Note:   this will be the last 32 bit Nexus tablet generation

http://liliputing.com/2013/04/report-next-gen-nexus-7-tablet-to-cost-149-ship...



OK, another reason Apple needs to uncork their WOW stuff now is their very high pricing point, Apple is going to want to charge a lot for their WOW and if they wait until mid summer release period Google is going to be there with their new stuff to steal a chunk of their thunder.

Google is changing chip vendors from Nvidia Tegra to Qualcomm Snapdragon and they are going to up the specs on their Nexus 7 take #2.  Price point is going down as well, better goodies, pricing at 50 dollars cheaper.

Why?   Why does Google sell a competitive product at just about cost?   Well, it goes like this -- it isn't sold at cost.   Google sells the stuff directly to the public at a small profit, small enough that they can still support resale by all the normal retailers if they want to order a minimal large quantity at a time.  Google does not lose money on Nexus products, they just make a moderate small profit.

Google is trying to get the retail chain to quit raping people (tricks the cell phone vendors have taught them over the years) and to start selling electronics using Android at a reasonable price.  And to quit monkeying with the Android operating system for no real reason, it is complete enough and the skins are pretty enough and there are plenty of screen variants if you want a variant.

Tablets are only good technologically for just a couple of years before you would most likely choose to replace them.

Why would you pay $500 when you can get just about the same jollies for $150 ???   Since it is a good repeat business, why are you shooting for a 200% or better mark up?  That's just raping people.

Plus, Google had originally prepared this little wizz bang as a response for Apple should Apple try to hit the same price point as the Nexus 7 with a bigger better unit (of course Apple saw this coming and came out high again on the pricing).   So Google had worked out a low cost really nice wizz bang so why shouldn't they use it this year?

Which Qualcomm chipset?   Who knows?   Will it have a microSD slot for cheap memory expansion?  Who knows?  Will it have GPS?   Who knows?

But, look for a perfect fit to the latest Android version, look for new WOW Android features to be fully supported, and look for the item to be a great value for the dollars spent.

Note:  Google also uses the huge Nexus 7 volume to help recalcitrant vendors to decide to support open standards.  Between Google's volume and Linus's middle finger Nvidia decided last year to leave proprietary standards and go totally open, so now mebbe it is Qualcomm's turn to see the light.

Yup, Nexus 7 has always had a locked boot loader but Google has never made them hard to unlock pretty much on purpose.  If the new unit is as good as the last one, look for Ubuntu and the others to have it's skirts up around its head before it actually starts shipping here in the USA.   Did you know you can actually replace a battery in a Nexus 7 without having speciality case opening tools?

YES -- OPEN SOURCE IS THE WAY TO GO WITH UTILITY TABLETS IF YOU HAVE ANY GEEK TO YOU AT ALL.   Nothing open source really dies, if you can find a forum that supports it that is.

My wife has no geek in her, but she has geek buddies who are all Apple users, as is every female in her family save one or two.   They support her tablet uses and she has developed a lot as an Apple tablet user.

My wife also commonly sits down at my white box PC and types emails and stuff, so she is unknowingly becoming a Linux user (not that it is hard by any means, in fact what I use in Mint 9 still looks the closest thing to old Win XP of anything out there).


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Firefox is rewriting their core code on all their products into the RUST language instead of the GEKKO they used in the past.   Rust supports multiple multiple processors and 64 bit much better than Gekko, which tends to use the first two cores effectively and lets the rest kinda idle along.

Android / Linux has already got their support ready for the 64 bit "sea of cores" thing and is in hard beta testing right now on a completed code base.

These guys had better hurry the heck up .... they only got six months or mebbe a year before they are eat up with Quad Core and Hex Core and Octa Core 64 bit this and that.   And folks really ARE going to expect it to be noticeably faster when it runs their old standard stuff -- it should be, you know.

Google Chrome browser has already been rebuilt as part of Google's efforts with big fast Chrome OS laptops.   This rebuild has created a fork in Webkit, which will resolve itself through Linaro's interactions within the next few years as 64 bit everything becomes prevalent.



http://liliputing.com/2013/04/google-forks-webkit-introduces-blink-rendering-...

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Google Play Store is lousy with 32 bit apps right now, but ARM has made their designs so they will run a 32 bit app in 32 bit mode, just dual executing when the software supports such activity on a 64 bit processor.

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WILL ALL OF THIS CHANGEOVER STUFF BE SEAMLESS AND EASY ????   Heck no, Some apps will choke at the 64 bit changeover because they were poorly written and haven't been kept up properly.  Too bad, then some new 64 bit replacement apps will take them over very quickly and they will drop off from the face of the earth and nobody will miss them.  

Open source will continue to tune and improve the 64 bit experience for at least several years until ARM and Linux/Android drop the 32 bit support coverage thing and go with a straight 64 bit coverage.  By then all your old mobile equipment will have aged out, or you will have to intentionally seek out 32 bit versions of whatever you use.

I am proof that the open source stuff doesn't just die on you like Microsoft's stuff did -- I am typing on a Mint 9 box that hasn't been actively supported by Mint for a while now, it just keeps on keeping on ....

Cheap Chinese Quad Core A9 chipsets run at 28nm on modern processes.

We scoff at the cheap Chinese guys and their thrifty ways, leap frogging over the new A15 generation and simply avoiding new ARM license costs and all.   But are they really doing something smart instead?



Turns out these 28nm A9 quad cores can kick the butts of the Tegra 3 generation and some of the post Tegra 3 items as well.  Tegra 4 outshines them, but it isn't readily available yet.

How is this possible?   The chips were re-engineered to the 28nm lithography size and they picked up the 25% performance increase that comes with that turf.   And, if they actually do clock in at 1.8 mhz in actual products without overheating they will actually beat out some of the early entrants from the A7/A15 generation performance-wise as well.

Next, (and this is subtle) Android and Linux are just now starting to really USE cores 3 & 4 in a somewhat more meaningful fashion.   So the dirt cheap RK3188 quad core A9 is NOT just another dog, it is a greyhound.   A fast hungry hot running racing hound that is held back some by poor standards support, which may get fixed sometimes during its last year of production before it (like all things 32 bit) goes down into the 64 bit dust bin ....

Last note, A9 was always a hot running little sucker at 40mn and at 36nm it wasn't much improved.  It is a bit cooler running at 28nm and a bit more reliable accordingly.   The early dual core A9 products at 40nm got a well deserved rap for overheating and dying early.  

This bad rap might not play for the 28nm RK3188 quad core A9 as they have 4 cores instead of just two to split the workload against and 28nm traces run shorter and cooler than longer larger 40nm traces.  So far the RK3188 have no widespread reports of early demise issues (yet).  Plus a lot of the designs have much improved heat spreaders and vent holes compared to the early A9 single and dual core designs.

RK3188 is currently sliding down its pricing slide towards the "cheap" end and availability for the chipset is going up as production bobbles all get smoothed out.   It may wind up being the A10 of the Chinese products of 2013-2014 (right up to when the 64 bit wall rolls up and takes all the 32 bit stuff out completely).