputing.com/2013/01/intels-new-low-power-ivy-bridge-chips-are-more-...

Is this a CES public admission from Intel that they simply CAN'T get their chips down into the ARM/Android chip power draw range?

This is bad news for Intel because the ARM chips are getting better, not worse as they roll on into the A15 era.  And by all expectations, next year they when they go to A57 they will get even more powerful and still get mildly better on power draw as well (any time you bump down in nanometer lithography size you draw less power).

Tegra 4 draws less power than Tegra 3, but is six times more powerful.  Ditto again for next year and Tegra 5.  

Intel can't just make up power draw parity, their slick marketing jive lasted exactly 2 minutes before they were called on it from the CES showroom floor by savvy reporters calling in the story on their cell phones.

Intel's lithography advantage isn't going to save Intel, they already have a 22 vs 28 nm advantage that has yielded them nothing.  Next year it will be 22 vs 20 and ARM will be smaller and Intel's problems will just get bigger.

Not to mention the big cost gap is still there.   ARM costs less than half what Intel costs.   And when the Chinese foundries finally kick in on a design that drops to 1/4 as much (or even less over time).

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/power-saving-through-marketing-intels-...

Verslagen said it, the smack down at CES continues with Steve Balmer physically gate crashing the Qualcom keynote address.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57562703/microsoft-ceo-crashes-qualcomm-k...

Gotta go look at this one because the images are integral HDML scripts and aren't simple pics.

Microsoft wasn't invited to give a keynote because they had nothing new to show (Win8RT isn't new, neither is Surface).   So Balmer just walked his ugly butt up on the stage during the Qualcomm keynote address and stole the mic to say how wonderful Surface is and that his microsoft coding people have written "10,000 world class apps" for the unsupported (and totally locked down and isolated) Win8RT Surface system.    You know, the one with the 30% inside 30 day warranty return rate?   The one that he cancelled all production orders on after the first 30 days, fired the team leader and has now made arrangements with Best Buy and Dell to try to sell off the excess units at a 30% discount (soon to be 50%)?  Yeah, that one ....

And his new win8 phones are selling 7 times better than the win7 phones did this time last year.  Let's see, 7 times more than nothing is .... nothing plus 7 phones?  

How do you do that math, Steve?    This is how Wall Street does it ....

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-windows-8-sales-data-is-in-and-its-horribl...



http://www.businessinsider.com/demand-for-windows-8-is-weak-says-fujitsu-pres...



And how about MicroSoft's cell phone partner, Nokia, the one who is struggling to make enough Win8 phones to meet the tiny demand?  How are they doing as MicroSoft's exclusive Win phone partner?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57556961-94/nokia-sells-finnish-headquarters...

Nokia Corporation (ADR)
NYSE: NOK - Jan 9 1:02pm ET
3.84-0.22‎ (-5.31%‎)



Still got you a lot of traction in that phone market, hey Steve?

Take the time to watch this one ....    Watch it after you read the below "look for it" statements so you will actually see all that is shown.

I done told you that the big guns would come out early on the A15/A7 generation because the next A57/A53 64 bit generation was pushed forward a year early by Apple.  

I also told you that the Allwinner 31 quad core A7 was likely to be the low end chip of the generation, that everyone would come out high end from the get go to try to get something useful out of their 2013 investment, crowding the best in before the inevitable 64 bit customer preference puts it all in the dust in early 2014.

So, watch this short slice of the Samsung keynote address as the head of Samsung (Apple's CPU partner) and the head of ARM talk about the new Exnos 5 octa (8 active CPU cores, 80 GPU cores = 88 total cores).   Watch the demo of the chip in action where it shows the little cores and the big cores kicking in "mix and match" style to handle the multi-tasking workload that is shown.  

Realize that big screen is being driven by the little tablet up on the table, and that the guy crashing the cars in section 1 of the demo was actually driving the thing on the stage using the tablet.   This demo is all real time being driven by a low power consumption high output power ARM chipset which is apparently in pretty much a stock ARM big/LITTLE configuration.

