For those that don’t know, Rockchip is the increasingly popular manufacturer over in China, but are also responsible for the slew of cheap Gingerbread tablets that flooded the market in early 2011. They claimed the first Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet back in December but not being approved by Google or having the Android Market we can hardly call it official.

At the ShowStoppers booth Rockchip had a thin and lightweight 7″ device but it wasn’t fully operational and was quickly removed from our cameras eye. Instead they were showing off their 10″ slate that had a striking resemblance to those Galaxy Tabs. Does the back look familiar to anyone else?

The Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich prototype was running on a very early alpha build that was built from source — and according to that “about me” page it was only compiled a few days ago on January 8th. That is beta software if I don’t say so myself. The 10″ display was average at best and it was rocking a 5 megapixel camera around back. It was quick and stable and seemed to be a fully functional version of ICS although we didn’t have enough time to put it through the proper paces.

With Rockchip attending CES here in Vegas, and working hard to bring Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tablets to more markets than China, we can expect to see another 3rd party unofficial tablet assault from Rockchip soon.

In fact, Rockchip believe that RK29xx-based devices could retail for as little as $149, despite being able to best Snapdragon-based Android smartphones when it comes to crunching abilities, and able to do 1080p HD encoding/decoding. Rockchip’s SoCs have been found at the heart of many low-cost tablets, PMPs and smartphones, and it seems with the RK29xx series the performance will finally match the affordability.

The W15 is one of three new Ramos slates due next week, though the other two only run older Cortex-A9 based SoCs and so won’t have quite the processing grunt. More on the Ramos W10 and W12 at Android Community.

[via MP4 Nation]

We’re still not entirely sure of the specifications – we’re guessing it uses a roughly 7-inch touchscreen – but it also seems that Rockchip might want to do a little more work on their Android build.  Several of the hands-on photos show the phone rotated into portrait orientation; not a problem with an Android smartphone, but less ergonomic when you’re having to flip your desk phone around.

It’s unclear whether that’s down to a limitation of the phone or something Rockchip actually wanted to include.  Either way, we can see it being a stumbling block for this “home media player” should any companies actually decide to pick up the reference design.

[via Cloned In China]

As well as the touchscreen – no word on size, but we’re guessing somewhere in the region of 7-inches – there are hardware shortcuts and a set of stereo speakers, together with a proper handset for making calls.  Full specs are in short supply, but we’ll presume Bluetooth and WiFi along with speakerphone functionality.

Unfortunately it seems Rockchip are putting their desk-phone idea out there as a spur to manufacturers to use their Android-capable chips, rather than testing the waters for launching it themselves.

[via MP4 Nation]

It also packs more ports than either the Galaxy Tab or the iPad, with microSD, HDMI, micro USB and a headphone socket, while the chassis is a slick (and yes, very iPad and ViewPad 7 styled) brushed aluminum and white plastic slab.  Not the most imaginative design, no, but better than the usual generic Android tablets.

RAmos also seem to have done some work on the UI, adding handy touchscreen volume controls to the status bar, together with home, back and menu keys.  No word on pricing or availability at this stage, but we’re hoping someone at RAmos decides to make a significant push into the US and Europe with this one.

[via Pocketables]

There’s also USB 2.0 (both device and Host ports) together with a microSD card slot, stereo speakers, lighted trackball and a headset jack.  ezGear reckon the SurfBoard 700 will last for up to 20hrs of music playback or 9hrs of video, and the whole thing measures 7.87 x 0.57 x 4.72 inches.

Unsurprisingly there are still some questions to be answered; ezGear don’t mention which version of Android the tablet is running, and while the description says there’s an app download store it’s not clear whether that’s the official Android Market or a third-party alternative.  We’re not sure on the UI, either; it looks like ezGear have taken the screenshot Archos use for the (Windows 7 based) Archos 9 PC Tablet and futzed out the Microsoft parts.  No pricing, either, though ezGear say the SurfBoard 700 will ship in September 2010.

Video demo after the cut

Now, $88 to distributors – who are buying at least 1,000 units – doesn’t mean an $88 sticker price on whatever shelves the EM501R might end up on, but it does make for a tablet that could come in not much over $100.  At that price, the Android 1.5 OS, resistive touchscreen, microSD slot and 3.5mm headphone jack don’t depress us too much.

There also looks to be Flash support on some level, for YouTube video playback, which is more than we can say about most Android smartphones, and Charbax from ARMDevices tells us it’ll play back DivX, MKV, MPEG2, AC3, Flac, Ogg Vorbis and many other codecs at up to 720p HD.  We’re so used to never seeing these gadgets show up on Western shores; please, someone, surprise us.

Full specifications of the RAmos Android MID are unknown, though it’s unsurprisingly expected to be ARM based rather than using x86 architecture.  It’s also tipped to support 1080p MKV (H.264/VC-1), AVI (Xvid/DivX) and various other formats, with bitrates ranging from 30 to 40Mbps.

That doesn’t quite tally with what we know about the Rockchip RK2808 chipset, the original component inside their Android concept, and which was said to support 720p rather than full 1080p high-definition.  Nonetheless, we won’t argue with a feature upgrade, and instead will cross our fingers and hope that the performance from the unnamed RAmos Digital Android MID matches its aesthetic promise.

[via Pocketables]

Video demos after the cut

PConline managed to get their hands on one of the prototypes and put it through its paces, and while it’s not actually intended to reach the market in its current form it still holds up pretty well.  Browsing over WiFi isn’t described as fast – because the engineering prototype hasn’t been optimized yet – but it supports the usual multiple windows of an Android smartphone and all the menus and features of the OS are there.

Unfortunately that means the Rockchip MID isn’t likely to end up on shelves any time soon, which is a shame because we far prefer the design of it to, say, the new Archos A5S.  Instead we’ll have to wait for production devices using the RK2808 to appear.

Android系统的试用

[via Pocketables]