Hasta La Gadget!

This week the team at BLU have revealed a new series of smartphones with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor line inside, making it clear that they’re pushing for a more mainstream showing of their Android-based mobile products. This lineup includes the Quattro 4.5, Quattro 4.5 HD, and rounding off the series with a device so large it’s just about as big as a tablet with the Quattro 5.7 HD. These devices will be available for relatively inexpensive prices unlocked – that means you’re not going to have to tie yourself up with a mobile operator for 2 years just to afford the device – might be a winning solution!

With the BLU Quattro 4.5 HD you’ll be working with a 4.5-inch HD 326PPI display with what the company calls Advanced Super View technology. This technology is said to bring “spectacular clarity” as well as “rich, natural color” – can’t wait to see it! The Quattro 4.5 HD also has a pane of Corning Gorilla Glass up front to stay tough against scratches and you’ll have an 8 megapixel camera on the back with f/2.4 large aperture lens with 1080p video recording abilities.

Inside the Quattro HD you’ll have 16GB of internal memory as well as 1GB of RAM while your NVIDIA Tegra 3 SoC will be running at 1.5GHz out of the box. This device will be availabe the first week of February, 2013, complete with a $349.99 retail price unlocked. That, again, means no contractual obligations – you’ll be working with quad-band GSM and penta-band 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity – 1700MHz AWS inside the USA – so you’ll be choosing from brands like AT&T and T-Mobile for your mobile SIM card down the line.

There’s also a Quattro 4.5 (without the HD) coming in at $249.99 USD, also unlocked, here with a 4.5-inch qHD display and a 5 megapixel camera on the back as well as 4GB of internal memory. You’ll be able to expand this device’s memory by 32GB with your own microSD card, on the other hand, while you’ll be jumping off with 1GB of RAM and a launch date essentially the same time as the HD iteration.

Finally there’s the Quattro 5.7 HD, a device with a massive 5.7-inch 1280 x 720 pixel resolution HD display and many of the same specifications as the Quattro 4.5 HD. This Quattro 5.7 HD also works with an 8 megapixel camera and video recording abilities up to 1080p, but you’ll have the same 4GB internal memory as the non-HD Quattro 4.5 – but again here you’ll also have a microSD card slot for memory expansion up to 32GB. The Quattro 5.7 HD will be costing you $299.99 retail unlocked and will be available at the end of March.

Each model sounds pretty enticing! You may find the fact that they’ll all be coming with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to be less than appealing, but they also include a “planned upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as well. We shall see the truth of all of this soon enough! Don’t forget to check out our NVIDIA Tegra hub for more information on the grand expanse of the Tegra mobile processor universe – it’s ever-expanding!

[via HPC Wire]

BLU Quattro smartphone series revealed with NVIDIA Tegra 3 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While we got to see plenty of notebooks and all-in-ones from Vizio during CES 2013, we also got the chance to check out a 7-inch and 10-inch tablet from the company that don’t seem to be as far along in the development process as the other products. Nevertheless, they certainly were cool, sporting technical specifications that can take on the larger tablet manufacturers out there. Sadly, we don’t have release dates for either of these two tablets, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about them in the meantime!

We’ll start right off with Vizio‘s 7-inch tablet, which is obviously the company’s answer to the wildly popular Nexus 7. Its specs aren’t all that different from those of the Nexus 7 either, sporting 1200 x 800 resolution, 16GB of internal memory, and a NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor. Users will also have WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity at their disposal, and for a 7-inch tablet, this one looks pretty good. The tablet itself looks sleek and the visuals are sharp thanks to the 1200×800 resolution. It also feels pretty good in the hand, as most 7-inch tablets seem to.

Moving right along to the 10-inch tablet, we’ll have 2560 x 1600 resolution, so starting right off, we can already see similarities between it and Samsung’s Nexus 10. With that kind of resolution, I’d typically be worried that the processor would struggle a bit, but this tablet is running a brand new Tegra 4 under the hood. Add to that 32GB of internal storage with the option to expand thanks to the microSD slot, Bluetooth 4.0 functionality, and a microHDMI port, and you’ve got a tablet worth getting excited about.

