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The first available Tegra 4i smartphone will come from French company Wiko (hands-on)
Sorry LG: you may have trotted out the G2 mini yesterday, but yours won't be the first Tegra 4i device to hit store shelves. NVIDIA says that distinction belongs to the Wax, a newly-revealed handset from French phone maker Wiko that should launch in Europe "within weeks." We just spent a few frenzied moments with the Wax at MWC, read on for our first impressions.
Hands-on with LG's G2 mini
Just because it's smaller and has the same branding, that doesn't mean LG's G2 mini is anything like its elder namesake. It's just borrowing a bit of the G2's tech halo, is all. With a 4.7-inch, 960 x 540 qHD display, Android 4.4 KitKat, Snapdragon 400 heart (or Tegra 4i, depending on your market) and 1GB RAM, it's clear LG's positioning this as a budget Android KitKat device. But budget doesn't have to mean bad and here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we got a chance to see just how modest the G2 mini really is. Read on for our initial thoughts.
NVIDIA Tegra 4i software update adds LTE-Advanced speeds
NVIDIA's Tegra 4i appeared in February boasting, amongst other things, its built-in Cat. 3 LTE modem capable of speeds as high as 100Mbps. What NVIDIA didn't make obvious at the time was that the i500 modem, the fruit of its Icera acquisition, had the processing grunt to enable a software modem update to boost its speed to Cat. 4 LTE (150Mbps.) We had a quick visit with NVIDIA and saw a "perfect world demo" (pic above) of the device being bombarded at 150Mbps as well as placing an actual call on AT&T's network and streaming video. Of course LTE-Advanced doesn't exist in the real world yet, nor does a real handset sporting this chip, though seeing another player battling incumbent Qualcomm in this space before these networks have even been lit up certainly warms our hearts. Check the PR text for all the nitty gritty details after the break. Brad Molen contributed to this report.
Aptina unleashes 1080p and 4K mobile sensors, entire point-and-shoot segment cringes
Hear that? That's the sound of the entire point-and-shoot camera industry bracing for yet another blow. As smartphone cameras mature, it's becoming ever more difficult to convince consumers to use anything other than their phone outside of special occasions where ILCs or DSLRs are necessary. Aptina has a lot to do with that. Here at Mobile World Congress, the sensor outfit has announced its 12 megapixel and 13 megapixel mobile image sensors, aimed squarely at next-gen flagship phones that ought to be coming out in Q2 or Q3 this year. The smaller 1.1-micron pixel construction is the standout feature, with the AR1230 capable of capturing 4K video at 30fps as well as 1080p video at up to 96fps. The AR1330 throws in electronic image stabilization support at 1080p, while snagging 4K UHD and 4K Cinema formats at 30fps. Over on the tablet PC / TV front, the AR0261 is a new 1080p-capable sensor that's destined to redefine what a front-facing camera can accomplish. It relies on a 1.4-micron pixel, and should have no issues capturing faces at up to 60fps when using its 720p mode. Furthermore, Aptina promises that this guy can work with applications involving gesture recognition and 3D video capture, but sadly, no OEMs are coming forward just yet with concrete plans to include it.
NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone hands-on (video)
NVIDIA's latest venture in the mobile world, called the 4i, was introduced last week ahead of Mobile World Congress, and fortunately the chipset maker brought the product to Barcelona embedded in a reference phone known as "Phoenix." The 8mm-thick handset, which will find a home in the labs of manufacturers and carriers (as well as the desks of many third-party devs), sports a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP rear-facing camera, PRISM 2, Chimera, DirectTouch and LTE (we're told that most major bands are included for testing purposes). As it's not geared for general consumer use, so it's not the thinnest, sleekest or best-looking device, and the back doesn't even seem to snap completely shut. Units are being sampled as we speak, and we should expect to see devices hit the market in nine to twelve months. Since it's still pretty early in the process, we weren't able to turn on the phone or benchmark the chipset; the only exception to this rule, as you'll see in the video, was when a rep showed a gaming demo on his particular unit. While the 4i is the smaller brother of the Tegra 4 family, it's still expected to be quite powerful. The chip, which is designed specifically for smartphones (tablets will take advantage of Tegra 4 instead), features four 28nm Cortex-A9 r4 (beefed-up from the standard A9) cores that can be clocked up to 2.3GHz, 60 GPU cores (compared to 72 on the T4) and an integrated i500 LTE baseband modem. For additional comparison, NVIDIA showed us the two sibling boards side-by-side. Head below to check out our galleries of Phoenix and the two chipsets, as well as a brief video that shows off the graphics prowess of the 4i.
The Daily Roundup for 02.19.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
NVIDIA intros Tegra 4i with built-in LTE, details Chimera camera tech with HDR
Did NVIDIA say it would stick to one new mobile processor design per year? If so, it's not worried about its own rules: meet the Tegra 4i. The 4-plus-1 chip formerly known as Project Grey is a Tegra 4 mostly in name, and goes for integration rather than raw power. It sheds the newer Cortex-A15 architecture of the Tegra 4 for a spruced-up 2.3GHz Cortex-A9 with the i500 LTE modem built directly into the chip die -- a move that cuts the surface area in half and simplifies the hardware, even as it supposedly outruns equivalent competition. The design is more than just an overclocked Tegra 3 with 4G inside, though. The 4i touts 60 graphics cores versus the 12 of its ancestor, and inherits the high dynamic range photography and video engine of the Tegra 4. NVIDIA is demonstrating the 4i's chops through the Phoenix (pictured above), a 5-inch, 1080p reference Android smartphone that builders can use as a starting point. There's no immediate customers mentioned for the CPU, although we suspect those are coming soon. Speaking of that camera technology, NVIDIA has also given it a name. Chimera, as it's now called, isn't just about making HDR available for every photo and video. The mix of CPU and GPU processing can capture HDR panorama shots without requiring a single-direction sweep, letting a would-be Ansel Adams 'paint' the panorama out of order. The autofocusing engine is also smart enough to include subject tracking with an exposure lock. Both 8-megapixel Aptina and 13-megapixel Sony camera sensors can already support Chimera, which gives us a clue as to just what imaging we can expect with the first batch of Tegra 4 and 4i devices.
