As it has been for many moons with the Tegra-enhanced Android universe, so too does Windows RT get the NVIDIA TegraZone treatment: a listing of games made great for your Tegra processor-toting tablet! This listing of games opens in an extremely simplified display with touch-friendly pushing and pulling in mind. What you’re getting here is a guide to games that will work fabulously on your device that’s working with both Windows RT (that Windows 8 operating system made for your tablet specifically) and an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor under the hood – like the Microsoft Surface with Windows RT, for example – hot stuff!
The NVIDIA TegraZone being available for Windows RT means that NVIDIA will be pushing developers to their limits with a cross-promotional bit of excellence on all Tegra 3-toting devices. If you’ve got a Windows RT tablet with Tegra 3 (regardless of manufacturer), you’ll have a precise collection of games ready and waiting for you to peruse that you’ll know were made with your device in mind. In many cases, this means that the game has features above and beyond what it’d have working with any other processor-toting device.
Here at the launch of the NVIDIA TegraZone for Windows RT, you’ve got a selection of the following awesome collection of games: Judge Dredd vs Zombies, Pinball FX 2, Reckless Racing Ultimate, Riptide GP, Soulcraft, Space Ark, Sprinkle and Vendetta Online. Each of these games is offered for sale in the Windows Store but through the TegraZone is detailed with Tegra-only enhanced features. These features include enhanced physics in water, smoke, and cloth, dynamic lighting and particle effects – and more!
As it was with the original NVIDIA TegraZone, this version of the interface is made for the current most fabulous Tegra processor, but will keep up-to-date with the best of the best in the future. That means here that while the Tegra 3 quad-core processor is king (and has been throughout 2012), we’ll likely see a new beast from the NVIDIA crew for mobile devices in 2013 – currently code-named Wayne, as it were. Keep an eye out! Once that processor is out, developers working with NVIDIA will still be busting out the best of the best, so the TegraZone is up on the greatest no matter when you see it!
The most important part of this whole equation is the relationship that the folks at NVIDIA have with the developers behind these hard-hitting games, and the amazing apps they create as a result of said relationships for you, the user. You can download the TegraZone app from the Windows Store right this minute – have at it!
Also have a peek at the TegraZone path that’s been forged on SlashGear in a small sampling from Slashgear in the timeline below for Android – and hit our own NVIDIA [Tegra Portal] to take in the full NVIDIA Tegra environment, top to bottom!
Nvidia’s next-generation mobile processor could be a 72-core graphics powerhouse, according to leaded specs reportedly uncovered by Chinese site Chiphell. The specs for the Tegra 4 processor, codenamed Wayne (a designation we’ve heard before), detail a 4-plus-1 battery saving quad-core design like that used in the current Tegra 3 processors. It should help Android devices get even better at gaming and media applications, while conserving battery life.
The design is based on a 28nm manufacturing process, which is more power efficient than the 40nm design used in the current Tegra 3, and on par with Qualcomm’s S4 mobile processors. Nvidia is hanging its hat on the upcoming Tegra’s graphics performance, however: it boasts 6 times the graphics processing capabilities of the Tegra 3, and 20 times the strength of the Tegra 2. If you’re a next-gen gaming platform like the Ouya, or any smartphone or tablet-maker trying to usurp consoles as a viable gaming alternative, then that’s a very attractive proposition.
Other details reportedly coming to the Tegra 4 according to the leak are the ability to support video playback at 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, USB 3.0 support and also high-speed HDMI connections. The Nvidia design could help the company gain an edge over Qualcomm’s S4, which powers a good percentage of current Android OEM flagship devices. The Tegra 3 also isn’t especially friendly with LTE-capable devices, which is a growing concern, and although the leaked details don’t mention anything about LTE support, it’s hard to imagine Nvidia building a next-gen mobile processor without tackling that. Wayne has reportedly been in development at least since February, and some speculated it would be arriving soon even then, so watch this space for any official details.
