NVIDIA promises Tegra 2 chipset and third party hardware at CES
By Paul Miller 
posted December 16th 2009 11:15AM
posted December 16th 2009 11:15AM
posted December 16th 2009 11:15AM
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From the reviews it seems that Tegra1 is fairly powerful. While I love power as much as the next person, when it comes to mobile, battery life is very important. Could they sell the new Tegra2 and a tweeked for low power Tegra1? A smart phone that can go a full day with you actually using it's features would be nicer for me then double the speed. Then again, I may be alone on this one.
@xtasi
The biggest power draw in a smartphone would not be these chipsets since they only consume power when used & a majority of them have a very good power management functionality built in. More power would be consumed by the Radio chipsets(GSM/CDMA/WiFi/Bluetooth). I have the ZuneHD & I can say very confidently that the power on that device lasts for a really solid amount of time especially if I am only listening to music.
@xtasi
Tegra 1 can do like 10 hours of HD video playback man...
It's as power efficient as any of the TI or other ARM based chips out there.
@xtasi So this is what Nvidia has been up to lately, Not to say that the Tegra opportunity is a needle on a hay stack, but I don't like the idea that Nvidia will stop manufacturing PC GPU cards in the future. Detailed point of view about Tesla and Tegra: http://bit.ly/tesla-and-tegra-what-are-they
A very nice howdy writeup from Anandtech CEO
I hate how this site uses odd scripts now that prevent me from viewing almost anything at work :(
@Professor Kaos
just use http://i.engadget.com
@Nokia N900 Sweet man thank you ^_^ Looks to be a simple RSS based simple version of the site. How did you find this? In an about section of this site?
@Professor Kaos
it's for the iPhone, but works well for other >=HVGA screened devices as well
I have to say I quite like this, as there are no ad's and is much quicker to load (I-engadget). But I understand why for ad revenue
@Professor Kaos
dude, just use this instead;
http://userstyles.org/styles/22701
@JeremyBenthem
Can't do, not a great idea to install scripts at work let alone use firefox, I'd rather not get repremanded for doing that. It's not that I am not allowed to, but we just try to keep things standard and using things outside of normal I.S. apps is not looked greatly upon, especially when you have in issue later on. This site works fine at home, so no need to do it there, where Firefox 3 is my browza of choice :)
@Professor Kaos
you don't have to do any scripting yourself, just install stylish for firefox
@JeremyBenthem Did you not read my post lol, I cant go around modifying any part of software we use in our I.T. dept. that not generally looking good upon. So I do not run firefox, or modify even IE. I value my job more than reading a blog and when you get a job youll understand :)
@Professor Kaos
I don't appreciate your insult, I work as part of a government IT staff and even I can't do modify it, I was just clarifying that you don't need any manual scripting in case you were interested in using on your own computer
@JeremyBenthem
"and even I can't do modify it" ? Can't do modify ? Are government IT not able to use proper grammar as well? I clearly stated a few posts up I can't do this at work, and that at home it WORKS FINE (with Firefox), which means NO need for your script, THEN you turn around and say install stylish for Firefox? If you would have read my post I wouldn't have had to make a MILD joke, which you took way too seriously G Man. Sheesh, makes me embarrassed you have a hand in our countries IT infrastructure.
hopefully zune HD 2.0 will use tegra 2 and the new 64GB nand flash reported on a few days ago. hopefully...
I used to be fine at work, with the old site, now that its revamped there are web script errors when I visit comments pages and have to tab to an invisible submit button beneath the "email me when someone repiles" checkbox underneath the reply box. And no, its not* ok to put this in as a trusted site at work*.
@Professor Kaos
holy crap so THATS how you can find the invisible submit button! why didnt i think of that??
(incase you didnt notice, im having very similar problems, ya digg
@Professor Kaos
Wow... major props for the invisible "submit" button find... i never thought of that either.
And I agree, the script error is horribly annoying...
@st4xor Yea, I figured I'd give the tab a try and low and behold hitting enter after tabbing to it below worked. If you slide your mouse across where it was supposed to be, you'll notice it highlights an object =)
Stick it in a Touch Pro2 (3!?) and you've got yourself a sale, HTC
@EGOvoruhk
Agreed
Agreed. The Touch Pro2 is pretty nice even with the 528 Mhz processor. It would be phenomenal with Tegra.
so.... did they even use tegra one on ANY consumer product besides the zune hd?
@skyblaze
Nope...not in the USA...there were tons of failworthy netbooks that came out in japan and europe (mobinova, etc.) that really sucked and didn't deliver on their promises of being faster and more energy friendly than the ATOM anyways -- which is why no one else drank the tegra cool-aid. HTC had a handset called the SuperStar which was supposed to run the Tegra1 and it was supposed to come out in 2009...but it was abandoned, and they replaced it with Snapdragon, and it became the HD2. Tegra is failure, no matter that number you place after it. Nvidia, get a grip.
@skyblaze
I wonder if anyone has any articles on its performance or benchmarks of tegra relevant to Zune HD, or any other attempted projects? Is it really that bad, or just not implemented correctly?
hey wasn't ION 2 supposed to come out by the end of 2009? as far as i'm concerned there's only 2 more weeks left of 2009.
