Intel’s been promoting Windows tablets, laptops, and hybrid devices for education through its Classmate PC program for a few years. But now the company’s taking a step into Android territory with two new “Education Tablets.”

The Intel Education Tablets sport 7 and 10 inch screens, Intel Atom processors, and Google Android software.

Intel Education Tablet

Intel Education Tablet – 7″

The 7 inch tablet features a 1024 x 600 pixel TFT LCD display and a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom Z2420 processor.

While the processor isn’t super-speedy and the display isn’t exactly a match for the full HD, IPS screen on the new Google Nexus 7, the entry-level specs should help keep this tablet affordable. That’s important if you want to buy a tablet for every student in your classroom or school.

The tablet has a capacitive touchscreen display, runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software, features 1GB of RAM, and has a 2MP rear camera and 0.3MP front camera. It has 8GB of built-in storage and a microSD card slot.

Intel says the 7 inch tablet should offer up to 8 hours of battery life, comes with Intel’s educational software, and is available with an optional capacitive stylus.

Intel Education Tablet – 10″

There’s also a larger, more powerful model with a 10 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel TFT LCD display and a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Z2460 processor.

For some reason this model ships with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich instead of a newer build of Google’s operating system. The rest of the specs are largely the same as those for the 7 inch model, but the bigger display and faster processor take their toll on battery life.

Intel says this  the larger tablet is good for up to 6.5 hours of run time.

Interestingly, this model also lacks a microSD card slot, but it does have more built-in storage than its smaller sibling, at 16GB.

Both tablets feature 802.11b/g/n WiFi and optional Bluetooth. And both have access to Kno’s textbook software as well as other apps for students including software for taking notes, reading eBooks, and more.

via Android Community

 

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

8 replies on “Intel introduces 7, 10 inch Android tablets for education”

  1. So, will Liliputing be making a video as to how to install Lubuntu on this and make it work? 7 inch or 10 inch with Intel CPU should be able to install Lubuntu, why not? And, with Lubuntu, will use very little RAM and be really fast? Can use the Stylus with Lubuntu no?

    1. But you can run lubuntu on ARM too, and you will get more benefices of that, longer battry time, faster applications… Atom is no more competitive with today ARM, is more expansive, consume more energy, so the choice is with an atom :
      * Less runing time for the same weight
      * same runing time but with more weight
      In every case it will be more thick, at least because of bigger size of the cheap, and also because of the need of cooling system.

      The eductaion version generally mean : lot of lobbying to education minister of some countries to buy product with population money, without the choice of the population…

      I don’t think anyone want an expansive, old, heavy and slow device when there is so much choice today.

  2. The question unasked was why? Putting an Atom into an android tablets get you what specific benefit? I know you will lose access to any native code on pretty much every app so what are they offering to compensate?

    And the other specs are pretty pitiful so the price has better be awesome, yet that was the one piece of info that was left out. Buying in hundred lots the price would need to be under a hundred dollars/unit WITH a good warranty. Assuming they could actually do that, where is the profit motive?

    Think about it, the new Asus tablet with specs close to last years Nexus 7 is only $149 quantity one and stomps a slimy mudhole in this thing in every conceivable way. Probably even has more raw compute power than the Atom used here, four complete arm cores should be able to beat one x86 with HyperThreading pretending to be two.

    1. Uh, you’re making a lot of assumptions that aren’t backed by what’s been happening the past year…

      1) Google officially supports Android on x86, so there’s no problem getting the latest version.

      2) Most Android apps are actually hardware agnostic, only apps that need to access the hardware, like games, hardware accelerated media players, communications software like Skype, etc. ever need to be native apps.

      3) Medfield and Clover Trail+ ATOM SoCs are specifically optimized to run Android. They have a Binary Translation Layer that reduces compatibility issues with Native Apps.

      4) Google’s official support means the developers have already gotten the SDK’s and other tools needed to easily optimize their apps for either hardware platform and after a year most apps have been updated.

      5) The present mobile ATOM SoCs are using Imagination PowerVR, which for the mobile market has a over 70% market share of all mobile devices. They even provide a Android SDK for Imagination PowerVR GPUs. So it’s not really hard to get apps working on these Intel x86 based devices.