Listen to the ARM president, as he mentions in passing that the 80 GPU cores can also be tasked to do compute duties if they are not needed for driving the screen.   This is APPLE's little dirty trick that is built into APPLE's I OS, which is why their stuff works better than you would think it could just looking at CPU core counts.   Ask yourself what APPLE products are going to be introduced soon, as this stuff was all worked out last year and the chips are being produced for the next big APPLE roll-out as we type.  

Get a better grip about what "a sea of cores" really means out into the future.  This chip can drive a laptop easily.

They mention facial recognition and smart camera technology, other vendors have mentioned support for "stereo cameras" (two you facing cameras on the tablet that get slightly different views of your face).  They talk in passing about 3D pictograhics capability being built into the SOC system ....  APPLE will "splash out" all this neat new stuff soon.

Lastly, realize that the performance that they show up on the big screen from the hand held tablet kicks the ass of my whole computer system by 3-4x.  This is the first time I have considered simply getting a 10" super tablet and not bothering with a desktop system at all.  

All of these super tablets accept bluetooth keyboard typing, so the real keyboard and rapid typing is the only thing I would miss when using it mobile (but I might well learn "to talk it in" instead as that funtion is built into all the supertablets now).  I'd blither the thoughts in, then edit it by on screen keyboard.

My wife uses a tablet now as her main computing device, she only touches her laptop if she needs to type something for work.  Her IPad goes with her everywhere .....

http://www.howchip.com/shop/item.php?it_id=BRIX5250A


OK, the first of the A15 dual core mini computers is out now -- this one swings Mali 604 graphics and according to the folks at Howchip.com is Linaro compatible from the get go since the chip is a plain jane ARM designed standard dual core A15 with Mali 604 graphics.

This means Ubuntu support.   This means Linaro support.  This means updates, tweeks, etc. etc. will come out as they are written through the standard Ubuntu upgrade method.

This is how ARM should work.

Notice the Howchip.com home web page is kinda blunt and proud that it is Linaro Compliant and Ubuntu Compatible.  This too is how ARM should work.

$145 for a complete computer is how it should work too.   Maybe a little high $$$ right now (first one out and all) but the price will drop quick enough when the competitors show up.

Also, all the links to all the software need to be "made real" before somebody shells out their hard earned dollars.

I would wait until the Youtube videos come out and the Linux guys do their exhaustive reviews -- you are looking for a stock "it just plain works" Ubuntu support level, then instantly your Mint etc. will be working with it too.  

And yes, when this happens then they will sell a bunch of them.

Chipset "clocks" 1.7 mhz per core, so that is a 2.4 combined mhz the way we used to do it back in the day, first core counts full and second core counts half.   Mali604 graphics isn't a slouch either, full 1080p HDMI at 60 frames a second will play any game acceptably.

So, we have arrived.   For $145 I could "double up" my old white box PC with a Ubuntu box that could easily fit in the palm of my hand.



It will be interesting to see what Hardkernel.com and the other miniboard makers comes up with using these same fully supported A15 dual and quad and octo Exnos chips .....



ONCE AGAIN -- wait for the actual user reviews to expose the warts and "overstatements" on any newly released oriental product.  

They all have compatibility warts of some kind and some of the intentional "overstatements" can be flat amazing once they are outed.
 

For example, this SOC is actually made at the 32 nanometer lithography level, instead of the "proper" 28 nanometer lithography, which is one reason it is only a 1.7 mhz A15 chipset instead of a 2.0 mhz chipset which is what it will eventually be when run on the 28 nm process.  

Why?  APPLE helped pay for the 28 nm process at Samsung, so APPLE has the 28 nm stuff locked up tight until they go down to their next nm level, which is 20nm and will occur next year.   Then Samsung will come out with Exnos "upgraded" chips that are 25%  faster.


 Ain't it all interesting?   That is why they call them "development boards" after all ....

I have been reading this thread with more interest than understanding. Please explain in layman's terms what all these developments mean to the average consumer. I have no interest in a laptop or tablet because the screens are too small, although everyone else does not seem to mind. At what point will a computer be smarter than me? (Be nice, now).