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!
Your week is about to end, but this may be the one last thing that you should pay attention to for today . First of all, we would like to congratulate the five winners of our recent Nexus 7 giveaway:
Omar A. from Chicago Steven H. from Colorado Springs Neal T. from Chino, CA Travis B. from Erie, PA Austin S. from Citrus Heights, CA
For those who still *really want* a Google Nexus 7 tablet, it’s still an early Christmas at Ubergizmo, and this time, we are joining forces with Google to give away another five Nexus 7 tablets (32GB, WiFi) along with five $25 Google Play gift cards. In our Nexus 7 Review, we called it the ‘best 7-inch tablet’, and 5 months after its arrival onto the scene, it remains a formidable value-proposition as it offers great hardware (NVIDIA Tegra 3SoC), a pure Android experience and quick access to the latest OS updates and features.
Who wants one? … Read the rules in the full post to enter. (more…)
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.
The folks at Toshiba have come on strong with a new contender in the 10-inch tablet space this week with the Toshiba Excite 10 SE, complete with an AutoBrite HD screen at 1280 x 800 pixels and stereo speaker action. This machine closely resembles Toshiba’s past tablet-sized offerings and comes with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz and 16GB of internal storage – as well as a microSD card slot.
This machine works with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with a Toshiba user interface over the top as well as two cameras, one on the front for video chat, the other on the back for snapping some lovely photos and HD video. Of course they won’t be the best photos in the world at 3 megapixels strong, but you never know – auto-focus included!
This machine is just 0.4 inches thick and weighs in at 22.6 ounces, coming with a standard microUSB connection for data transfer as well as charging with Toshiba’s own wall adapter. This machine will be popping up with Wi-fi connectivity as well as Bluetooth 3.0, and will be bringing on SRS Premium Voice Pro technology for your dual speakers. These speakers sit on the bottom of the tablet, mind you: great for flat table-users, but not ideal for those of you working with your lap exclusively.
The Toshiba Excite 10 SE will be available starting at $349.99 MSRP beginning on the 6th of December. This machine will be available at select retailers and through Toshiba’s own ToshibaDirect web store right off the bat, and should be a generous competitor for those looking for that perfect slightly less-than-expensive 10-inch Android tablet this holiday season.
In two massively gigantic downloads out on the market right this second, the development team at Fatshark have teamed up with NVIDIA to bring on the console and PC Indiana Jones-like puzzle thriller Hamilton’s Great Adventure to Android. This game works only on devices packing an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor – that including, of course, the Google Nexus 7 tablet, your best pal! Here in Hamilton’s Great Adventure THD and Hamilton’s Great Adventure THD Expansion Pack you’ll get massive amounts of puzzles to whip your way through in full-on leather jacket and next-level graphics from all directions.
This game has 22 levels, 24 puzzles, and 2 worlds per pack. There are two packs – that’s two applications, the second relying on the first to work – each of them with their own set of 22 levels, 24 puzzles, and 2 worlds. Worlds include Jungle of Amazonas, Mountains of Himalaya, Ruins of Egypt, and the Lost continent of Maralidia, and you get your bird companion Sasha the whole way through. This game takes what the original PC and console iterations brought forth and makes a miraculous re-creation here for the mobile environment.
You’ll be working with our good grave-robbing buddy and his fine feathered friend through this lovely collection of levels AS him or the bird. For bird controls you’ll be using your tablet or smartphone’s entire bulk to fly upward or downward – it’s no easy task! Avoid flying too low into the dust – you’ll get lost!
A couple things you may want to look out for before tossing cash towards this two-part beast download of a game: you need 1GB of space on your device for each half of the game. This is no small requirement, especially if you’ve got an 8GB Nexus 7. You’ll also want to be sure you have the first part of the game before you buy the expansion, as the expansion does not work without the first part. You’ll also want to be aware that this game works ONLY on devices running an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor – if you don’t know if your device does, generally Google Play will tell you, but in this case it appears that it’s only after you’ve made the download that the game itself lets you know – be careful!
This game is intensely immersive, full to the max with mind-bogglingly difficult puzzles and high quality graphics you’ll be surprised your mobile device can work with. It would appear that Fatshark has a winner on their hands as far as gigantic Android games go – just so long as you’ve got the space and patience for it: you’re going to go nuts with puzzling levels of death from start to finish!
It’s time to jump back down the time hole to 1999 with a game that was originally released on the PC and Sega Dreamcast – Expendable Rearmed – here on Android for the first time courtesy of NVIDIA. The developers of this game, Retrobomb, have worked with NVIDIA to create a vision that stays true to the original while bringing enhancements only the TegraZone team could bust out – make great with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor to back them all up. This beast is a game that’s made to not only entertain your brain with massive amounts of strategy and quick reflexes on the machine gun, but your eyes as well with candy galore.
This game is out on the TegraZone and available for download on the Google Play app store for $2.99 – not one whole heck of a lot of cash when you see what this beast is capable of. Back when it was first available as a disk for your computer and Dreamcast, you’d have been shelling out several times that amount just to play in your home. Now you’ll be carrying around this masterpiece on any Tegra 3 toting device you own: Nexus 7 anyone?
The bad guys in this game are called the G’neg, ready to bust your skull open at the drop of a hat, and to defend yourself you’ve got a clone army of “Expendable” units. No relation to the muscle-sploitation films of recent years, mind you, these Expendable clones are made to be your representation on the battlefield, and you just get one at a time. Your prime directive is to leave no survivors, and your secondary mission is to destroy everything – everything!
