Rockchip’s new RK3288 processor is a quad-core ARM Cortex-A17 processor with ARM Mali-760 graphics. It’s the most powerful processor from the Chinese chip maker to date, although at the rate Rockchip releases new processors that probably won’t be true for long.
Anyway, the first RK3288-powered tablets started appearing a few weeks ago. Now the first Android TV boxes sporting the chips are starting to show up.
Vendors are starting to take orders for set-top-boxes and TV sticks at Chinese business-to-business marketplace Alibaba. If you don’t want to order 500 units, you’ll probably have to wait a little longer to get your hands on one of these little guys.
This TV stick measures 4.3″ x 1.6″ x 0.5″ and looks a bit like a big USB flash drive. But while there’s a USB port on one end, there’s an HDMI connector on the other. Plug the stick into your TV or monitor and you can use it to run Android 4.4 KitKat on a big screen.
The device features Rockchip’s 28nm ARM Cortex-A17 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of built-in storage. There’s a microSD card slot which supports up to 32GB of additional storage, a micro USB port for power, and 2 USB 2.0 host ports.
It supports 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, and HDMI 1.4A.
This model is a bit bigger and looks more like a WiFi router than a flash drive. It measures 5.6″ x 4.3″ x 0.8″ and has room for a few more features including an external WiFi antenna and an Ethernet jack.
Other specs are pretty much the same as those for the smaller model, including 2GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a microSD card slot.
Both product descriptions mention support for 8K video input and 4K video output and support for H.265 video.
via CNX Software
Tronfy Ubox R89 TV Box with RK3288 Quad Core Cortex A17 available both on https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N0AVXOY and https://www.tinydeal.com/r89-rk3288-quad-core-4k-android-44-2g8gb-tv-box-ubox-pxpkzg-p-135415.html.
1 month later, where can I buy one stick?
That stick is a Ugoos UM2 (RK3188) and this company confirmed that is a fake. No RK3288 yet, at least must wait 1 month.
AMLOGIC will dominate the android box market.
I’m most curious about the h.265 decoding capabilities. I remember the pre-snapdragon qualcomm processors were kind of limited in that department. Even the first snapdragons were only capable of 720p and the Tegra 2 could bareoy claim to be 1080p capable (IIRC it had to be a baseline profile with a max bitrate of 10mbps) and it wasn’t until the S3 that Qualcomm was finally able to decode 1080p and while it was good and beat the Tegra2 hands down, it struggled at times. So I wonder if these h.265 solutions will be repeating history or will at least be decent and provide main 10 level 5 support (the ideal would be 5.2 at the moment but 5 wouod be decent). Not to mention the planned profiles (meaning that these products are only quasi-future proof when it comes to H.265).
All of these seem to lack proper UVC support so that a USB webcam will work as a camera in Android applications. Seems like a huge oversight, but I see it in one device after another.
Ahh, just after I asked for these to show up , they start to. Nice.
There is however some great confusion circulating around the net, apparently the Cortex A17 is not meant to be released by ARM until mid 2015. A lot of people are saying the RK3288 is actually an A12. Apparently the specs are being grabbed from rk3288.com which people are not sure is legit/offiicial site.
I hope its the A17 , but we will need to see.
I’d certainly be interested in one of the TV sticks.. what is the best method for interacting/controlling one of these & what are they likely to cost?
Yes, the difference between the form factors is mainly audio ports. In addition to what was mentioned, it appears to have SPDIF, AV out, and headphone jack.
After ARM’s recent pre-MWC renaming shuffle, I thought that the RK3288 is based on what is now called Cortex-A12 and the C-A17 is next year’s major updated, kind of a C-A12.1. No?
i believe A17 was an evolution of A12 for consumers and A12 were for embedded computing, i could be completely wrong, but i believe its something like that