NVIDIA unveils 12 Tegra devices, 25 days of music or 10 hours of 1080p video on single charge (updated)
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jun 2nd 2009 4:22AM
posted Jun 2nd 2009 4:22AM
Now, get this; NVIDIA is using the term MID unlike Intel uses MID even though the terminology is of Intel origin. Instead of referring to handheld devices for consumers, NVIDIA's MIDs are classed as Tegra-based netbooks and tablets. In other words, the 8.9-inch Elan is a MID. Ugh.
Semantics aside, the platform is smokin' hot with promise offering the following benefits:
- 25 days of music or 10-hours of 1080p video playback on a single charge
- video games play at up to 46 frames per second
- GPU accelerated Adobe Flash animations (huzzah for Hulu!)
- always-on processors for instant access to the network
- 3G, WiFi, and WiMax solutions support
Update: Tegra devices are expected to land before 2009 is through, priced around $200 or less with carrier subsidies.
Cool.
I want a 10" android tablet with this thing to browse the web and check out those tax files
I thought we were getting those on mobile phones too, I'm i right?
Tegra's yesterday's news.
It might have been interesting if it had been available 18 months ago, now it's way behind the game. The ARM designed CPU + System on a Chip is more than a generation older than the ones used in Snapdragon and OMAP3 or even further behind those in OMAP4.
On the GPU side of things, NVIDIA does seem to getting decent performance from it, but I'm not sure that it's any better than the PowerVR and ARM's home grown designs - nothing would suggest that it is.
This is a case of brand name and marketing getting people excited. There are far more exciting products in the world of ARM based SoCs!
@ Earnesttechuser
This "yesterday's news" has easily outdone "today's Snapdragon". Have you not seen the Toshiba phone with the 1GHz Snapdragon chip and the choppy UI?
The GPU you undermine is also a handheld breakthrough.
And the power efficiency of the overall chip is unrivaled.
The performance they are claiming is definitely not yesterday's news. Their use of an ARM11 architecture vs Cortex A8 or A9 does make them a bit dated. I believe the first phones coming out using an ARM11 architecture was back in 06-07 time frame.
put in phonez plz
+ keep battery life
@TareX
1) You cannot judge the relative performance of a processor based on two completely different phones. There are so many variables that affect performance --- The operating system kernel, the graphics subsystem, the windowing system, the GPU driver implementation, etc. I'm telling you right now. The Snapdragon is the fastest single-core ARM processor ever created, and it's graphics subsystem and DSP are also excellent. If the Toshiba phone was running slow, it is a lack of optimization and driver issues.
BTW, windows mobile is a terrible judge of speed as it is compiled for the ARM v4/v5 architecture from 5+ years back and doesn't even take advantage of hardware GPU acceleration in the interface.
2) The Tegra may have a good GPU, but the ARM11 CPU architecture is old-school for products coming out in Q3 2009. Qualcomm's first-gen Snapdragon (Custom ARM Cortex implementation) and T.I.'s OMAP 3 (Cortex-A8) are almost twice as fast as ARM11 at the same clock speed, and the Cortex CPUs (using new ARMv7 instructions) finally introduce a true SIMD unit called "Neon".
So the first-gen single-core Snapdragon @ 1.0Ghz or the single-core OMAP 3640 @1.0Ghz are both roughly equal to a 2000mhz ARM11 or a 1.0Ghz dual-core ARM11. So even the dual-nature of Tegra doesn't make up for the vastly inferior ARM11 cores.
Additionally, power usage is also an issue. The two 650-800mhz ARM11 cores in the Tegra use a lot more power than a single-core 600-800mhz Cortex-A8 that has the same performance.
All the technological supremacy talks may be relevant but i believe
you've got to think from the business point of view to look at these
offerings.
According to some press releases, NVIDIA ION netbooks will cater to
200$-400$ market. And Tegra based netbooks will attract 100$-200$
segment. So whatever you consider best for your needs, attach
yourself to the appropriate segment. Don't be greedy that i want all
functionalities (ability to run my favourite player and stuff) and
still don't wanna pay more than 200$.