Also of note: this game was originally designed and made by RAGE NEWCASTLE, a part of RAGE SOFTWARE PLC, but was taken over by license by Funbox Media – they’ve made it possible for you to continue the fun today. This game runs on all sorts of chipsets, but NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 processor has “all new effects tuned for Tegra hardware”. You’ll be seeing unique water effects, masses of extra particles, and advanced extra shadowing in the full deep dive with NVIDIA!
Check the rest of the NVIDIA TegraZone game collection in our NVIDIA TegraZone tag portal right this minute!
It’s time to have a peek at the next big smash gaming experience developed for the Tegra 3 quad-core environment on Android: Zombie Driver THD! This game brings on what the developers at Exor Studios make clear is “massive amounts of zombie carnage and unprecedented destruction effects.” And that it is, folks, we’ve had our own peek at this game and can readily assure you – there’s no better way to spend your late night candy-filled sugar coma this Halloween (tonight or whenever you just so happen to want do down a bunch of Snickers bars) than to slay some zombies in a destruction derby-style massacre.
Inside the game you’ll be rolling out in one of three different modes – the first is a storyline: that’s what you see above. Inside storyline mode you’ll quickly understand that you’re mission is almost always to take out the enemies, those being the undead! It’s the style with which you destroy that gets you up in the ranks! Once you’re ready to let the blood shower over you, you’ll be saving survivors left and right as you take on zombie packs and bosses like a death-dealing monarch.
You’ll drive anything from a bulldozer to a fire truck to a tank. This game brings on 7 arenas for you to dish out the insides, and in the second mode – a race sort of situation – your choices for massacre machine matter more than ever. You’ve got to balance the destruction you’re able to deal out with your ability to maneuver: it’s not just about the death of the dead, it’s about cold, hard speed as well!
The third mode is all about survival – wave after wave of puss-oozing bone-chompers making your mission to survive: with great rewards awaiting you! Each level will have you addicted to upgrading your machine and your score – more destruction each time you destroy!
Each weapon has three upgrade levels, you’ve got combo moves to make everything just a bit more interesting, and of course there’s a way to upgrade your Taxi into a Chariot of Death – their words, really! In all there’s 13 different vehicles to choose from and you’ll most certainly be having flashbacks to Twisted Metal before you murder your first 100 bodies of undead filth.
“Thanks to Tegra 3′s fantastic GPU performance we were able to use the same quality textures in Zombie Driver THD as on the PC. The outstanding quad-core CPU performance makes it possible to support Tegra game development in parallel to other high-end platforms!” — Pawel Lekki, Chief Operating Officer, EXOR Studios
The graphics in this game are made lovely by PhysX by NVIDIA and you know good and well that the physics, top to bottom, are above the line. This game will cost you just about 7 bucks on the Google Play app store through the NVIDIA TegraZone and it’s available right this very minute. It’s perfect to get some candy-less aggression out too, if that’s your aim – blast away!
If you were one of the many who funded OUYA and have been sitting on pins and needles waiting for tangible progress updates, you just received them in spades. The fledgling console builder is on track with its Engineering Verification Test phase (you’re looking at a board sample here) and should not only deliver the initial developer kits in December, but include a pleasant surprise in the process — the Android-based platform will be built around Jelly Bean rather than the originally promised Ice Cream Sandwich. Programmers who just have to start right away have likewise been given a head start on hardware expectations. They’ll have free rein over as much as a 1080p screen for their free-to-play games, although they’ll have to toss aside familiar Android tropes like back and menu keys, notifications and fallbacks for hardware keyboards. The distinctive trackpad is likewise just a single-touch affair. To us, though, knowing that the console is finally taking shape just might be enough to tide us over until the March launch.
It was rumored yesterday that Samsung’s Galaxy S4 could feature an Exynos 5450 processor clocked at a whopping 2.0GHz. Given that NVIDIA has a stake in the mobile market as well with their Tegra processors, unsurprisingly it looks like the company might be stepping their game up and come CES 2013, rumor has it that NVIDIA will be taking the wraps off Tegra-4, which has also been given the codename “Wayne”. According to the rumors, Tegra-4 will be a quad-core chipset that is based on the Cortex A15 architecture, much like Samsung’s Exynos 5450, although it seems to be clocked slightly slower at 1.8GHz.
Reports have suggested that this particular Tegra-4 chip will be used to power tablets and possibly netbooks, although an updated model called the T43 will bump the clock speed to 2.0GHz. No word on whether we will be seeing the Tegra-4 incorporated into handsets, but assuming these rumors are true, we guess we will be finding out at CES 2013. Until then we suggest taking it with a grain of salt for now.
The world can use a few more low-cost, high-powered smartphones. Chinese manufacturer ZTE has announced its new U950 Android mobile, which features a quad-core processor and a low price tag of $160. The first 100,000 consumers to step up will be able to place an order on November 11.
The ZTE U950 measures in at 9mm thick, and features a 4.3-inch display and runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Inside you’ll find a 1.3GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM. There’s a rear 5MP camera, and VGA-resolution front camera for video calls. Sadly, the device only has 4GB of internal storage space.
ZTE has been swept up recently in accusations of possible espionage for the Chinese government, which has also been brought against Huawei. The US House Intelligence Committee recommended that ZTE and Huawei both be avoided, saying, “China has the means, opportunity, and motive to use telecommunications companies for malicious purposes.” ZTE responded with the statement, “ZTE has set an unprecedented standard for cooperation by any Chinese company with a congressional investigation.”
While the features are all pretty basic, it’s obviously the processor power-to-cost ratio that makes the phone attention-worthy. The U950 is priced at 999 yuan, which is about $160USD. The handset is slated for release in China next month. There’s no word on whether this cheapo quad-core will be making its way stateside or elsewhere.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Your week is about to end, but this may be the one last thing that you should pay attention to for today 
. First of all, we would like to congratulate the five winners of our 
It was 
