14 DAY TRIAL // Though product demonstrations usually come accompanied by at least a meager spec sheet, Marvell decided that it was more interesting if its upcoming product remained shrouded in as thick a mystery veil as possible. To this end, it brought out its soon-to-be ARM-powered slate at the Netbook Summit in San Francisco, but disclosed very little information on the internal parts and what the device would ultimately be able to do.
Marvell showed off its upcoming tablet, based on the Moby design. It didn't give it a name, a price or launch date, but Engadget was able to play with it for a few minutes and gleamed some of its parts. A microSD slot was spotted, as were a front-facing camera, an HDMI output and a USB port. Previous reports indicated the existence of WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS, as well as 3D graphics and Flash support.
The maker didn't speak on the amount of memory, but it is known that, at the heart of the machine lies an ARMADA 610 chip. Based on the ARM architecture, this processor has a frequency of 1GHz and comes with integrated Full HD encoding/decoding capabilities, plus 3D acceleration. For those interested in numbers, the 610 can render up to 45 million 3D triangles per second and even control four 1080p displays at the same time. Basically, it is stronger than the Qualcomm Snapdragon. The chip supports Linux, Windows Mobile, Windows CE and Android, the last of which will be pre-loaded onto the slate in question.
Marvell's product will emerge as an alternative to slates based on the aforementioned Qualcomm Snapdragon, as well as those powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC and Texas Instruments' OMAP4. That being said, it should make an appearance sometime during the second quarter of the ongoing year, though it likely won't be in the same price range as what VIA has in store.