If it had been easy to get all that done at that price, every
manufacturer would have done that already.
Lemme ask a very basic question-
If you have 200$ and wanna view 1080p/720p videos on your netbook,
what would you opt for ? A device that can run vlc media player and
plays the video with stutters or let the application be anything, the
playback should be seamless. The end user experience is better at the
same cost, so decide your priority.
More broadly, look at it this way-
Buy a 600$ laptop for yourself that you can use in office too.
Buy a 300$-400$ netbook for your son in college.
Buy a 100$-200$ netbook for your daughter in junior high school.
I just jizzed in my pants!
I think I'm turning Japanese. :D
O
M
G
Nvidia scores 12 pts in the 1st quarter.
Now where is Intel? Where is AMD?
second that.
Why would you turn Japanese? Nvidia came from California
NVidia is American other than that it doesn't have a foundry to worry about.
25 days of music on a single charge?!
WTF! How the hell is that possible without a massive battery? I believe it when I see it NVIDIA.
Without battery indication, that statement is simply meaningless PR drivel.
Just as "video games play at up to 46 frames per second" is - which games? Tetris and Space Invaders?
he meant 25 hours read it in the title
Headline says 25 hours...
But the article says 25 days.
If they are claiming 10 hours of 1080p playback, I don't think claiming 25 days of MP3 playback is unreasonable. With a shell OS and no lcd, 25 days is probably achievable. However, I would like some real world numbers on a real world device. Seriously, 10 hours of 1080p playback? Give me a break. NVIDIA PR is doing themselves a disservice by making such bold claims that can't achieved on a real world device.
The last time I heard it was 100-130 hours of audio and 10 hours of HD video (full-hd - only in Tegra 650-series, don't forget there's Tegra 600-series and Tegra APX for smartphones, which doesn't have 1080p playback).
MIDs??? Where's my damn Tegra phone?!
Also it would be wise to rephrase "update":
"These systems will cost around US$199 when they hit the market and could be as cheap as $99 if the price is subsidized by a mobile operator, Nvidia said."
Instead of "200 or less with subsidies" - makes you think retail price will be $600+.
The news are great. But I want it in a phone.
Are all 12 of them gonna be using that Windows CE crap? If so no thankyou.
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damn
Yeah. I'm saving my "HOLY CRAP" tegra posts for a Tegra-powered smartphone.... preferably running Android Eclair...
12 devices?!! You mean Korea gets 12 and we get 2.
25 DAYS of music playback? That's amazing!
yeah, on a car battery.
HOLY F-
What's with the weird hyphenation of terms involving numbers? If the thing plays 25 hours of music, then that's it. It doesn't play 25-hours of music.
And why didn't you hyphenate "12 Tegra devices", in the same headline?
So... if I got this right:
- Intel has "UMPCs", "MIDs" and "netbooks", depending on the purpose and form factor.
- NVIDIA has "MIDs" (at least with the Tegra) which cover all form factors smaller than a notebook.
- Qualcomm is developing the Snapdragon for their "smartbooks", which is their term for netbooks.
This isn't confusing...
On a side note, I hope someone gets a Tegra and puts it into a form factor like the Sony Vaio P. I'd buy that in an instant (as long as it doesn't have the Sony Tax.)
I'll buy that for a dollar!
this almost sounds too good to be true. 25 DAYS of music? 10 hours of 1080p? just wow.
please revise articles... 25 hours of music in title and 25 days of music in body text?..
Title says 25 hours, post says 25 days. Fix it.
Also, I'll believe it when I see it.
From the source:
Listening to music for >>>25 days
Even nokia 3310 doesn't have 25 days of standby.
If you stick in a modern day battery, it would last 25 weeks.
Ya, the chip can process video and music for that time period on a single charge (based on average battery type) but your display will drain that down to 5 hours....
Over-hyped.
Re: the confusion WRT does it play 1080p or only 720p... it's quite an easy one to explain.
They have 3 different models of the chip. Some can only play 720p and others can play 1080p.
The MID version does 1080p
The smartphone version (which I was aching to see) does 720p.
And the secret ingredient here is power consumption.
Nice..........!