It’s here, folks. The next generation of smartphone specs is arriving in the form of faster processors and larger displays. Popular Chinese brand Xiaomi is rumored to be releasing a smartphone with some crazy hardware. We’re talking a quad-core Tegra 4 chip, 2.5GB of RAM, and a 1080p display. We should be seeing devices like this in the next few months anyway, but for now, let’s admire what have here.
Early reports have the Xiaomi M3 pegged for a mid-2013 launch, and more recent reports have unveiled some of the alleged innards of the new device, such as a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 4 chip, which has yet to be announced obviously, but it’s said that it will be capable of clocking in between 1.8GHz and 2.0GHz.
The rumored M3 is also said to receive a larger 4.5-inch display with a 1080p resolution, which would result in a crazy pixel density of 490 PPI, blowing past HTC’s DROID DNA that has a pixel density of 440 PPI. There will also be a 12MP rear camera, and it will run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with MIUI.
Unfortunately, don’t expect these Xiaomi handset to ever make there way stateside, but we can certainly expect similar high-end smartphones to hit the market next year. Of course, these are all just mumblings for now, but it’s definitely no surprise that we’ll see these kinds of phones soon, and maybe CES 2013 will have some on display. Stay tuned.
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang posing in front of a GPU-powered supercomputer
As Intel is looking for a new CEO, something surprising did happen recently: the company has hinted that it may bring in someone from the outside, which would be a first for Intel. So far I’ve heard names like Sanjay Jah, the former Motorola CEO (and ex-Qualcomm COO) as potential replacement for Intel’s Paul Otellini who is retiring in May 2013. Tech site BSN has started a new Internet buzz by coming up with a totally different rumor: according to them, Intel is looking at buying NVIDIA, and would name Jen-Hsun Huang (NVIDIA’s CEO) as Intel’s new CEO. Now, *that* would be something that we would like to observe. This rumors is backed by pretty much nothing, but it is fun to discuss: so, how likely is it to happen? Let’s look at the pro and cons for Intel. (more…)
Custom PC-building company AVADirect has been in the business for awhile, and we’ve checked out some of their solutions in the past, but today they have announced what they call a “one-of-a-kind Supermicro rack-mountable system” that allows a quad-SLI NVIDIA graphics setup alongside additional expansion cards for the first time ever.
The company says that this solution allows users to have best of both worlds when it comes to graphics and expansion cards, since the tower can fit up to four graphics cards while still making room for additional cards for other purposes. AVADirect says that most other similar solutions don’t offer the same flexibility.
The motherboard featured in the default configuration (Super X9DRG-QF) offers four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, two PCI-Express 3.0 x8 slots, and one PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slots. So essentially, you could pop in four graphics cards and still have three slots left over for expansion cards like a RAID controller or a network card.
AVADirect says that this kind of flexibility “truly shines and stands out from other configurations” that are offered by competitors. The system also supports Intel Xeon E5 processors and up to 512GB of ECC-registered memory or 192GB of ECC un-buffered memory. On top of all this, there’s eight 3.5-inch hot-swap bays, and a massive 1620-watt redundant power supply to run the show. Of course, it won’t be cheap. AVADirect’s recommended build costs over $2,600.
HTC’s One X, which launched earlier in the year, turned out to be quite a capable Android handset, and it was leaps and bounds above the company’s 2011 lineup. However, HTC decided to launch an updated version just a few months after the release of its predecessor. It’s available now exclusively on AT&T’s network, and it’s priced at $199 after a two-year contract. While the One X+ may not look any different than the One X, it does come with some decent and welcomed updates on the inside. It comes out of the box with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, a NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip, 64GB of storage, and a slightly larger 2100mAh battery. These changes certainly are key updates that are crucial if HTC wants to keep up with other flagships going into the holiday season, but are the upgrades worth the higher price? And more importantly, can it compete with the other top-tier handsets on the market?
