05/24, 10:43pm
Company boasts of Tegra 3 adoption
As part of Nvidia's annual investor meeting, the company's GM of Tegra operations, Mike Rayfield, boasted that the quad-core Tegra 3 platform is proving to be quite popular, powering 30 different smartphones that are expected to arrive on the market before the end of the year. Nearly half of the models are said to carry a transfer price below $300, in contrast to current Tegra 3-equipped phones that tend toward the high end of the price spectrum.
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05/23, 1:37pm
Olympic edition of Acer tablet decorated with Olympic rings
The Acer Iconia A510 Olympic tablet will be reaching the UK in June through Carphone Warehouse. The special-edition tablet shares the specs of the Iconia Tab A510, with the main differences being an engraving of the Olympic rings on the back and a pre-loaded trial of Eurosport Player, to watch the broadcaster's Olympic coverage.
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04/23, 4:20pm
HTC One X teardown reveals complex construction
Chinese site PCOnline has torn down the new HTC One X smartphone. More accurately, it's the Chinese variation of the flagship handset. The skinny phone was separated thanks to a narrow plastic tool.
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04/23, 3:30pm
Samsung i9300 given unofficial benchmarks
Samsung's GT-i9300, possibly the third-generation Galaxy, has had its performance leaked through inadvertent postings to GLBenchmark. The 3D tests caught by a Phone Arena reader show that the quad-core Exynos 4412 chip in the device looks to beat any existing Android phone, and likely the iPhone 4S, by a wide margin. In the common-use Egypt test, the i9300 would be roughly a third faster than the similarly quad-core Tegra 3 in the international HTC One X and three times faster than Samsung's own Galaxy S II.
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04/22, 11:40am
ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 priced and dated
Arriving as expected, the ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 was given more concrete US launch details on Sunday. The entry Android 4.0 tablet is available now in a blue variant for $379 with 16GB and Wi-Fi. A 32GB version costs just $399, and the namesake notebook-like dock adds $149 to either capacity's price.
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04/20, 2:30pm
NVIDIA to bring out Xbox 360-beating mobile GPU
NVIDIA will release a mobile graphics chip that has more processing power than the current Xbox 360 sometime later in 2013 or 2014, the company said in ap presentation handed out to the media. The slide's projection for console performance does drop off at 2012. The solid lines represent estimated performance, with the dotted ones standing for trends.
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04/19, 10:45pm
NVIDIA Tegra 3 Plus and 4G variant
NVIDIA helped validate some leaks regarding its future Tegra roadmap in a presentation at HTC's Freqs event in Seattle on Thursday. Along with the known Wayne, its codename for Tegra 4, it also mentioned a Tegra 3+. What it would entail wasn't mentioned, but the name implied a clock speed boost or other minor updates that wouldn't fundamentally rework the quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip.
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04/19, 5:10pm
White LG Optimus 4X HD found
A white version of the LG Optimus 4X HD has been spotted. A preview by ePrice shows a white housing on the latest Optimus handset, which we tried at Mobile World Congress with the standard black scheme.
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04/17, 10:10pm
Acer ships Iconia Tab A510 to Americans
Following a formal US launch late last month, Acer has started selling the Iconia Tab A510 in the US. The Android 4.0 tablet is currently in stock from Acer, and presumably resellers, at its quoted $450 price for a 32GB Wi-Fi model. Buying from Acer itself gets the Olympic Game Edition, which has the competition's logo on the back but is otherwise similar to the reference design.
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04/16, 2:35pm
Motorola Dinara seen using Snapdragon and not TI
Motorola might be making a fundamental shift from its loyalty to TI if an inadvertent GLBenchmark test run posting is an indicator. A phone known as the MB886, codenamed Qinara and possibly a reference to the Dinara has shown up using Qualcomm's MSM8960, or the same 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 chip as found in phones like HTC's One S. Motorola has used TI's OMAP and occasionally NVIDIA's Tegra 2 in its Android phones, suggesting a new direction in chip options.
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04/10, 11:50pm
Instagram on Android gets wider Tegra 3 support
Instagram has updated its Android app yet again to support a much wider range of devices. The app (Google Play) now supports devices using NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor. Doing so enables both the HSPA+ version of the HTC One X, the ASUS Transformer Prime, and any other phone or tablet running the quad-core chip.