The screen on the 10-inch tablet looks absolutely great, and if you’ve seen the display on the Nexus 10 in person, then you should have a relatively good idea of what to expect. The only downside is that 7-inch tablets seem to have spoiled me and 10-inch tablets now feel weird to hold. That’s more likely a personal hang up than a negative mark against Vizio, but in any case, this tablet certainly isn’t without heft. What’s more, swiping through screens on the tablet seemed very smooth, and there were only a few dropped frames that I noticed during HD video playback. There’s no word on when this bad boy will launch, but expect to be waiting awhile considering that Vizio wants to put a Tegra 4 in it.

All in all, I was pretty impressed by what I saw from Vizio. These tablets may not being anything incredibly new, but they’re still both solid pieces of equipment. Now we wait for release dates to be announced, which could be some time away in the case of the 10-inch tablet. Vizio’s 7-incher is scheduled for launch sometime in the first half of 2013, so we’ll have to see if Vizio can stick with that launch window. Be sure to check out our CES hub for all you need to know from the show!

Vizio 10-inch and 7-inch tablet hands-on is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

At CES 2013 we saw the unveiling of the NVIDIA Tegra 4, a mobile processor the company suggested was the World’s Fastest, it containing 72 GPU cores, five CPU cores (one of them an A15 “companion”), and the ability to work with 4G LTE. The Tegra 4 will be working with the NVIDIA Icera i500, that being a 28nm HP, Category 3 LTE (4 in the pipeline) Soft Modem. These two pieces of architecture together will be NVIDIA’s hero technology for mobile devices throughout 2013.

NVIDIA Tegra 4

The NVIDIA Tegra 4 System-on-Chip with five ARM Cortex A15 cores – four of them with 1.9GHz max clock speed, a fifth synthesized to work at lower power. The technology working around this fifth Companion core is similar to the Tegra 3, and for the lay person, it may as well be presented as the same due to how similar it really is. The fifth core is not visible to the operating system you’re using (be it Android, Windows, or something else), acting as more of a “Shadow Core” or a “Ninja” as we’ve been apt to call it, just as it was with Tegra 3.

Above you’re going to see a rundown of what Tegra 4 is, how it compares to Tegra 3, and what the future holds for mobile processing. The talk you’re seeing above is with NVIDIA Technical Marketing Director Nick Stam who presented us more of a detailed look at the Tegra 4 and what it means for mobile devices in 2013 (and beyond.)

For those of you that want to get rather technical with it all, you’ll be interested in knowing that the die size here in this new model is 80mm^2, ever so slightly larger than Tegra 3, but a whole lot denser as well. The cores you’re seeing here work on 28nm HPL, that being 28nm low power with high-k plus metal gates. What that basically means here is that you’re going to get one extremely optimized experience, made for high performance and low power consumption – as every great processor should.

The Tegra 4 processor will be working with “Always-On” HDR camera technology as well. You’ll find a rather interesting set of details in our initial reveal post, and we’ll be seeing this technology in-person sooner than later. It’s then that we’ll be seeing what it really means to be able to instantly take a shot with multiple exposures at once!

NVIDIA Icera i500 Soft Modem with 4G LTE

The NVIDIA Icera i500 Soft Modem is what the company describes as 40% smaller than a conventional die – this referring to other modems they’ve worked with from companies other than themselves, of course. The Icera i500 will work with Soft Modem technology, starting with UE Category 3 LTE (100 Mbps downlink on 20 MHz FDD-LTE) and moving forward to UE Category 4 LTE in the very near future. VoLTE is supported with other voice mode technologies, and the modem will be paired with a new never before seen transceiver built on 65nm LP CMOS.

The NVIDIA Icera i500 Soft Modem is built on TSMC’s 28nm high performance High-K Metal Gate process, and the company is able to power gate each of its cores individually. Depending on the needs of each device’s software package, each of the NVIDIA Icera i500′s 8 cores can be used or not used, gating based on changing load conditions.

