Android Tablet Comparison World [ATCW]

Android Tablet Chipsets

Whilst Android can run on many architectures, virtually all tablets use a chipset based on the ARM architecture, as developed by ARM Holdings from 1987 onwards. There have been successive generations of ARM chips, with the earliest relevant for tablets being the ARM7, and the most recent being the Cortex A9. ARM core chips have become more powerful over succesive generations.

So, in order from least powerful to most powerful (note that non-ARM chipsets are now included):

ARM7 >> ARM9 >> ARM11 >> MIPS >> ARM Cortex A8 >> Qualcomm Snapdragon >> ARM Cortex A9

Click on the chipset names above to see all tablets based on the chipset.

Manufacturers usually build chipsets based on an ARM core with additional components. For instance, the popular NVIDIA Tegra 250 (often referred to as Tegra 2) is actually an ARM Cortex A9 core with added NVIDIA Geforce graphics chip. The next ARM core to be released is the ARM Cortex A15. Devices based on this core are not expected to hit the market until early 2013.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset stands out from the rest because the core is Qualcomm's own and not 100% based on ARM (although it is similar to the Cortex A8). Snapdragon chips exist of vastly different levels of performance, from on par with the ARM11 up to and beyond the Cortex A9. In late 2011 Qualcomm re-categorised all their chips to clarify the performance differences. All Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are now categorised according to a scale of S1 to S4, with S4 being the most powerful. We now list the Snapdragon chipset seperately in the index.

In late 2011 a new type of chipset appeared. The Ingenic Xburst JZ4770 as used in the Ainol Novo Paladin uses a MIPS core and is a complete deviation from ARM. The MIPS architecture has been around since 1981 and has been used in a wide variety of systems including set top boxes, supercomputers, and the PS2. It's implentation in a SoC is a direct challenge to ARM's dominance. It is cheaper to licence MIPS cores than ARM. In practical terms, at time of writing in Jan 2012, the MIPS chipset has some compatibility problems in Android meaning that some Apps won't run. This situation should improve over time.

Just before Christmas 2011 a new chipset appeared that has revolutionised the Chinese tablet market. The Allwinner A10 is both very cheap for manufacturers to buy and very powerful. It intergrates a fast Mali400 GPU and provides outstanding performance for general use, video, and 3D. There is a lot of misinformation about this chipset on the web but the truth is that it is a Cortex A8 ARM core that can be clocked in software at anything from 1 to 1.5Ghz. Different manufacturers give it different clock speed ratings but as far as we are concerned all Allwinner A10s run at the same speed whether they are marketed at 1, 1.2, or 1.5Ghz.

Chipsets

This table is sortable. Just click on the column headings.

