While the popularity of
Android tablets is going from strength to strength, manufacturers are finding the
market place increasingly crowded so are looking for other ways to cash in on the Android parade.
One way some Chinese makers are diversifying their range is to create Google
TV boxes based on the same architecture as their tablet offerings.
2 Such
Android TV’s have recently
launched in China, one by chip maker
Rockchips, and the other by a lesser known company called Flexiview.
The
Rockchips R-Box as it is knows gets a custom skinned version of Android
2.3 running on a
Rockchips CPU tucked inside a nice compact Apple
TV like black box.
The R-box is capable of playing
HD video,
streaming content from the web and playing some of the less graphic intense games from the Android
market.
The Flexiview is on
sale now at a rather low $107 and gets a similar specification only with a
1Ghz Samsung
CPU rather than a
Rockchips chip.
Both the Flexiview and
Rockchips device use a remote controller similar to the
Nintendo Wii for
navigation and game play.