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04/10, 8:50am
Toshiba Excite 7.7 and 13 join Excite 10 in lineup
Toshiba grew its Excite tablet line in both directions on Tuesday with three new models to cover every possible category. The Excite 7.7 (which we've tried), Excite 10, and Excite 13 (AT770) all carry a quad-core Tegra 3 chip along with a completely stock version of Android 4.0 bundled with apps like Netflix and Zinio's reader. They keep the slimmer builds of past Excite models but with a more rounded, polished design.
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04/07, 2:15pm
NVIDIA Tegra 4 may be huge speed increase
More details of NVIDIA's Tegra 4 have emerged that could point to as much of a leap in speed as with the last generation. Possible leaks from VR-Zone have shown the line keeping the "4-plus-1" quad-core design but jumping to the much newer ARM Cortex-A15 architecture inside, which should give it a leap in speed at the same clock speed. The clock speeds themselves should climb from 1.5GHz to 2GHz to give it brute force improvements.
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04/05, 2:45pm
Intel Atom systems coming to 2013 Nissan vehicles
Nissan and Intel have forged a relationship to integrate the latter's Atom chips into some of the former's vehicles. Only higher-end vehicles will be equipped with these Atom-powered in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems starting in 2013, however, and will likely first appear in Nissan's luxury brand, Infiniti. The Infiniti LE electric car concept was just unveiled earlier on Thursday at the New York International Auto Show sporting the twin-display IVI.
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03/30, 11:40am
ZTE sales up by nearly 25 percent as profits fall
China's ZTE announced its financial details from 2011 on Thursday, revealing sales that were up 23.4 percent from 2010, at the equivalent of $13.67 billion. The company, which manufactures smartphones, tablets, and both network as well as telecom gear, did suffer in terms of net profits, however, posting a 36.6 percent loss (at $326.5 million) as compared to 2010. The company is expanding in overseas markets, including the US and the UK, and has debuted eight new devices to this end at last month's Mobile World Congress.
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03/29, 12:10pm
NVIDIA CEO hints at Nexus tablet plans
NVIDIA's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang in an interview mid-week has predicted that Android tablets will hit $199 by the summer. Speaking to the New York Times, he predicted that the presumably Tegra-based hardware would shave about $150 in costs. Some of this would come from reducing flash storage, although he also implied that quality might take a drop through reductions in "build materials."
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03/29, 9:55am
HTC One series starts off in mainland Europe
HTC on Thursday set out the first launches of the One X, One S, and One V outside of Taiwan. Austria, Germany, and Switzerland will all get the Android 4.0 centerpiece phones on April 2. Prices for the One X, One S, and One V will come in at 599 euros (719 Swiss francs), 499 euros (599 francs), and 299 euros (349 francs).
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03/28, 8:05am
NVIDIA Tegra 4 details slip
Apparent new leaks have hinted that NVIDIA's next-generation Tegra, for now called the Tegra 4, should be a generational leap. The future 28 nanometer chip was said by VR-Zone's tips to be getting GPGPU support to use its graphics core for boosting CUDA, OpenCL, and other general-purpose tasks. The simple addition would hint at a graphics core multiple generations newer than what's in the Tegra 3, which dates back to the 2006-era PlayStation 3.
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03/26, 1:25pm
iPad 2012 defies battery, temperature expectations
Fresh tests of the new iPad have shown that concerns over its temperature have been overstated in light of competition. The range of Macworld tests showed that, despite the extra backlighting and larger processor demanded by the new screen, the current Apple tablet is within a few degrees of the lower-resolution, slower ASUS Transformer Prime and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE. In a few cases, such as under maximum load for over an hour, the Galaxy Tab was slightly hotter.
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03/25, 11:45pm
HTC One X using Snapdragon S4 tops charts
The same source as the original leak of the HTC One X for AT&T has since posted benchmarks showing it possibly taking the crown for the fastest Android device yet. Despite stepping down from the international version's quad-core Tegra 3 to the dual-core Snapdragon S4, the AT&T version was shown by Android Central forum contributor Phonegeek to be roughly twice as fast. Qualcomm's own Vellamo browser test showed the Android 4.0 phone mostly thriving in CPU-heavy JavaScript, a feat borne out by Quadrant's very high CPU and memory scores.