      So, combined with the above, compatibility is easily well over 90%
      now and you won’t really notice whether you’re running on a ATOM or a
      ARM SoC…

      Asus also released a Android Fonepad tablet with the Z2420 awhile ago, along with more recently the Asus MeMoPad FHD 10 and other examples of Intel based Android devices have been showing up! Even Samsung has released a few Intel based Android tablets…

      In terms of CPU performance, the ATOM may still be based on the same old architecture as when it was introduced over 5 years ago but it’s still superior to any Cortex A9 solution.

      The dual core ATOM SoCs have already been shown to outperform quad core Cortex A9 ARM SoCs like the Tegra 3. So it’s only the highest end ARM SoCs, based on Cortex A15 and similar, that finally outperform the aging ATOM.

      https://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myth-indepth-clover-trail-power-analysis

      https://www.anandtech.com/show/6522/the-clover-trail-atom-z2760-review-acers-w510-tested

      https://www.anandtech.com/show/6536/arm-vs-x86-the-real-showdown

      So, let’s not get crazy about how they compare and make it sound like you’d get a lot more with a ARM SoC when only the high end ones will offer you that!

      ARM has come a long way from its beginnings but they’ve only recently rivaled the ATOM for CPU performance. So these Intel ATOM SoCs are still perfectly fine competing with the mid range and lower end ARM SoCs.

      While, clearing stock can probably let these products also compete on pricing. Since ATOM SoCs aren’t that much higher priced than ARM SoCs…

      ARM SoCs can range from a little over $5 to a little over $30… depending on what performance range, complexity, and quantities ordered.

      Mainly, ARM SoCs can be offered cheaper because they are usually ordered in very large quantities. Since the same ARM SoC can cover the entire price range I mentioned depending on just quantity….

      Some old ATOM SoCs like the E640 for embedded markets for example has a Tray price of just $29 and that’s for minimum quantities. So, it’s not unreasonable for them to be able to compete on pricing…

      Mind, the next gen ATOMs are going to start coming out in just a few more weeks. Bay Trail and then Merrifield early next year will eventually completely replace the existing ATOMs.

      So, the only real question is investing in something that will soon be obsolete. But like ARM devices still using Cortex A9 SoCs, or even Cortex A8 SoCs, Android devices don’t need to be running the latest and greatest to still be able to run the latest Android and latest apps.

      There’s also a reason why Gingerbread still has a large chunk of the Android market and that’s because not everyone needs the latest features, etc… So, despite the push for the latest hardware… Android is still fine with last gen and even earlier hardware.

      The push to higher performance will mainly effect the adoption of desktop Linux and Windows 8/RT… At least until Google decides whether to evolve Android into a hybrid mobile/desktop OS or not…

      1. Well,..

        * future (next year) some high end ATOM SoC’s will outperform one year to two year old ARM SoC’s, but at the same time really cost more money and the devices that use them just look like old age devices, bigger, heavier and with fan noise to obtain the same battery time usage than arm.

        * Last year (december 2012) dualcore A15 already outperform last year dual/quad core Atom. Need to do test with between to day octocore A7+A15 (GTS mode) and dual/quad core Atom. Very very low energy octo A7 already perform like next year atom.

        * A15 is not only in high end device, or 300$ last year ARM chromebook will be high end device… like 300$ atom netbook or 500$+ atom chromebook.

        * Next year, aarch64 (Cortex-A50) atom will come in mass, they are already here in server market as FPGA, they are already managed by gcc and LLVM compiler and some other. Architecture is already managed by linux kernel for HPC, don’t hope future atom (that is not available at all for now), will have the same computational power. And sure, as high end intel, they really can’t compete in compute/energy course.

        * I’m not sure Intel processor will be able to display videos the same way (my Corei7 still doesn’t display well HD video (some scroll artifacts), for handfull of watt, where every lower-end ARM can decode it for 100mW or less.

        * Experience with Atom, show they are very really low quality processors, far slower than trad. Intel mobile processor, and with generaly, very low quality boards, for several time the price of a today phone with the same computing power.

        1. Most of what you stated is inaccurate…

          1) What we know about the upcoming SIlvermont Architecture is that it may not be a massive improvement but it should still outperform any ARM SoC that’s coming out this year.

          So you’re statement of comparing next year’s ATOM with ARM SoCs of a year to two years ago is flat out false. Even the present ATOM is holding its own against last years ARM SoCs.

