MediaTek introduced to China two new platforms for entry and mid-range tablets: MT8163 and MT8735. Both chipsets take on board Cortex-A53 cores but is capable of displaying Full HD.
While the tablet market is clearly stagnant, manufacturers continue to propose, especially among those using Chinese MDGs. Dozens or even hundreds of different tablets are sold each year and must animate always cheaper chipsets, but also functional. MediaTek is certainly the founder who now speaks best for this population of manufacturers and brands.
There is a month Chinese equipment had the MT8173, a solution with quad-core 64-bit Cortex-A53 both associated with two Cortex-A72. An interesting proposal with a heterogeneous configuration that enables each core as required. All obviously at a price that remains contained. This week, MediaTek already is back with two solutions already technologically less ambitious, as shown in the information reported by the site Mobile-dad. They are no less important for the segment of entry level tablets, as they should be particularly economical.
This is particularly the case of the MT8163, a quad-core Cortex-A53 with the sale price (roughly obviously) should be around 5 dollars. For that amount, MediaTek made two promises. First, the Full HD display support (and even 720p 120 Hz). Then, a score of 30 000 points on AnTuTu about either performance close the Snapdragon 615. During our test HTC Desire 820, the quad-core Cortex-A53 was 28 000 points.
Another important promise, the chipset is class compliant HEVC (which is still somewhat common) bear the dual-band WiFi (but not GSM) and is optimized for Android 5.1 Lollipop or the latest version. And all this reminder, $ 5.
The second chipset, MT8735 is intended for tablets mid-range and good value for money. Certainly optimized version of the MT8732, already marketed by MediaTek, the new component would always be composed of four Cortex-A53 cores, but also a full range of network connections, including LTE. The founder, however, promises good performance, especially in terms of power and consumption. The chipset is able to encode both MP4 streams simultaneously in Picture in Picture mode (needs to know what definition). But it certainly will not its main asset.
Both products are available from the manufacturers now for tablets marketed the first half of 2015. The first models should therefore arrive quickly. It will be interesting to see the effect of the aggressive positioning of MT8163 on the price of the upcoming entry-level models.