Chinese device maker Ramos has unveiled a new line of Android tablets, and for the first time the company is outfitting tablets with Intel processors. The new Ramos i-series tablets feature Intel Clover Trail+ processors, and they’re expected to launch in China this month for around $195 and up.
There are 4 new Ramos tablets in the lineup, including the Ramos i8, i9, i10, and i12, featuring 8 inch, 9 inch, 10 inch, and 11.6 inch screens, respectively.
The Ramos i8 is the cheapest of the bunch, and features 1GB of RAM and a 1280 x 800 pixel display. All the other models have 2GB of RAM and full HD screens.
The Ramos i12 has a 1920 x 1080 pixel display, while the i9 and i10 have 1920 x 1200 pixel displays.
All 4 versions feature Intel’s 2 GHz Atom Z2580 processor. It’s a 32nm dual-core chip with support for hyperthreading. While it won’t offer the same kind of performance as the new Bay Trail chips Intel launched this week, the company’s Clover Trail+ platform offers low power consumption and the kind of performance you’d expect from a mid-range Android phone or tablet.
When Chinese tablet makers who are known for producing low-cost products start to use Intel chips, it’s a pretty good sign that Intel is offering something that’s competitive with the low-cost ARM-based chips coming from Chinese companies such as Allwinner, Rockchip, and MediaTek (although Ramos has been known to use chips from Samsung as well, and Samsung’s not exactly a bit player).
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Can we set these up to DUAL BOOT with a Linux distro (that is intel based)?
Now, that would be really good.
I’d guess Intel is providing more than just a deal on chips. They’ve been doing an awful lot of work creating optimized Android builds for selected Intel products. So Intel may be offering quite a bit of assistance in adapting both hardware and OS reference designs to specific products. As long as a manufacturer doesn’t stray too far they can probably get up to speed really quickly.
A fairly impressive new series with very competitive pricing and solid features, both in processing power and design – the new 8-inch Ramos i8 is expected to be priced at $199; and the 8.9-inch Ramos i9 will retail about $279 and feature a 1900×1200 Samsung brand screen — Intel’s new processor with Hyper-Threading technology runs four threads simultaneously and scores well in benchmark tests compared to other mainstream quad-core tablets.
One of the first sources to offer more information and spec details of the new Ramos i-Series is –T a b l e t S p r i n t —
What a waste. For a second there I thought this will make a nice Linux tablet. But the Z2580 has a PowerVR GPU…
Fortunately the newer Z3XXX has Intel graphics with Linux open source support. I think there was a mention here about 99$ models! I just hope the boot loader is open…
Once they get the 64bit drivers all perfected then that shouldn’t be a issue… Remember, the Linux Foundation already released a Boot Loader that works with both UEFI and Secure Boot, the only limitation is that the Boot Loader is 64bit…
Intel is just waiting on MS to get W8 to work properly with Always Connected Standby and the 64bit drivers before they extend support for Bay Trail beyond 32bit.
It has already been announced that Linux Kernel 3.11 has Bay Trail Audio support and Intel added Bay Trail to their GMA Linux driver support back in April… So it’s definitely coming…
I meant open as in not signed. The manufacturers might be using some new motherboards that require signed boot loaders…
For W8 systems there’s only UEFI and secure boot to worry about and only MS uses private keys.
For Android you may have to worry about a locked boot loader but a work around will eventually be released.
There are rarely any that require special keys…