Hardware
To answer that last question, the answer is simply, yes, it can. It doesn’t necessarily stand alone, but it should make the shortlist for anyone narrowing down what top-of-the-line smartphone to get themselves or their loved one this holiday season. The unibody design that we saw on the One X is the same as what we’re seeing on the One X+. Thanks to the polycarbonate housing, the handset is pretty light and also really thin, and the soft-touch finish allows for a firm grip on the device, but our black version was quite a finger smudge magnet. However, despite the large 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 720p display, the entire device doesn’t feel overwhelming to hold at all, unlike other 4.7-inch handsets that I’ve played around with.
Since it’s a unibody device, there’s not a lot of things that you can take apart easily. There’s no battery cover, which means you can’t replace the battery with a bigger one or use a spare, but that also means it’s a lot sleeker than non-unibody handsets. On the top, there’s a headphone jack along with the ambient noise sensor, with the power button on the right. On the left side, there’s the microUSB port, with the volume rocker sitting on the right side. On the bottom, there’s just the microphone. And finally, on the front, you have the three capacitive soft buttons — Back, Home, and Recent Apps — as well as the typical elongated earpiece that HTC is known for, with a notification light hidden within.
There’s a bit more happening on the back of the One X+, though. The 8MP camera protrudes just a tad from the surface, and there’s a single LED flash to accompany the camera. Also on the back is the microSIM card slot. It’s not necessarily situated on the back of the phone, but it’s also not really situated at the top — it’s mostly located in between on the curve, which is almost an odd place for it, but it actually works. The speaker is also located on the back towards the bottom, as well as the five small gold contacts for docking purposes.
On the inside is where all the real changes occur, though. The HTC One X+ trades in the dual-core Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon processor of the One X for a NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset that pairs a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor clocked at 1.7GHz with GeForce ULP graphics. The device also comes with 1GB of RAM and a whopping 64GB of internal storage. While there’s no microSD card slot, we think the 64GB of storage is plenty of space for any user.
The 4.7-inch display has a resolution of 1280×720, giving it a pixel density of 312ppi, which pegs it right up against the Samsung Galaxy S III and the LG Optimus G. It’s the same display in the One X, which arguably has one of the best displays on the smartphone market (before the DROID DNA came along). It’s super crisp and clear, and it provides an excellent viewing experience with text and images showing up extremely sharp and bright.
Software
The HTC One X+ runs Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box, with HTC’s Sense 4+ UI running on top. If you’re already familiar with HTC’s user interface, you won’t see many surprises in Sense 4+ other than the new Jelly Bean features like Google Now and Project Butter. Of course, if you’re looking for a device that offers a pure Android experience, you may not like HTC’s excessive skinning, but it adds a lot of nice features that many users will take advantage of. While HTC is sometimes accused of over-skinning, they actually left a couple of Jelly Bean features alone. For instance, they didn’t implement their own speech recognition tool over Google’s own solution. Instead, you’ll be greeted with pure Google Now and Voice Search on the One X+.
A lot of the differences between Sense 4.1 (on the One X) and 4+ are mostly behind the scenes and very subtle. The update claims smoother navigation, improved performance, and better battery life. HTC also seemed to remove shadows and embossments from text and replaced them with sharper effects in order to make text easier to read, although that may just be my mind playing tricks on me, but I did notice that text seemed a little crisper compared to other HTC devices I’ve played around with. Infinite scrolling has made a return as well, after being removed on the One X. This allows you to jump from the furthest left home screen to the furthest right, and vice versa.
As far as a possible update to Android 4.2, we wouldn’t be surprised if the One X+ eventually received it. It’s a new-enough device and a powerhouse of a smartphone for HTC and AT&T to definitely consider giving one of its best handsets an update to the latest Android version. Plus, an update to Android 4.2 would make the handset just that much more appealing to buyers who are wanting a future-proof device.
Benchmarks & Performance
With the HTC One X being an excellent smartphone, we knew going into it that the One X+ would only be an improvement, and that benchmarks would be a little better. However, the benchmarks showed that the One X+ provides quite the performance boost over the One X. In AnTuTu, the One X+ scored just over 16,200, which is right on par with Samsung’s Galaxy S III, but not quite up to snuff with the LG Optimus G or the Nexus 4. Of course, though, the difference is most likely negligible. Compared to the One X, which scores as high as 11,000, the One X+ is certainly quite a bit faster.
