KDE's Plasma Active Shipping On New ARM Tablet

[Cyborg16]

You can also see it running: its pretty smooth. Its much smoother than my *dual core* tegra2 tablet that costs *more* that's for sure.

Where can we see it running?

Smooth it may be with just the desktop and one or two apps... lack of RAM is what really killed the N900 experience for me though (granted, this has twice as much, but still not enough IMO).

[libv]

This is just a zenithink C71. I have one myself. Can be bought for a bit less than 200EUR with an android on it, i got mine from some lady who didn't like her christmas gift, for just 105.

Now... Fully free linux stack? Really? How did they get past the fact that zenithink is _NOT_ shipping any kernel source?

Aaron... Are you sure that you aren't breaching the GPL on this one?

[Kano]

Hmm, seems to be available for 110€ + shipping. but no gps, umts/gprs so mainly home use. Do you think it is good enough?

[libv]

Hmm, seems to be available for 110€ + shipping. but no gps, umts/gprs so mainly home use. Do you think it is good enough?

As far as horribly cheap chinese tablets go, this one is really rather good, it is miles ahead of the previous generation of chinese android tablets.

The really bad thing though: Zenithink violates the GPL with this device, and therefor people should rather buy other devices.

I am really rather curious about this "Spark" announcement. My feeling is that it is just KDE Plasma on top of the bog standard image on a bog standard C71. I think that Aaron, and a few others, are now cursing their heads off "Damn! No Kernel source!"

[libv]

Great news! They are not violating the GPL at all, they themselves managed to get the amlogic kernel release building in some way (not sure whether they only needed /proc/config.gz or whether they needed to do more work). This in itself is fantastic news, but Zenithink is being unduly rewarded for keeping up their violation.

Still, great stuff, i cannot wait to get my hands on one!

[korrode]

Cheapest i've seen it:

http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs...olesalers.html

[Dorsai!]

We really need front-line technology, example dual core or better, with hardware gfx and phone ability. Long battery life is also essential,. which isn't found on many no-name Chinese brands.

Remember, this will not run under dalvik! You'll get much more performance out of it than you are used to on a single core ARM running Android. Potentially also longer battery-life because of the single core, but I think the developers would rather sacrifice that for a smaller device and a cheaper price.

Supporting Android officially would thus be a bad idea. It might be better to open up the device sufficiantly and let the community handle android like on the N900.

Edit: But yes, no GPS and 3G/4G will probably be a deal breaker for many.

[GreatEmerald]

Neat. Good work, Plasma Active team!

And I really should see if I can improve PA on my own tablet...

[t.s.]

I guess $250 is kind of a nice price entry.

And here I think it's expensive. Like the other said, you can have this kind of tablet around $ 110. Sold it with 2x the price is overkill..

[e8hffff]

And here I think it's expensive. Like the other said, you can have this kind of tablet around $ 110. Sold it with 2x the price is overkill..

Obviously now the price is lower, then the expected price of the Spark need to decrease or the features increase by a new model.

The Chinese factory that makes these devices should be jumping hoops to meet the specs needed by the team releasing the Spark.