Following Tegra 4

Those of you getting pumped up about Tegra 4 and NVIDIA’s full 2013 experience, you’ll have a fabulous time hitting up our massive Tegra Hub. There you’ll find not just your everyday NVIDIA Tegra mobile processor news, but featured hands-on articles, must-read up-to-the-minute updates, and reviews of Tegra-toting devices of all kinds.

Right this minute you’ll find several stories on the first device to have been revealed working with the Tegra 4 processor: NIVIDA’s own Project SHIELD. You’ll find plenty of awesome Project SHIELD action in the immediate future and up with its final name some time in Q2 of this year. Also have a peek in the timeline below to see the first important detail articles to have come down the line here in the first week since Tegra 4 was first revealed – Project SHIELD included!

SlashGear 101: NVIDIA Tegra 4 in detail is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

NVIDIA’s Project SHIELD won’t rely on premium games or locked-down ecosystems to offset hardware costs, unlike traditional consoles, with the company instead looking to free-to-play titles already proliferating on Android. “We’ll make our money by selling the device to gamers” senior vice president of content and technology Tony Tamasi said today, contrasting NVIDIA’s approach with that of printer ink merchants.

“The business model that stems from [selling direct] means we’ll make our money by selling the device to gamers. (And we hope, by the way, that they’ll love it.)” Tamasi said. “This differs from the razors-and-razor blades approach, which isn’t just used by Gillette and Schick. Printer-companies use it, as well, making money from highly profitable ink. So do game-console companies, who primarily make their profit from premium games. This time-honored approach isn’t the one we’re taking with Project SHIELD.”

NVIDIA Project SHIELD hands-on:

Android games are often free-to-play, supported either with in-app advertising or purchases. As Tamasi also points out, gamers will be able to stream their desktop titles to Project SHIELD. “We want to help game developers keep you happily entertained with the magic that they dream up” the NVIDIA exec concludes. “We’re not looking to create a walled garden of software, even if it sprouts some gorgeous games.”

From our early play with Project SHIELD that streaming process works well – assuming you have sufficient bandwidth. NVIDIA showed us Call of Duty: Black Ops II from a GeForce-equipped PC, which streamed smoothly, albeit  in the same room and over 802.11n 2×2 MIMO WiFi.

Avoiding the hassle of creating an ecosystem of its own is a solid approach; even Sony, with its legacy PlayStation titles, has struggled to gain traction with the PlayStation Store on Android. NVIDIA also has its existing TegraZone brand, which corrals together third-party titles particularly fettled to suit the company’s Tegra chipsets, which it can leverage on Project SHIELD.

Check out our full hands-on with Project SHIELD for more details.

NVIDIA: We won’t be like greedy console companies with Project SHIELD is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s no surprise that ASUS has a few surprises for us in 2013, and we’ll no doubt see a range of new tablets from the company shortly. Case in point: Some new juicy details about an Asus ME301T tablet have surfaced, and we’re looking at some pretty impressive specs, including an NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The Asus ME301T Memo Pad10, as it’ll be called, is a 10.1-inch tablet running Jelly Bean, and it will feature NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. It’s also said that it will come in two variants: WiFi only and WiFi+3G. We’re also looking at a 1280×800 HD display for the leaked device.

For what it’s worth, the company’s Nexus 7 was listed as the ME370T, and their new budget-minded rumored tablet is currently being listed as the ME172V, so the ME301T could be reminiscent of the Nexus 7 in some way, but we guarantee that ASUS will put their own spin on the device, including some sort of smooth aluminum shell.

Rumors point to a February release date with a price tag of just over €300, although, the price may be different once it hits the states. Other than that, ASUS might unveil the new tablet at CES 2013 next week, along with a slew of other new devices, so be prepared to get your ASUS fix starting in a few days.

[via Android Community]

ASUS ME301T 10-inch tablet leaks, Tegra 3 quad-core and Jelly Bean in tow is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.