Exactly one year after the release of their successful, eighth-generation multimedia Internet tablet launch, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of ARCHOS’ next-generation Internet tablets today in Paris. It was truly exciting to watch ARCHOS CEO Henri Crohas introduce their new line of products: the first Android-based Web radio, called “Home Connect;” the first Android DECT “Smart Home Phone;” and the fastest tablets available, the 8” ARCHOS 80 G9 and the 10” ARCHOS 101 G9.
Above picture: Damien Iaigre, ARCHOS CPM (left), Charles Naoum, TI ARCHOS account manager (right), and me (middle), enjoying the launch event!
ARCHOS has a rich history of pioneering the mobile computing space. They were the first to market with an Android tablet in 2009, and today they are announcing one of the fastest tablets in the world, complete with the dual-core, 1.5 GHz OMAP4460 processor.
As highlighted in previous blog posts, our TI relationship with ARCHOS continues to strengthen as we work together to provide consumers with an unrivaled multimedia experience. Prior ARCHOS tablets included our OMAP3630 processor. The latest ARCHOS 80 G9 and ARCHOS 101 G9 boast our OMAP4460* offering – bringing performance to all-new levels on the latest Android Honeycomb operating system (OS).
ARCHOS demonstrates differentiated multimedia experiences
I am personally a huge TV and music fan, so one thing that stuck out to me about the new G9 tablets is that ARCHOS replaced the standard Android multimedia applications with their own ARCHOS video and music apps. ARCHOS’ strong multimedia experience truly shines on these tablets, and is emphasized with their ability to retrieve all media information based on “metadata,” which is automatically downloaded to the tablets based on users’ likes. Video files can be automatically organized by title, actor, director, year, seasons and episodes, making it as easy for multimedia fans like myself to sift through thousands of data files.
The ARCHOS team also demonstrated “device cloning” during the launch event, which was nothing short of awesome to watch. They did so on a TV via the HDMI output on the G9 tablet, playing a non-resized 1080p (@ 30fps), H264 high-profile movie trailer. The G9 streamed and played very smoothly on the TV, while other competitive devices it was paired next to (a XOOM and Iconia Tab) were not able to do so.
TI’s OMAP4460 processor helps ARCHOS G9 tablets stand out from the crowd
Packed with these and other differentiated multimedia capabilities, the ARCHOS G9 tablets benefit from TI’s architectural advancements with the OMAP4460 processor. The chip is designed to provide users with a better overall experience with its dual-channel memory technology that boosts performance and keeps the devices alive longer.
ARCHOS highlighted the OMAP4460 processor’s capabilities during today’s launch, showing what this dual-core, 1.5GHz ARM® Cortex™ A9-based engine is truly capable of. It drives an overall performance boost of 200% compared to the single-core, ARM® Cortex™-A8 based OMAP3630 processor, found in previous ARCHOS G8 tablets. Additionally, the OMAP4460 processor with the Cortex-A9 cores sharing a 1MB, L2 cach – paired with two 32-bit 400MHz LPDDR2 memory controllers – enables ARCHOS G9 tablets to have the fastest GPU among any other current Android tablet offering
Significant performance gains can be seen in everything from OS interaction to enhanced Web browsing, as compared to competitive offerings:
· The ARCHOS G9’s page load time is reduced by 50% as compared to competitive offerings.
· G9 tablets also offer a full web experience complete with Adobe® Flash® support for on-the-go Web browsing with the ability to play flash content based up to 1080p @ 30fps.
· TI’s OMAP programmable DSP provides flexibility for integration of future codecs and could enable for instance support for VTC @ 1080p30.
· The OMAP4460 processor’s powerful IVA3 hardware accelerators enable full HD 1080p, multi-standard video encode/decode as well as support for high definition stereoscopic 3D encode/decode which is expected to be implemented via OTA in the near future.
Making migration easy for ARCHOS and other customers
The timing of the G9 tablets reiterates our TI team’s promise to keep migration between processor generations easy and fast for customers, including ARCHOS. The OMAP4460 processor – similar to other OMAP offerings such as the newly announced OMAP4470 processor – is pin-to-pin compatible with the OMAP4430 offering. This means it can easily be dropped into existing OMAP 4-based designs for maximum re-use and faster time-to-market. With this scalability, the OMAP family continues to answer the call for diversity of performance requirements from OEMs, making it possible to tailor innovative products for specific consumer demands.We congratulate ARCHOS on this launch, and look forward to achieving even more successes together in the near future!
*Note: The OMAP4460 processor was previously named the OMAP4440 processor. Chip specific actions remained the same, but the last two numbers of the product name were adjusted.