In Quadrant, the One X+ scored a 7,400, which is over double of what our scores were with the One X (3,400). It also does better than the Galaxy S III, which scored 6,000 during our testing, and performed just slightly better than the Optimus G. Of course, benchmarks aren’t everything, and what truly matters is if users will be happy with the performance of the phone and its user interface. Thanks to Project Butter that was introduced in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the One X+ is both snappy and smooth. Navigating through different screens and switching between apps was really quick. Surprisingly, playing a little bit of Asphalt 7 was a less-than-stellar experience, though — it was really laggy and framerates were disgustingly low. However, Mass Effect: Infiltrator played much smoother and provided better performance all around, which makes us think that Asphalt 7 may be an isolated issue.
Camera
The One X+ has an 8MP rear camera with a 1.6MP front-facing shooter. It’s essentially the same camera found in the One X, but with a slightly improved sensor that’s capable of recording 1080p video at 30fps instead of 24fps in the One X. The front-facing camera has also been upgraded to 1.6MP from the 1.3MP on the One X.
Overall, I really like the camera app’s user interface. It’s really easy to access all of the settings, and there’s even two shutter buttons, one for taking photos and the other for taking videos. This is extremely handy, since there’s no need to have to wait a few seconds in order to switch between the two.
Photo quality varies depending on the situation. With enough lighting, images can appear really crisp and sharp, but low-light conditions offer a different experience. Taking pictures in low light adds a ton of noise, almost to the point where images appear blotchy. Of course, you can manually adjust the ISO in the settings, but lowering it when you want to take a picture of a night scene opens the door for blurry photos, which is arguably worse than just having a lot of noise. Contrast and saturation is a bit too high as well, and sometimes exposure isn’t perfect at times, but with HDR mode turned on, photos get exposed a lot better. However, a lot of users won’t even bother with HDR mode anyway, since it’s a lot slower than just the automatic setting.
As far as different features, there’s Panorama mode and the aforementioned HDR mode, as well as a built-in Slow Motion mode. These aren’t anything new, as we’re already used to seeing these in the HTC One series. There are also a handful of color effects that you can choose from and apply them to photos and videos in real time — sort of like Instagram, but not quite as comprehensive.
As far as video quality goes, it was slightly above average, but it wasn’t without its faults. The increase to 30fps is certainly something that we don’t mind, but the difference from 24fps is negligible. Most videophiles will be able to tell the difference, of course, but casual videographers won’t care too much. Exposure changes going from dimly-lit areas to well-lit areas and vice versa is quick, and continuous autofocus works fairly well too, although there were times when it took a bit of time to refocus.
Battery
The HTC One X+ now comes with a larger 2100mAh battery compared to the One X’s 1800mAh battery. This is always a good thing, of course, but with the internal hardware enhancements, the 300 extra mAhs may have been required rather than just an amenity for picky users. Plus, the unibody design means that you won’t be able crack open the device in order to change out the battery for a spare or larger alternative.
However, we couldn’t find anything to complain about as far as battery life is concerned. HTC has certainly improved on the battery life of devices of yesteryear, and it seems the company is even advocating longer battery life in the software as well, with a permanent and easy-to-get-to “power saver” toggle in the notification tray. I ended up going all day long and well into the evening before I had to plug the One X+ into the wall. This was after I started the day on a full charge and with moderate to heavy usage, such as running benchmarks, playing games, and streaming Netflix at various times throughout the day.
With typical usage, I ended up getting well over a day and a half out of the battery, doing things like checking email, surfing social media, browsing the web, and keeping up with sports scores throughout the day. However, any hardcore gaming for an extended amount of time, as well as GPS navigation will certainly drain the battery faster than a water pipe can drain water, but that’s obviously to be expected, and we would hope that anyone who ended up playing mobile games on the One X+, or even have navigation up for an hour or two at a time would most likely have an outlet or car charger nearby.
