MIPS Push Android 4.1 Jelly Bean soon!

July 18, 2012 John Reyvaldi Tablet

For those of you who are looking for low-cost Android 4.1 Jelly Bean tablet, this is a good news for you. MIPS, the arc-rival of ARM based CPU, is currently trying very hard to push the OS into their own silicon chip system. Jen Bernier-Santarini, the director of corporation communications at MIPS, said that his company work aggressively to bring the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean soon. He promise that the OS will come into their license soon.

Just like i’ve told you earlier, MIPS is the main rival of ARM based processor to power the tablet and smartphone. They manage to surprise me last year when release the Ainol. First Android 4.0 tablet in the world that priced at $99. The company said that they manage to gain such low production cost because MIPS chip is easier to create and doesn’t need as much resource as ARM does. However, in terms of pricing, the world’s attention now altered to Google. The giant search company was release Nexus 7 tablet few weeks ago. It is an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean tablet that powered by quad-core processors. What makes it amazing is that Google only ask $199 for it! Lot of customers out there now dying to grab the tablet, including me.

Although MIPS based tablet is not as popular as the ARM version, the company said that they’ve manage to find some potential customers in the developing country. For example, the Miumiu W1 tablet, created by China based company Ramos, will soon start to penetrate India market. If everything goes according to plan, this 7″ device will also make it’s way to Europe and Latin America. Aside from it’s screen size, Miumiu W1 also powered by 1.0GHz MIPS CPU, front-facing camera, microSD card slot, and 4GB/8GB internal data storage.

However i doubt that MIPS will manage to gain some significant gain in the market share, not this year at least. The reason? Well, it is simply because there are no big names that already decide to adopt the MIPS system. Motorola, Samsung, Asus, and Acer are still keen to use ARM based CPU, while other company like Microsoft, Orange, and Lenovo still focus their attention on x86 CPU. But don’t take me wrong guys. It’s not like that MIPS doesn’t have any potential at all. The company is recently make an important agreement with the Halfbrick, the company that already provide Fruit Ninja and Opera software for MIPS device. There’s also NDK for android, which allows developers to create new android app that optimized for MIPS processors.

But again, even with all that good stuffs, MIPS still years behind Intel and ARM. Not in technology, but brand power. If only they’re able to convince one of big name in the tablet industry to create an Android tablet using their system, i bet that people will start to consider MIPS as an alternative. But unless they manage to do that, i don’t believe that MIPS will manage to take on Intel or ARM.

What about you guys? Do you agree with me?

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