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ZTE T98 tablet with next-gen NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor spotted in Beijing
Until now we'd only come across NVIDIA's Tegra 3 (aka Kal-El) in reference tablets and demos, but here we are finally looking at an actual product revealed at PT/Expo Comm China. It's a 7-inch slate from ZTE called the T98, apparently running the quad-core 1.5GHz processor slightly underclocked at 1.3GHz, beneath Android 3.2, a 1280x800 display, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, a 5MP rear camera and 2MP front-facer. The 11.5mm-thick body also houses a 3G modem and a 4000mAh battery, which won't see many easy days powering this beast. No definitive word on price or release date yet, but click past the break for a reverse shot.
NVIDIA releases Kal-El white papers, announces a fifth 'Companion' core for less demanding tasks
We've known about Kal-El -- the quad-core mobile processor from NVIDIA -- for a fair amount of time, but a lot of the finer details have remained a secret as we've anxiously awaited its debut in tablets and smartphones. Fortunately, we have some reading material to bide our time as the company published white papers discussing benefits of the new CPU, and for the most part it's what you'd expect: NVIDIA touts higher performance, better battery life and improved physics-based gaming when more cores are involved and working together. What came as a surprise to us was the fact that this quad-core CPU actually utilizes five cores: in addition to the standard four main Cortex A9 high-performance cores, Kal-El throws in a fifth Cortex A9 "companion" core specifically designed to handle less demanding tasks in effort to minimize power consumption caused by active standby processes. How is it done? The Companion core's max operating frequency gets capped at 500MHz, offering higher performance and greater efficiency per watt when running menial tasks such as push email, Twitter / Facebook sync, widgets, background apps and live wallpapers. This leaves the four main cores free to take care of the stuff it does best -- games, web browsing, transcoding / editing audio and video, 3D, physics simulations and image processing, to name a few -- allowing performance bumps of up to 50 percent when compared to Tegra 2. We can tell that quad-core devices are going to make us very, very happy. If charts and geeky stats brighten up your day like it does ours, head to the source to read the papers in their entirety. %Gallery-134330%
NVIDIA's Kal-El reference tablet running Windows 8 at Build (eyes-on)
This may not be the first the world's seen of NVIDIA's Kal-El reference tablet running Windows 8, but it does mark our first up-close and (sort of) personal run-in with the much ballyhooed quad-core ARM processor powering the equally anticipated OS. As we reported yesterday, NVIDIA's just launched its Windows 8 developer program, in eager anticipation of the new operating system's release. That eagerness carried over into our short sit down with the outfit's spokesperson, who wasn't giving us much in the way of details. However, he did give us a clue about future benchmarks: NVIDIA expects to see significant battery life gains on Kal-El notebooks -- as in days, not hours. Unfortunately, the reference tablet on display was locked away in a plexiglass cell, but we did manage to grab a few shots of the now familiar device running Microsoft's latest. Those, as you can see, are in the gallery below. %Gallery-133774%
Engadget Primed: are multi-core chips worth the investment?
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. My, how times have changed over the last eight months. At CES 2011, we ecstatically witnessed the introduction of mobile devices with dual-core CPUs and drooled over the possibilities we'd soon have at our fingertips. Now, we look down at anything that doesn't have more than one core -- regardless of its performance. Not only are these new chips quickly becoming mainstream, Moore's Law is in full effect with our handheld devices since tri-core and quad-core systems are just over the horizon. We can't even fathom what's in the pipeline for the year 2015 and beyond (we don't think we're too far away from that 3D shark seen in Back to the Future 2). Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here, however. After all, we first need to wrap our puny human minds around the idea of what this newfound power can do, and why it's changing the entire landscape of smartphones and tablets. In this edition of Primed, we'll focus on why multicore technology makes such a difference in the way we use our handheld devices, whether we should even consider purchasing a handset with a single-core chip inside, and why one-core tech is so 2010. Check out the whole enchilada after the break.
