By Webia Technologies introduced their budget-priced Bonux set-top-box prototype at Computex 2010 and it’s showing a lot of promise. The device is running an ARM11 SoC processor clocked between 700-720 mhz and the demo that they showed was speedy enough to make more than just a few people notice.
The STB was running a build of Android 2.1, although it wasn’t fully customized for a TV experience just yet (there was an attractive looking video browser, though). We expect that they’ll be working with Google to get the device going with Google TV sometime down the line, but it’s showing a lot of promise for now. The demonstrator showed off some HD video content and it displayed beautifully in full 1080p. The’ve partnered with several outlets to enable and optimize Android for HD video playback that rivals what you’d see on some higher end devices.
You can expect the STB to ship with a unique remote control that comes with a touch-enabled QWERTY keyboard so you can use various apps and do web browsing with ease. They’re also considering providing 2.4ghz wireless keyboards to help keep costs down on keyboard options, but I can’t imagine they would block support for modern Bluetooth keyboards that you can buy from other vendors.
Other additions include HDMI-out, Skype (no video initially, but that’s planned down the line) and the standard set of Android’s default applications. There’s no word on the Market being included, but from what we could see, applications scale nicely to a 16:9 aspect ratio running at a maximum resolution of 1920×1080. I can’t wait to see more devices like this that showcase what Google TV is all about and what we should hopefully be seeing available in early 2011, at the latest.
[via ARMdevices]
WHATTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!
very interesting, but not sure how i would use it
I would hack it. What a cool little toy. Same for the next article that follows this one.
Wow… $50 out of factory, I wonder what the street price will be. If its less than $100 I’d pick one up just to mess around with
With Google TV coming, I don’t think this will make it to the market.
GoogleTV will require Intel Atom CPU. Not sure what the price difference between will be between ARM SoC and an intel CPU/GPU will be cost wise.
This is an interesting idea.
This is a fantastic idea, I would love to sit back on the couch and browse the web and watch youtube, etc.
Can’t wait to see what the remote will look like, hopefully has full querty keyboard.