14 DAY TRIAL // Not so long ago, Chinese chip maker Allwinner made a few headlines, by being proclaimed top ARM-based processor vendor for Android tablets.
But this success is just prompting the company to envision breaking the boundaries and reaching beyond the Android space they have already conquered.
At the recent HKTDC show in Hong Kong a lot of interesting things were put on display. For example, yesterday we told you about Rockchip demoing a system powered by the new ARM Cortex-A17 quad-core processor and running Chromium OS.
Now the same guys over at ArmDevice have talked to an Allwinner representative and have managed to get some fresh information about the future of these chips and the way they are going to be implemented.
The company is currently detailing their A31 quad-core plus the upcoming A80 octa core processors and they are showing off its compatibility with a variety of platforms including tablets.
Allwinner says both chips will be able to handle Windows RT as default operating system and they have a reference tablet running the OS put on display.
By the looks of it, the interface seems quite responsive and easily navigable and the Allwinner representative says products such as these will be ready to ship out to customers this year, but she doesn't give a specific date.
But Windows RT isn't too exciting, especially since Intel has been hard at work developing low-power Bay Tail chips capable of delivering mid-range performance that allow chip makers to build inexpensive tablets that run the fully-fledged version of Windows (8.1).
Nevertheless, Allwinner is not betting everything on Windows alone. The company is also demoing a few other systems running skinned versions of Android software, and the company rep says they are also working on providing support for Chrome OS, Firefox OS and Ubuntu.
It might make sense for Allwinner not to place all its eggs in one basket, because the competition is fierce. Intel has just announced it plans to bring $99 / €72 tablets on the market soon.
But that’s not all, Chinese device market Emdoor has recently promised that prices for tablets will be lowered even more.
Back in March, we told you Allwinner has been declared the largest tablet chip vendor, overtaking important names in the industry such as Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung.
According to IDC, Allwinner managed to ship a whopping 18 million tablet chips in the fourth quarter of 2013, which is 3 times more than Intel managed to.