A really big FAIL from Nvidia. I have been waiting so long for a smartphone with theur tegra chip and now they will only be coming out when Winmo 7 comes out by the looks of it and cause it will be optimised to use the power of Tegra very well. But they could just as well bring one out earlier with Android.
I will rather get me a smartphone with a Snapdragon 2, OMAP 4 or Marvell Armada chip than wait another year for Tegra.
Their marketing manager, Mike Rayfield promised smartphones, $99 MIDs and smartbooks in time for the holidays, well it is holiday time and no Tegra stuff except Zune HD and that is only in USA and it's a MP3 player. ;(
@Wesley
My point exactly. OMAP3 was a HUGE success, almost every single device that runs it is very popular and extremely successful (n900, palm's new stuff, samsung i8910, list goes on..). OMAP4 will be even better with CorTex A9 core. Tegra is a complete failure.
The HTC superstar was supposed to run tegra and come out in fall of 2009, but never came. They abandoned the project due to false claims from Nvidia regarding competing chipsets last year at CES, and they opted to go with snapdragon instead -- and it became the HD2.
@(Unverified) Well I know that Tegra 2 will also be a Cortex A9 chip, so maybe it will eventually be decent when it comes out.
As for battery life of Tegra, all I can go by is the Zune HD which looks like it offers better battery life than the iPod Touch, though the Zune HD's battery is very low capacity at 660 mAh compared to the iPod Touch's 789mAh (16% bigger). The Zune HD is very speedy too.
Do you have inside info from HTC about why they never used it, cause this is the first time anyone has claimed that they tested Tegra and decided that Nvidia was lying about its capabilities? It just seems that the HTC SuperStar never came out because it was supposed to run Winmo 7 and its launch has been delayed again.
I'll take tegra2 and maemo 6 on Nokia n920 please.... or maybe tegra 2 and android 2.5 on an HTC HD3.
@Edobe
-1 for fictional product speculation and circumstantial heresay
This plus WinMo7 could make the second half of next year extremely interesting.
haha I have the invisible Submit button too on my work's XP/IE box.... testing to see if tabbing to it works...
In tablet/netbook/HTPC use, how would the Tegra stack up against an Atom or an Atom+ION system? Or even the tegra 2 if it comes out. Maybe nVidia will edge themselves into the low power system market to compete with Intel's pricing scheme with the Atom chips.
@GreatSunJester
man I hate how people on engadget, including some editors, use the terms netbook, atom, smartbook, tegra, ion like they are all compatible with each other
Ion is a chipset for x86 PCs, Tegra is an ARM-based system-on-chip for embedded systems, they can't be used with the same hardware, and they can't run the same software (without porting) so you can't really compare them
because x86 and ARM are colliding at that middle-ground mini laptop form factor (netbook for x86 coined by intel, and smartbook for ARM coined by Qualcomm) as well as the handheld arena (UMPC/MID for x86 by Microsoft/intel and PDA/Smartphone for ARM) I can see where the confusion comes in
@JeremyBenthem
in case someone catches me off guard, I wanted to clarify that PDA/Smartphone aren't necessarily for ARM only since historically they used to be more MIPS and other RISC systems
If using IE8 do not to run engadget.com in "Compatibility Mode". If you do the submit button disappears.
@Jay Evans
Why would anyone run IE8...
Yea no problem, I either use i.engadget.com now, or tab once beneath the tab stop location for "email me when someone replies" and hit enter to confirm the comment. And always get latency because of script errors fromt he site on comments pages, and it pops a box up that says "script errors, stop script?" and I stop it, so I can never view replies to comments. I feel your pain man! XD
C'mon Nintendo get some lovin on with Tegra 2
OK...Let me explain a little here..
The Tegra1 is ARM11 based...all those stats about it having days of battery life and being able to do HD playback longer than snapdragon and atom are false...that's why there were only 2 or 3 major Tegra1 devices in 2009..and about 20 major devices running the OMAP3...a much more powerful chipset based on A8 CorTex...Now in 2010 we have the OMAP4..which basically makes the Tegra1 look about 5 years obsolete...In all honestly, Tegra's time has come and gone. It was hyped soooo much, and at the time that the hype was going on, it could have actually been a decent competitor in the C.E. game -- but not anymore. Too late, NVIDIA. OMAP\ATOM\SNAPDRAGON won, you lost. Time to cut your losses. And Tegra2? When can we expect devices to hit shelves...2015? Maybe by then the OMAP6 will be out and putting you to shame once again. Oh, and where is that HTC SuperStar Handset that was supposed to come out in Q3\4 2009 that runs the Tegra1? Hmmm? Abandoned you say? Snapdragon is better you say? :P
@(Unverified)
Tegra1's main problem was that it was hideously late. If it had gone up against the other ARM11 parts, it would have competed really nicely but, by the time it was ready, device makers had already picked much more powerful products such as OMAP3 and Snapdragon. As you say, those crazy battery life claims were pretty much complete gibberish.
The good news is that Tegra2 looks much _more_ than twice as fast and I've heard rumours that it's on schedule for the first half of 2010 to compete very nicely against OMAP4, Snapdragon 2 etc. Its PortalPlayer heritage should deliver some minor advantages in battery life against these other dual core chips too, but nothing major. That said, they're really reliant on TSMC sorting out their recent manufacturing problems.
2nd half 2010 is way, way, way too far out. I don't know if the extra battery life is worth the wait.