On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:36:55 +1000 Julian Calaby <julian.cal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, > > Earlier this year, HP released the following three tablets: > (Australian store links due to the specifications listing the SoC's > name) > > HP 7 Plus: > http://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Product.aspx?pdetail=P333853 > HP 8: http://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Product.aspx?pdetail=P327832 > HP 10 Plus: > http://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Product.aspx?pdetail=P339093 > > All of which appear to be based around the A31s SoC. > > As they're pretty cheap for a "big name" brand's tablets, I'm planning > to obtain one. > > Has anyone else laid hands on any A31s devices yet? And if so, has any > work started on supporting them? I also have started considering to get an Allwinner based tablet since a couple of weeks ago. So far all my devices are just various development boards and one Mele TV box, which is not very different from a development board in terms of features. The first attempt was a failure. I tried to buy a relatively cheap 10" no-name tablet (but with HDMI and 1GB of RAM), which was advertised as Allwinner A20 by the seller. But it turned out to be in fact using an Actions ATM7029B SoC with a quad-core Cortex-A5 CPU (disguised as "Leopard Gen.I CPU core"). Big disappointment! And a total loss of trust in this method of obtaining hardware. Though even if the SoC was the right one, the build quality leaves a lot to be desired and the screen is just horrible (colors and viewing angles). Maybe other people had better experience, but I'm not going this route again. So now I'm also trying the "big name" brand buying strategy for a change :-) The HP tablets look nice, but they don't have a HDMI connector, which is a deal breaker for me. Another alternative are some nice tablets from MSI. More specifically, these ones: http://www.msi.com/product/windpad/Primo_73.html#hero-specification http://www.msi.com/product/windpad/Primo_81.html#hero-specification On a negative side, just like HP tablets, they have no bluetooth and no dedicated charger connector. Primo 73 has a TN display (potentially worse quality) and the Allwiner A20 SoC (worse performance than A31s, but better support in linux-sunxi and no PowerVR). HP provides nice service manuals for their tablets, for example one can google for "HP 7 Plus Tablet and HP 7.1 Tablet Maintenance and Service Guide". Which provides detailed instructions about how to take them apart and replace components. It is interesting that this HP 7 Plus tablet is supposed to be equipped with 1.0-GB LP-DDR2 (!) memory. If anyone has this hardware and can extract the FEX file, it would be extremely interesting. Regarding vendor firmware. MSI offers PhoenixSuite images for download and also kernel sources from their website. This is very nice and reassures the availability of FEL support for unbricking. HP only provides updates as "update.zip" files to be copied on the device and taken into use from the "android recovery" menu. Not sure if this a bad sign and whether the FEL mode could be locked out or not. Again, if anyone has an HP tablet, a clarification about accessing FEL would be very much welcome. Now one more thing about MSI tablets. Google searches for "Primo 73 discontinued" and "Primo 81 discontinued" find a lot of web shops, which are out of stock with the "discontinued by manufacturer" explanation :-( On a somewhat positive side, the remaining web shops still having these tablets in stock, seem to be offering significant discounts at the moment (probably they want to get rid of the inventory ASAP). For example http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152486 seems to offer MSI Primo 73 for $54.99. For the people from Europe, some relatively interesting offers seem show up and disappear on ebay.com rather quickly. I myself have already ordered both Primo 73 and Primo 81 tablets (yeah, this was a little bit hard on my budget and probably will prevent me from buying new fun gadgets for a while). The tablets are expected to arrive later this week. And then I'm going to post more information about them to the mailing list. Compared to plain development boards, tablets need properly working USB OTG, touchscreens, WLAN and also power management features. This looks like a lot of new fun :-) Also the "big name" brand's tablets typically don't have a separate power connector. They are using MicroUSB for both charging and plugging USB peripherals. But there are things called "accessory charging adapters (ACA)", and "By using an accessory charging adapter, a device providing a single USB port can be attached to both a charger, and another USB device at the same time": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#ACA I don't know if http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Port-Micro-USB-Power-Charging-OTG-Hub-Adapter-Cable-for-HTC-LG-S4-Galaxy-Tab-3-/371135899746 is a proper compliant implementation of ACA or just has a switch to enable the mode where 5V is provided on VBUS by the hub (instead of feeding from VBUS). Either way, I'll try to see if it can be used to provide power the tablet and allow using USB peripherals connected to the hub at the same time. Overall, these Allwinner A20/A31s tablets do not look very competitive nowadays in terms of CPU performance and screen resolution, but might be still an interesting choice for linux-sunxi enthusiasts. -- Best regards, Siarhei Siamashka -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "linux-sunxi" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to linux-sunxi+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.