Wrap-Up
The design and looks of the One X+ haven’t changed a whole lot since the One X, so if you were hoping for a cosmetic change of some sort with this updated model, you’ll be sorely disappointed. However, the real upgrades are on the inside, and while they may not be extremely significant (think Apple upgrading from 3G to 3GS, or 4 to 4S), they’re compelling enough that we’d easily recommend the One X+ if you don’t already have a HTC One device.
The presence of LTE alone can make this phone a true competitor against the Nexus 4, even if it is just a slightly faster handset than the One X+. Other devices, like the Galaxy S III and the Optimus G are powerhouses, but if you’re not a big fan of their user interfaces, you wouldn’t be sacrificing much of anything performance-wise if you ended up going with the One X+, except maybe the removable battery if that’s a concern for you. Other than the company’s flagship DROID DNA, the One X+ is certainly one of HTC’s best devices on the market right now.
Welcome to Thursday evening everyone – just one more work day to go and we’ll be at the weekend once again. This afternoon started with a bang, with Spotify holding a press conference to announce a number of things. Perhaps most importantly, the service has 1 million paying subscribers in the US, with 5 million worldwide. The company also launched Spotify Collections and the Spotify Music Graph today, announcing a new web app for all users too. Finally, we found out that Metallica’s full catalog of music has been added to Spotify, so all of you metal fans have a reason to celebrate this evening.
T-Mobile’s CEO announced today that it will have Apple products in the US next year, while we learned that Facebook may buy Microsoft’s Atlus ad program. Crysis 3 will be launching in North America on February 19 and in Europe later that week, so if you need to upgrade any of your PC hardware, do it before then. The Archos GamePad launched in Europe today, but it won’t be arriving in the US until 2013, and NVIDIA has launched GeForce Experience, which can automatically optimize your graphics settings.
Samsung has maintained its number one position in the Chinese smartphone market with Apple falling to number six, and the makers of MediaMonkey have launched a new Android app beta. Google is funding drones to watch over endangered animals in Africa and Asia, while we learned some new information about drones here in the US today. YouTube will be rolling out a new layout tonight, T-Mobile announced that it will be ending subsidies on phones next year, and new content has been added to the Humble THQ Bundle.
Finally tonight, we have a number of original articles for you to read. Chris Burns has reviews of the both the 10terra iPhone 5 case and the iRecycle app for iOS and Android. He also examines Google’s stock issues with the incredibly popular Nexus 4. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night everyone!
NVIDIA has unveiled a new service called GeForce Experience that is essentially a cloud-based service that aims to analyze your hardware and automatically adjust in-game settings and display resolution for a better and optimized experience when playing games. NVIDIA has always been about making you gaming experience as great as possible, but this takes it to the next level.
It may seem like a complicated service, but NVIDIA promises that the user won’t be required to do much of anything. The tool is made to make the user experience as simple as possible. It definitely seems like a perfect solution if you’re not into guess-and-check graphics settings, which can forever for gamers to dial in.
The service can even automatically adjust more advanced settings like anti-aliasing levels and shadow options. There are obviously tons of different configurations that gamers could theoretically apply, but GeForce Experience can fetch optimal settings from the cloud and apply them for you, and it makes changes directly to your game’s config file.
The service is currently in beta, but it’s not public, so get in line if you think you might want to give it a try. If you enjoy tuning your own settings, then GeForce Experience probably won’t change your life, but the service also comes with automatic driver updates, and that’s one thing that every gamer can benefit from.
Nvidia is no stranger to trying to make your video games look good, but this is a different take. Nvidia’s doing software now, and its GeForce Experience wants to optimize your graphics settings. More »
Toshiba has just introduced the Toshiba Excite 10 SE, an 10″ tablet running on Android 4.1 aka “Jelly Bean”. Inside, users will find an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and 16GB of storage which can be supplemented by a microSD memory card. This particular model is WiFi-only and there is no word about a 3G model at this point. Given that the tablet costs ($350), Toshiba may want to keep the production line making a single model to streamline things. (more…)
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Toshiba has just introduced the Toshiba Excite 10 SE, an 10″ tablet running on Android 4.1 aka “Jelly Bean”. Inside, users will find an 