          Like the link I provided that showed the present Clover Trail ATOM SoC performs well enough that a dual core ATOM SoC edges out a quad core Cortex A9 ARM SoC like the Tegra 3 and even holds its own against a Krait.

          While, the next gen ATOM should compete very well in both cost and power efficiency.

          The links I provided already show the present 32nm ATOM SoCs are competitive on power efficiency and aren’t that much higher priced than ARM SoCs… and the next gen ATOMs will be even lower cost… making any remaining difference in cost negligible.

          While the dual Exynos 5 does a bit better than both Krait and the present ATOM, but it also draws much more power than either!

          https://www.anandtech.com/show/6536/arm-vs-x86-the-real-showdown/13

          Going up to 8W max for Exynos 5 is more than double the TDP of the present Clover Trail! So there’s a bit a trade off for that extra performance… Really, there’s a reason why they’re trying to push big.LITTLE to help improve power efficiency…

          2) That $300 ARM Chromebook is actually $249 for the base price and it compares to a $200 netbook… FYI, netbooks hit the $200 mark nearly a year before they stopped making them and that’s nearly two years ago from today… While ATOM SoCs cost even less than the ATOMs that were put into netbooks.

          While, the performance of a dual core Exynos 5 may be okay but it’s hardly performing much better than a netbook would have with only dual cores…

          3) ARMv8 will definitely open up new doors for ARM but don’t expect a massive increase in performance right away.

          ARM was never intended for high end performance, but rather low cost and power efficiency (though arguably not as good as MIPS) and it’s as hard for them to change that as it is for x86 to be optimized for power efficiency!

          Simply providing 64bit architecture isn’t going to change that over night!

          When x86 first went 64bit, the benefits were not seen until years later and it’s very unlikely ARM will advance much faster than x86 did back then!

          Even if they do advance more quickly, compressing what took x86 over a decade to do will still take years for ARM to catch up.

          Mind, a lot depends on the software ecosystem and most developers won’t have a immediate reason to make the switch to 64bit right away, which is also what slowed the switch for x86 as well!

          4) The next gen ATOM will start coming out in just a few more weeks… but the 64bit ARM roll out won’t really hit until the second half of next year.

          The reality of the manufacturing world is it can easily take up to two years from the first Tape out till final mass production for actual hands on products.

          Most companies won’t be coming out with 64bit ARM SoCs until the second half of next year and it’ll be even longer before they see wide adoption.

          Primarily, many are waiting on the 16nm half node and 14nm with FinFETs to become available before they really start pushing 64bit ARM SoCs.

          Mind, even ignoring all the technical hurdles, it’ll be just as hard for ARM to make progress in the server market as it is for Intel to make progress in the mobile market from simple market momentum.

          Especially, with Intel providing a viable alternative that won’t require anyone to change their software.

          Even with support already in Linux, still means companies have to re-write all their software for new hardware. Among other things that ARM still has to overcome to really compete in the Server market.

          5) The Next Gen ATOM won’t be a magic solution either, it’ll have advantages over ARM for at least half a year but it won’t mean as much in the mobile market and will probably not be significant enough to make it an automatic choice for those who just need basic consumption devices.

          Intel’s main advantage is that their solution will have to deal with far less hardware and software support fragmentation.

          Since April, Intel officially provides and supports open source drivers for the next gen ATOM GPU.

          While many ARM SoCs have to deal with closed drivers and proprietary IPs from Imagination Technology, Nvidia, and even Qualcomm!

          So those who want to run desktop Linux will usually find it easier to do so with a next gen ATOM solution… Never mind the option to run Windows or any other software you may choose.

          Despite years of effort to make ARM a good platform for open source software, it’s all too often hit or miss and even products that are supposedly open don’t get all the support they should…

  3. It’s hard to believe that a firm as sophisticated as Intel would introduce a tablet for kids with an obsolete Android version. Kids want the latest and greatest of everything, and in this case Intel tablet users’ cohorts will belittle the gear.

    1. Obsolete? 4.0 is hardly obsolete! Everything compatible with the latest release will still be compatible with 4.0!

      Besides, there are cheap Android devices still running Gingerbread! Running the latest version of Android is hardly a necessary requirement for most users.

      While 4.2 is buggy for many devices and 4.3 is only starting to get released and we’ve yet to see if it solves all the problems 4.2 had…

      Also, most educational software on Android was made for earlier versions anyway!

Comments are closed.