Release Date	Chipset Model	Family	Cores	ARM Instruction Set	GPU	Clock Mhz
2008 Q4	Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 QSD 8650	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 200 (AMD Z430)	1 Ghz
2008 Q4	Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 QSD 8250	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 200 (AMD Z430)	1 Ghz
2009 Q4	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 QSD 8250A	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	1.3 Ghz
2009 Q4	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 QSD 8650A	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	1.3 Ghz
2010 Q2	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM 7230	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	0.8 Ghz
2010 Q2	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM 7630	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	0.8 Ghz
2010 Q2	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM 8255	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	1 Ghz
2010 Q2	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM 8655	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	1 Ghz
2011	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM 8255T	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	1.4 Ghz
2011	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM 8655T	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	1.4 Ghz
2011	Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 APQ 8060	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 220	1.2 Ghz
2010 Q3	Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM 8260	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 220	1.5-1.2 Ghz
2010 Q3	Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM 8260	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 220	1.5-1.2 Ghz
2011 Q4	Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM 8960	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 225	1.7-1.5 Ghz
2011 Q4	Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM 8270	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 225	1.7-1.5 Ghz
2011 Q4	Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM 8260A	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 225	1.7-1.5 Ghz
2012 Q3	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM 8230	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 305	1.2-1.0 Ghz
2012 Q3	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM 8930	Similar to Cortex A8	Quad	ARMv7	Adreno 305	1.2-1.0 Ghz
2012	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 APQ 8064	Similar to Cortex A8	Quad	ARMv7	Adreno 320	2.5 Ghz
2013 Q1	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM 8974	Similar to Cortex A8	Quad	ARMv7	Adreno 320	2.5-2.0 Ghz
2010 Q3	Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 MSM 8660	Similar to Cortex A8	Dual	ARMv7	Adreno 225	1.5-1.2 Ghz
2010 Q2	Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM 8655	Similar to Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Adreno 205	1 Ghz
2010 Q2	Telechips TCC8902	ARM11	Single	ARMv6	ARM Mali200	0.8-0.5 Ghz
2010 Q2	Telechips TCC8901	ARM11	Single	ARMv6	ARM Mali200	0.8-0.5 Ghz
2010 Q1	NVIDIA Tegra 250 (Tegra 2)	Cortex A9	Dual	ARMv7	GeForce ULV 300-333Mhz	1 Ghz
2011 Q1	NVIDIA Tegra 250 3D (Tegra 2 3D)	Cortex A9	Dual	ARMv7	GeForce ULV 400Mhz	1.2 Ghz
2011 H2	NVIDIA Tegra 3	Cortex A9	Quad	ARMv7	Kal-El	1.5 Ghz
2010 Q4	Amlogic 8726-M	Cortex A9	Single	ARMv7	Mali400	0.8 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3410	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	0.6 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3420	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	0.6 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3430	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	0.6 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3440	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	0.8 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3503	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7		0.6 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3515	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	0.6 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3525	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7		0.6 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3530	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	0.72 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3621	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	0.72 Ghz
	Texas Instruments OMAP 3630	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX530	1.2-0.6 Ghz
2011 Q1	Texas Instruments OMAP 4430	Cortex A9	Dual	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX540 304Mhz	1 Ghz
2011 Q3	Texas Instruments OMAP 4460	Cortex A9	Dual	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX540 384Mhz	1.5 Ghz
2012 Q3	Texas Instruments OMAP 4470	Cortex A15	Dual	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX544 384Mhz	1.8 Ghz
2012 Q3	Texas Instruments OMAP 5430	Cortex A15	Dual	ARMv7	2xPowerVR SGX544MP	2 Ghz
2012 Q3	Texas Instruments OMAP 5432	Cortex A15	Dual	ARMv7	2xPowerVR SGX544MP	2 Ghz
	Rockchip 2808	ARM9	Single	ARMv5		0.56 Ghz
	Rockchip 2818	ARM9	Single	ARMv5		0.64 Ghz
	Rockchip 29xx	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7		1.2 Ghz
2007	Samsung S5L8900	ARM11	Single	ARMv6	PowerVR Lite	0.412 Ghz
2009	Samsung S3C6410	ARM11	Single	ARMv6		0.8-0.533 Ghz
2009	Samsung S5PC100	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX535	0.833-0.667 Ghz
2010	Samsung S5PC110	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX540	1 Ghz
2011	Samsung Exynos 4210	Cortex A9	Dual	ARMv7	Mali-400	1.2 Ghz
2010 Q1	Apple A4	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX535	1-0.8 Ghz
2011 Q1	Apple A5	Cortex A9	Dual	ARMv7	PowerVR SGX543MP2	1 Ghz
	infoTMIC IMAPx200	ARM11	Single	ARMv6		1 Ghz
	infoTMIC IMAPx210	ARM11	Single	ARMv6	Vivante GC600	1 Ghz
	infoTMIC IMAPx220	ARM11	Single	ARMv6		1 Ghz
	Freescale iMX515	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	AMD Z430 (Adreno 200)	0.8 Ghz
	Freescale iMX535	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7		0.8 Ghz
	Marvell PXA 166	ARM9	Single	ARMv5		0.8 Ghz
	Marvell PXA 168	ARM9	Single	ARMv5		1.0 Ghz
2011 Q2	Renesas EV2	Cortex A9	Dual	ARMv7	NEON	0.533 Ghz
2011 Q4	Allwinner A10	Cortex A8	Single	ARMv7	Mali400	1-1.5 Ghz
2011 Q4	Ingenic Xburst JZ4770	MIPS	Single	MIPS	GC860	1 Ghz

Chipset Useful Links

Wiki MIPS Architecture
Samsung Exynos 4210 (Cortex A9 1/1.2Ghz Dual Core)
Samsung Exynos 4210 (Cortex A9 1/1.2Ghz Dual Core)
Samsung S5PC110 (Cortex A8 1Ghz)
Samsung S5PC100 (Cortex A8 667/833Mhz)
Texas Instruments OMAP Architecture
InfoTMIC (X220, X200) ARM11
Wiki Rockchip
Telechips 890x
Amlogic 8726-M Press Release
Freescale 515
Freescale 535
Marvell PXA
Renesas EV2
NVIDIA TEGRA 2 Official
NVIDIA TEGRA 2 Wikipedia
NVIDIA TEGRA 3 (Kal-El) Wikipedia
ARM 11 Official
ARM 11 Architecture Wikipedia
Cortex A8 Official
ARM Cortex A8 Architecture Wikipedia
Cortex A9 Official
ARM Cortex A9 Architecture Wikipedia
Qualcomm Snapdragon Official
Qualcomm Snapdragon Architecture Wikipedia
Info on Qualcomm's new chip naming (S1, S2, S3, S4)