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03/23, 12:55pm
NVIDIA sees Apple and itself hurting cheap PCs
NVIDIA's mobile lead Rene Haas in a conversation published overnight saw both his own company and Apple squeezing out traditional low-end notebooks. He explained to CNET that, just as Apple's MacBook Air had mostly killed the need for a "middle" system between the ultraportable and the faster MacBook Pro, NVIDIA would serve both Tegra-based mobile devices at the low end and graphics-heavy, performance-based notebooks on top. It was the stereotypical Windows notebook, which didn't have any of the performance edges or the portability, that was most at risk.
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03/22, 9:30am
Acer Iconia Tab A510 US details
Acer on early Thursday detailed the North American version of the Iconia Tab A510, its first real answer to the new iPad. The quad-core Tegra 3 tablet will reach the US and Canada with 32GB of storage in both black- and silver-backed versions. Every version ships with a 10-inch, 1280x800 display, a five-megapixel rear camera, a front one-megapixel camera, and mini HDMI video out.
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03/21, 3:25pm
Huawei may move quad-core phone back a month
Huawei's self-proclaimed fastest phone in the world, the Ascend D quad, may have had its released moved back by at least a month if tips are accurate. While unconfirmed, CNMO understood that it would go from expectations of shipping before the end of the spring to only starting production in June. The actual release would "likely" be in July, but the step left room for it to ship later still if timing required it.
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03/20, 4:55pm
HTC and Sprint hint at Android device plans
Sprint and HTC on Tuesday jointly sent invitations to Electronista and others for their "latest collaboration" on April 4. The New York City invitation was sparse on details beyond having Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and HTC president Jason MacKenzie, using a pin in the graphic as a possible clue. While it might be a hint as to a pen-based tablet, it may also just be a reference to Sprint's classic "needle drop" TV ads.
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03/19, 11:50am
New iPad outruns Tegra 3 in gaming and web
A fresh comparison has validated many of the suspicions that the new iPad's A5X may well be faster than NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor in a large number of tests. Apple's slate, despite competing against a quad-core chip from a company considered an expert in graphics, was faster in visually-oriented tests conducted by Laptop. While a standard GLBenchmark test showed it about 13 percent faster, a texture fill rate test in the same suite showed it having almost five times the processing power in that area.
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03/16, 12:35pm
Google Nexus slate may have toned down for price
(Update: extra rumors) Google's repeatedly rumored reference Android tablet, informally thought of as a Nexus tablet, may be focused on cost even more than thought. A senior staffer at an American supply chain firm claimed to Android and Me that the price window had been dropped by $50 to $149 to $199. However, any chance at a quad-core Tegra 3 might be dashed, as it would use an unnamed chip to save money.
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03/15, 3:30pm
HTC One X gets first hard ship date
O2's UK division posted on Twitter what might have been an inadvertent confirmation of the launch date of the HTC One X. The quad-core phone was due to come in on April 5, roughly fitting in with HTC's early spring target. Prices and rates for the phone hadn't been set.
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03/08, 11:20pm
Google 7in tablet once more linked to ASUS
Google's rumored Nexus-like Android tablet has once more been attached to ASUS by a leak late Thursday. The seven-inch tablet was now thought by Digitimes' contacts to be coming as soon as May for between $199 to $249. ASUS had been picked because it could manufacture the devices itself and had "good product quality."
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03/07, 10:00pm
NVIDIA upset it may lose to Apple in mobile GPUs
NVIDIA responded to Apple's claims of performance for the new iPad. Representative Ken Brown told ZDNet that NVIDIA didn't have the benchmark criteria Apple used to claim a fourfold speed advantage over the Tegra 3 processor. As such, it couldn't verify the authenticity of the claims, which it implied might have been biased through the choice of apps.
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03/06, 3:55pm
Tablet just a concept, not a real product...yet
Toshiba, on the heels of its showing off its still-mysterious AT270 7.7-inch tablet at Mobile World Congress last week, has revealed a conceptualization of a much larger sibling. The Japanese electronics maker has displayed a mock up of a 13.3-inch super-sized tablet. If Toshiba ultimately makes it into a commercial product, it's expected to come powered by a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor.
