tegra

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 incinerates the competition

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 will destroy your mobile processor. Not literally, of course. I'm strictly referring to its ability to render real-time graphics so fast as to make your current mobile processor -- on your phone or tablet -- embarrassingly pokey in comparison.

At a benchmarking event in San Francisco, Qualcomm allowed me and others in attendance to run a benchmarks on a reference Mobile Development Platform (MDP) tablet housing its latest Snapdragon 800 system-on-chip (SoC). The results speak for themselves; however, I should warn that these are only benchmark results (3DMark and GFXBench, specifically) and don't necessarily … Read more

Retooled WikiPad primed for launch

After an aborted launch last Halloween, the WikiPad Android gaming tablet looks ready to finally hit the market. So says WikiPad Inc., anyway, who this morning declared that its unique gaming device will finally hit shelves this coming Tuesday, June 11 (aka the first official day of E3).

This new WikiPad, you may recall, is a shrunken edition of the 10-inch behemoth (itself an update of the original 8-inch version) the company was showing off last year.

This new model, which came to light this past February, has the same core features as the 10-inch model -- removable standalone Android … Read more

Nvidia shows off software-based pressure-sensitive display

TAIPEI -- Are you someone who loves drawing on a smartphone but bemoans the fact that you need a Galaxy Note 2 to get the precise strokes required for your masterpiece?

Well, the good news is that during a demonstration at the Computex electronics show in Taiwan, Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang showed off a software-based pressure sensitive display powered by the company's Tegra 4 chipset, and he was using a normal nondigitizer stylus to draw on it.

The trick behind the tech lies in Nvidia's Prism display, introduced with the Tegra 3. Prism basically reads the screen … Read more

HP goes Android with x2 hybrid

Hewlett-Packard has a newfound affinity for Android.

After announcing the Slate 7 in February, HP announced Tuesday that it is adding a second Android tablet, the SlateBook x2.

The SlateBook takes its well-received Envy x2 design and loads Android 4.2.2 and Nvidia's brand-new Tegra 4 chip inside a sleek 10.1-inch tablet that can double as a laptop.

An Android laptop, mind you, not a Chromebook.

"With an advanced magnetic hinge design and dual battery system -- one battery in the base and one in the tablet -- users can easily switch from notebook to tablet … Read more

HP's SlateBook x2 tablet hits retail in August with Tegra 4 and a keyboard dock

If nothing else, HP's second try at an Android tablet is a bit more promising than its first. The SlateBook x2 has a 10.1-inch, 1,920x1,200 resolution screen and ships with Android 4.2.2. It will be one of the first tablets to house Nvidia's Tegra 4 processor when it debuts in August for $480.

Design-wise, the SlateBook x2 looks not unlike HP's Windows 8 tablet, the Envy x2, with power and volume buttons located on the back, near the left and right edges. However, instead of brushed aluminum, the SlateBook features a plastic … Read more

As Android disrupts, tablets beat cheap PCs: Nvidia

Nvidia is banking on new computing devices to replace "cheap" PCs and Android to drive that disruption, according to comments from the chipmaker's chief executive on Thursday.

"A great tablet is clearly better than a cheap PC," said Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang during the company's fiscal first quarter conference call.

"New computing devices are becoming increasingly like your personal computer, [so] performance matters and this is where we can add a lot of value....disrupting the entry-level PC," he said.

Nvidia sees Android as the agent of disruption. "Android is really … Read more

Leaked Toshiba tablet gets 10.1-inch screen, Tegra 4, and storage expansion

The 10.1-inch Toshiba AT10LE-A tablet recently leaked, and although the specs on the tablet are sparse, it's speculated to be one of the first to house Nvidia's highly anticipated Tegra 4 processor. The tablet is rumored to sport a 1.8GHz quad-core Tegra 4 system-on-chip and run on Android 4.2.1.

The leaked photos of the Toshiba AT10LE-A reveal micro-USB and mini-HDMI ports, a microSD expansion slot, and an optional keyboard dock. Until details like screen resolution and RAM are released, we're left to guess how the tablet will take advantage of the speedy, graphics-performance-improving … Read more

Nvidia's Tegra mobile chip business hits a wall with growth

The market has pretty high hopes for Nvidia's Tegra mobile chip business, but this year is shaping up to be a disappointment.

Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said that while Tegra has been growing "very quickly," the business will be "about flat" this year. That's because Nvidia pushed back the launch of its Tegra 4 chip by a quarter in order to ready its 4G LTE capabilities, he said. The company introduced Tegra 4 at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and then launched its chip that integrates LTE with its app processor,Tegra 4i, … Read more

Nvidia CEO unveils next two gens of Tegra, dubbed Logan, Parker

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang today talked up the chipmaker's next two generations of mobile chip, saying the Tegra chip line will show a 100-times improvement in strength from the first chip to the fifth.

The current Tegra chip, Tegra 4, hit the market earlier this year. The next generation, coming later this year, is code-named Logan, while the fifth generation of Tegra is code-named Parker, Huang said at the company's GPU developers' conference.

Logan will incorporate Nvidia's Kepler GPU, which currently is dominating the discrete graphics market. It also will include CUDA, Nvidia's programming model for … Read more

Asus' lovable Windows 8/Android mashup

The Sony Vaio Tap 20 introduced us to the idea of the all-in-one/tablet hybrid device. Asus has taken that concept, slathered it with Asus' particular brand of experimental enthusiasm, and brought it to life in the form of the $1,299 Transformer AIO.

The Transformer AIO, like the Sony Tap 20, shows an effort to offer consumers an intriguing new blend of all-in-one desktop and semiportable tablet. Rather than following Sony's approach of relying on Windows 8's new touch-friendly interface to achieve that mix with a single, seamless piece of hardware, the Transformer AIO essentially gives you … Read more