14 DAY TRIAL // If you think tablets need to get even cheaper, you’ll be interested to know chip manufacturer Allwinner is actively working towards this very specific goal.
The company will kickstart the mass production of its new line-up of super cheap quad-core processor starting this July.
Allwinner said the A33 chip will be made available for device manufacturers for a price tag as low as $4.99 / €4, reports Liliputing.
The A33 processor is a quad-core ARM Cortex A7 processor fitted with ARM Mali-400 MP2 graphics. Allwinner is quite sneaky about the A33, making its pins compatible with the earlier A23 dual-core chip.
This means device makers won’t have to fundamentally alter their product designs to take advantage of the new stands, because they can easily switch between the two, saving more cost.
Furthermore, tablets bundling this particular super cheap architecture should cost as little as $40 / €23 to produce, but the retail prices will probably revolve around the $100 / €73 margin (and below).
Surely, with such a low price-tag, you shouldn't expect the tablets to arrive with mind-blowing specifications.
According to Allwinner’s reference platform, we could soon see tablets bundling the A33 platform with an 8-inch screen, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and 1280 x 800 pixel res, 7-inch, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and 1024 x 768 pixel density and 7-inch, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage plus 800 x 480 pixel density.
Back in March, a report claimed Allwinner has overtaken Intel and Qualcomm in the global chip market, so pushing inexpensive, affordable tablets appears to really work for the company.