Zuney zuney zune.
How many different tegra chips are there?
Tarex,
There's no way that Tegra based chips can be anywhere near as high performance for non-media based functions. The CPU they use is much slower. The CortexA8 and CortexA9 also have lower power consumption than the chip Tegra uses.
Re: The Toshiba G1 phone's choppy UI. You seriously think that's likely to be representative of performance for the final product? Besides, that video was from CES when it was first presented. Had a look at any recent videos, perhaps? Also, that's for Toshiba to sort out - they're not the ones that designed the hardware platform. Did you take a look at the videos of Tegra based hardware powering android? It was a lot less responsive than the Snapdragon based ones which were shown yesterday.
Oh, and if you really believe 25 day music playback, you must be insane.
All NVIDIA have done is to present a load of eye-candy and PR. They have a previous generation CPU platform teamed with a current generation GPU (which remains to be seen how it compares with PowerVR and ARM), and they claim that it's better than everything else. Sorry, I don't buy it.
Don't try to argue with him - he's a 100% NVidia shill, mentioning his beloved Tegra in every phone section since it was announced a year ago.
But it's certainly good to see a voice of reason on here, somebody not blinded by NVidia marketing nonsense...
Having looked at a couple of other threads, I now see that ...
What do you want from a smartphone? Are you running Photoshop or Crysis on it?
Tegra is great at what is does, where it does it. If Tegra can render Opera 9.5 in 3D waves while scrolling through the page, WHILE running a 720p movie in the background, WHILE running a youtube video, WHILE maintaining a silk smooth 3D UI, with about 5 big apps running in the background, then yeah, I think there's no more power I'd like to have.
Watch all those running simultanously, and watch him render Opera in 3D flag with everything else running in the background
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0U_Zzcwc10&fmt=18
And if all of that is not enough, he overlays it with OpenGL ES 2.0 animated widgets that continuously update....
Snapdragon 3 months ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaIgnVJroH4
Tegra 18 months ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0U_Zzcwc10&fmt=18
TareX, you don't seem to understand his point. We agree that Tegra has a better GPU then SnapDragon and the OMAP3. PowerVR doesn't compete on pure performance terms and NVIDIA has the upper hand. All the examples you have shown, leverage this powerfull GPU.
The problem is Tegra as a SoC, is designed with a CPU spec that is 2 generations old now. There are a lot of web pages that would not be able to leverage the GPU and would full completely on the CPU. The Opera site isn't one of the harder pages to render. Hell, Gmail would be more web heavy and would tax the Tegra's CPU far more then those examples. This is the condition that could cause problems.
There's also the fact that there are lots of programs that could not take advantage of the GPU. We're not talking Photoshop, etc., but simple stuff like GPS, will tax the CPU. It's important thus to have a strong CPU as well as a GPU. Tegra right now is akin to putting a GTX280 into a A64 3000+ System. Sure it will run fast, but I can make a better system that will run faster with less resources.
As for that Toshiba Video, it doesn't tell us much. As far as I can tell, it looks like the problem is from a less then responsive touch screen and not the CPU being overtaxed by the transitions.
Let's also remember that Nvida is ahead of the game in GPU optimized software, so you're going to see better optimized software on the Tegra platform initially then you will on other platforms. This will change with time and is going to further complicate how you judge the performance of the platforms.
"Car battery and tote bag not included"
@CJ +10
convergence potential at it's best, add a qwerty slider keyboard to any APX 2600/2500 (HDMI out) equipped mobile phone, give it some android love... which would let me do somethings like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLMks1NElFk and I'm sold ( plus if i could use the mini usb to hook up a ps2 joystick i'tll be heaven ).
....preparing for the justified wallet hemorrhage I am.
If there is one thing I have learned as a developer over the years it is this simple rule. End users do not really care about the technical inner workings of a device or the gadget. They are solely focused on their user experience and what they can do with the gadget. I don't think I have ever read about a study that has analyzed sales against this type of logic, but I can tell you that the user interface and how the user embraces it--is absolutely critical. And for that reason I think that is one of the reasons why windows mobile devices have done so well over the years and will likely continue in the future.