Madfinger demos and dishes details on its forthcoming Shadowgun game
Shadowgun looked good when we saw footage of it last month, and at E3 2011 we got to chat with the game's creators about the Tegra-optimized title. Madfinger, the game's creator, worked closely with NVIDIA to wring the maximum performance possible out of the Tegra 2 platform, but it said Shadowgun will still look stunning on other silicon. The game is built on the multi-platform Unity engine and will be coming to iOS and Android devices around the world in September (prices TBD). As you can see in the video above, it runs smooth as silk on an LG G2x (55-60fps) and Motorola's Xoom (30fps). Madfinger said we can also expect 60fps on the iPad 2 and devices packing Kal-El chips, and 30fps on other Android handsets and the iPhone 4 when the game debuts. If you've got a hankering for some more video of the game, check the official trailer after the break.
NVIDIA Kal-El reference tablet hands-on (video)
As if showing up in two of the first four reference devices for Windows on ARM wasn't enough of an achievement for NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El superchip, it decided to visit us in person here at Computex to demonstrate its splendid graphical prowess. Running Android 3.1 on a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 screen, it gave us a first-hand look at the Glow Ball demo that wowed us in video form just a couple of days ago. What we saw on the dev tablet before us was no less impressive; lighting was being rendered in real time and scattered over a multiplicity of surfaces, while the cloth simulation was, to use a terrible pun, silky smooth. NVIDIA also ran us through a sightseeing tour of the Unreal Development Kit and Lost Planet 2, noting that the PC game took only a couple of months to port over to work on the Kal-El architecture. Unfortunately, no new details were forthcoming about when Kal-El devices might be coming or what developers we should expect to see coding games and other content to exploit the platform's evidently mighty capabilities. For now, we'll just have to sate ourselves with the video after the break. %Gallery-125085%
NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El used to demo next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (video)
You might think yourself too grown-up to be wowed by shiny, glittery things, but we doubt many will be able to watch NVIDIA's new Glow Ball tech demo without a smidgen of childlike glee. Built to run on the company's quad-core Kal-El processor, it shows us the first example of true dynamic lighting on mobile devices and also throws in some impressive physics calculations like fully modeled cloth motion. Instead of the pre-canned, static lights that we see on mobile games today, NVIDIA's new hardware will make it possible to create lighting that moves, fluctuates in intensity, and responds realistically to its environment -- all rendered in real time. The titular glow ball can be skinned with different textures, each one allowing a different amount and hue of illumination to escape to surrounding objects, and is directed around the screen using the accelerometer in your tablet or smartphone. NVIDIA demoed the new goodness on a Honeycomb slate with 1280 x 800 resolution and the frame rates remained smooth throughout. In order to emphasize the generational leap that we can expect with Kal-El, the company switched off two of the four cores momentarily, which plunged performance down to less than 10fps. That means the simulations we're watching require a full quartet of processing cores on top of the 12-core GPU NVIDIA has in Kal-El. Mind-boggling stuff. Glow Ball will be available as a game on Android tablets once this crazy new chip makes its way into retail devices -- which are still expected in the latter half of this year, August if everything goes perfectly to plan. One final note if you're still feeling jaded: NVIDIA promises the production chip will be 25 to 30 percent faster than the one on display today. Full video demo follows after the break.
Amazon's Android tablet coming in 10- and 7-inch models with quad-core Tegra power?
We've pretty much accepted that Amazon will release a proper Android tablet in 2011. The details, however, are still unclear. Enter Silicon Valley analyst, Tim Bajarin, who claims to have some inside information from his sources in Taipei. If correct, then we should see Amazon launch a 10-inch LCD tablet before the holidays. He's also heard of a 7-inch model and plans to use NVIDIA's new quad-core Tegra SoC in order to blaze a path into the crowded tablet market. Interestingly enough, Tim's sources say that Amazon wanted to use a switchable "black and white E Ink-like display and a color LCD" hybrid but the two vendors approached (Qualcomm and Pixel Qi?) won't be ready with a suitable display until 2012 or 2013. Of course, Samsung -- the rumored DNA at the core of Amazon's tablet -- has plenty of experience with 10- and 7-inch Android tablets and the decision to go LCD aligns with those rumors of a Fringe Field Switching display reported by DigiTimes earlier this month. So while none of this is verified, at least it gives us something more to chew on while we "stay tuned" for whatever Bezos is cooking.