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03/02, 6:35pm
Vendor brings its LTE to Europe and Asia
Huawei has used the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona to announce several new LTE smartphones and devices. The Chinese vendor has revealed that it would add LTE supported versions of the Ascend D series and Ascend P1 handsets as well as the E3276 wireless network card and E5776 Wi-Fi hotspot to its product portfolio. Huawei will be introducing the devices to the European and Asian markets by July.
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03/02, 3:00pm
Splashtop THD app now out for Tegra 3 tablets
Android platform developer Splashtop has just released its Splashtop THD ($7, Android Market) app, meant exclusively for NVIDIA Tegra 3-powered tablets such as the ASUS Transformer Prime. The software lets users stream audio or video from their PCs and Macs to the tablet, including using nearly any desktop program, such as graphics-intensive games. This last part purportedly requires an NVIDIA GeForce graphics card in order to play titles like Skyrim in full-screen mode.
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02/28, 3:10pm
Another quad-core phone at MWC
Yesterday we took a look at most of ZTE's new smartphones for 2012, and we stopped by the company's booth again to check out the PF112. The device is one of many Tegra 3-powered smartphones that have been brought to Barcelona this week, marking ZTE's attempt to establish itself in the mid- to high-end smartphone market.
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02/28, 9:40am
Toshiba AT270 gets our hands-on take
NVIDIA has ended up being the star of Mobile World Congress so far, heading up the processor choice in devices like the HTC One X or LG Optimus 4X HD. A pleasant surprise, however, has been Toshiba's so far still unofficial 7.7-inch tablet, which it briefly teased at CES. It's called the AT270, it runs on a Tegra 3, and NVIDIA let us try what could be one of the more interesting tablets of the show.
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02/27, 12:10pm
hTC One series tried by us at MWC 2012
HTC undertook a full-on reinvention of its device strategy at Mobile World Congress on Sunday: it went from a flood of similar models that dragged it down and kept it from seriously threatening Apple or Samsung this fall. With the One X, One S, and One V, though, it's aiming to provide a clear strategy: there's no mistaking which one's high-end and which one's budget. We tried all three on the floor, and we've got a hint as to whether its strategy might be working.
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02/27, 11:25am
We try LG's flagship phones at MWC 2012
LG put out a trio of headlining smartphones at Mobile World Congress, and we've had the chance to try all three. The Optimus 4X HD is clearly the star: with a quad-core Tegra 3 and a 4.7-inch, 720p display, it's one of the more powerful devices at the show. Read on for its take as well as looks at the Optimus Vu and Optimus 3D Max.
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02/27, 9:55am
ZTE approaches high-end market
ZTE introduced a myriad of new cellphones today at Mobile World Congress, but the Era smartphone held top honors. The Era is one of several Tegra 3-based Android phones that have been brought to Barcelona this week, competing among a crowd of high-end devices all packing quad-core processors. In our hands-on preview, we take a look at how the Era stacks up against the others.
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02/26, 3:40pm
Second MWC phone with quad-core
HTC has formally unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the One X, which follows Huawei's Ascend D as another quad-core phone introduced this week at Mobile World Congress. Confirming earlier rumors, HTC chose to stick with NVIDIA's Tegra 3 chipset that will serve as the basis for several different high-end Ice Cream Sandwich devices from various manufacturers.
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02/26, 9:15am
Huawei kicks off MWC 2012 coverage
Huawei is the first to start a series of introductory events at Mobile World Congress. It's expected to be one of the first with a quad-core smartphone in the Ascend D Quad (formerly D1 Q) as well as a 10-inch tablet, the MediaPad 10. Check Electronista's live coverage page from 9:30AM Eastern for updates as they happen from the Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona.
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02/26, 8:25am
Huawei Ascend D Quad already confirmed
(Update: official details) Huawei's marketing coordination inadvertently spoiled its Mobile World Congress plans early on Sunday after the scrolling ads at Barcelona Airport started showing one of its products with Arnoud Wokke there to capture a photo. Now referred to as the Ascend D Quad, the former D1 Q is billed as the "world's fastest smartphone." The claim is likely a reference to the quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3, although whether it's actually faster than some dual-core phones is up for debate.
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02/26, 2:55am
Samsung Galaxy Beam remade for second try
After a brief try in 2010, Samsung has revived the Galaxy Beam, its hybrid projector and smartphone. The new version tucks in a 15-lumen pico projector that can show the phone's photos and videos, even outdoors. A dedicated app can be used to manage the content, which shows at sizes up to 50 inches.
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02/26, 2:30am
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 mostly brings Android 4
Samsung as one of its last preludes before Mobile World Congress has brought out the Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1). A direct upsizing of the seven-inch version, it shares Android 4.0, the unnamed (likely Tegra 2) dual-core 1GHz processor, three-megapixel back camera, and VGA front camera of the smaller device. Its primary differences are the 1280x800 resolution (carried over from the original 10.1) and a frame more conspicuously meant to avoid treading on Apple's design rights in Germany.
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02/25, 2:20pm
HTC One X near confirmed through tips
The HTC One X has had virtually all its details slip through the scoop of numerous official PR files. Greece's FullGSM got both more images of the quad-core phone itself as well as its spec sheet. Images show a slim design braced by the 4.7-inch, 720p Super LCD 2 display and reinforce that it should be using Android 4.0 with the slightly improved Sense 4.0 layer on top.
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02/25, 1:15pm
NVIDIA DirectTouch on Tegra 3 gets partners
NVIDIA just ahead of Mobile World Congress on Saturday lined up partners for its unique DirectTouch (PDF interface technology. Atmel, Cypress, N-Trig, and Synaptics will have touchscreen controllers that can use NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 to handle some of the touch input processing instead of just their own circuitry. The method not only improves the responsiveness dramatically but could lower power use by keeping just one chip active.
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02/23, 6:25pm
NVIDIA hopes to fast-track 4G quad-core devices
NVIDIA unveiled deals with GCT Semiconductor and Renesas that would mate Tegra 3 smartphones and tablets with LTE. The two cellular chip designers are both working on LTE modems that would be companions to NVIDIA's quad-core chip. Striking the deal would let companies make high-end mobile devices with both a Tegra 3 and 4G faster than they would if they had to shop around.
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02/23, 5:15pm
Update to be distributed tomorrow
ASUS will be releasing Android 4.0 for its original Eee Pad Transformer tablet owners in the US tomorrow. The company has posted on Twitter to let customers know it is coming. Taiwanese customers received access to the update earlier today.
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02/23, 2:25pm
TI OMAP5 demo shows A15 more than 2X faster
TI has posted a demo video (below) of its OMAP5 processor in what could be a sign of how fast many next-generation processors will be next to even chips that have yet to arrive. Even clocked at just 800MHz with only two main cores, the use of ARM's new Cortex-A15 was able to run a web browser, MP3 playback, and downloading multitasking test more than twice as quickly as a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor. While the A9 wasn't named, it was likely NVIDIA's 1.3GHz Tegra 3, showing how little clock speed mattered.
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02/23, 9:05am
Eee Pad Transformer adds Android 4 in Taiwan first
ASUS posted confirmation Thursday that its long-promised Android 4.0 update to the original Eee Pad Transformer was starting to roll out. Beginning with Taiwan, over-the-air updates were supplying the OS to the company's first native Android tablet. Other countries would get the update "soon after," although it declined to give exact schedules.
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02/22, 10:50pm
LG Optimus 4X HD made official
LG's pre-MWC smartphone rollouts culminated Wednesday with the Optimus 4X HD. The device is the first officially unveiled smartphone to run NVIDIA's Tegra 3 quad-core processor. At 1.5GHz, it can both help Internet access as well as improve the ability to juggle multiple apps at once.
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02/21, 10:25am
Huawei MediaPad 10 uncovered in real photos
Huawei's MediaPad 10 was spoiled a few days ahead of its Mobile World Congress debut on Tuesday after a leak through Russia's Mail.ru. The 10-inch design is at once a refinement and close cousin of the seven-inch version. It keeps a very thin aluminum design and is believed to be lightweight, albeit with a familiar looking dock connector similar to that of the iPad.
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