ASUS planning quad-core Tegra 3 tablet, yet another Intel slate
The Eee Pad Transformer may be wowing tablet lovers with its unbeatable price-to-features ratio today, but ASUS looks to have its sights set on even mightier devices for the future. DigTimes reports that the Taiwanese company is hard at work on a Tegra 3 tablet -- built around the spectacular Kal-El quad-core SOC that we saw demonstrated at MWC 2011 -- as well as another one running an Intel CPU. As far as the Intel slate is concerned, we're probably looking at the tablet-centric 1.5GHz Atom Z670, which promises 1080p playback and great battery life. You'll forgive us if we reserve our excitement for the Tegra 3-powered tablet, however, which should be able to churn through quite a few more pixels than regular old 1080p. There's no indication on when ASUS intends to deliver it, but NVIDIA's roadmap for devices with the quad-core chip expects to start appearing in August. Video of that awe-inspiring MWC demo follows after the break.
A5 beats Tegra 2 in benchmark tests, thanks to larger size
GLBenchmark pitted a few tablet processors against each other in a speed showdown, and Apple's custom-designed A5 chip in the iPad 2 handily beats NVIDIA's Tegra 2 processor, used in competing tablets like the Motorola Xoom. A few analysts are saying that it's the size that matters in this case -- Apple's chip is more than twice the size of the Tegra 2, and that allows Apple to pull off some better benchmarks, even though the two chips are relatively the same in terms of specifications. Usually, of course, a bigger chip would mess with the design of the overall hardware, but since Apple is doing everything itself, it can afford the extra space and the larger components. Of course, NVIDIA is set to introduce a Tegra 3 chip later on this year, and that will undoubtedly introduce a new wrinkle to the tablet lineup. Apple no doubt also has its engineers working on faster chips, which means the speed of tablet computing likely still has a long way to progress. [via 9to5Mac]
NVIDIA announces quad-core Kal-El SOC, promises it in tablets by August (video)
So it turns out that NVIDIA roadmap we saw last month was as true and pure as driven snow. The barely conceivable quad-core Tegra chip that it listed has now been made official by none other than NVIDIA itself, with the company also informing us that the new silicon is already sampling out to prospective clients. Known as Kal-El internally, this will most likely turn into NVIDIA's Tegra 3 as and when it's ready to enter the consumer market. Tonight NVIDIA whetted our appetite for what's to come with a demo that can most fittingly be described as an exhibition of unadulterated computational muscle. A 2560 x 1440 stream was being decoded on a developmental device, scaled down to that slate's native 1366 x 768 resolution, and additionally displayed on a connected 30-inch, 2560 x 1600 monitor. That entire voluminous workload was being handled in real time by Kal-El and we saw no signs of it struggling. By NVIDIA's own estimation, the quad-core newbie provides roughly double the processing power of Tegra 2 and triple the graphics-crunching prowess. In the second demonstration of the evening, we saw an instance of Great Battles Medieval -- ran at 720p with 650 enemy soldiers on the field -- on both a Tegra 2 and a Kal-El platform, which showed the baby superhero handily dusting its still very new brethren. This was in large part down to the full dozen GPU cores contained within Kal-El, though before you freak out about battery-draining insanity, NVIDIA claims things are much, much more efficient as well -- up to 12 hours of HD video playback are promised under the right circumstances. It's a big fat wedge of awesome boasts we've heard from the GeForce maker today, however the company's given us a schedule to hold it to as well. The "August timeframe" is when the quad-core Kal-El is expected to land in tablets, while smartphones will have to wait until the holiday season to benefit from what's likely to be a slightly downgraded variant. Skip past the break to eye the future Tegra roadmap for the next few years plus video of the wildly impressive demos we were witness to. %Gallery-116789%
NVIDIA Tegra 3, equipped with 1.5GHz quad-core madness, teased by a familiar slide
How aggressive can NVIDIA get? That's the question puzzling our brainboxes right now as we gaze upon the complete version of the slide that let us know about a potential Tegra 2 3D chip over the weekend. It's not every day you hear of a 1.5GHz quad-core mobile SOC, but our discovery of corroborating evidence for the T25 module sitting alongside it makes us more willing to credit the possibility of a Blu-ray-crunching, 13,800 MIPS-capable, multicore Cortex-A9 Tegra 3. Moreover, the roadmap of production samples in Q4 of 2010 fits perfectly with NVIDIA's claim that Tegra 3 was "almost done" in September of that year. The ULP designation on this listing stands for Ultra Low Power in NVIDIA parlance, which would indicate an aggressively tuned power management system -- the only way we can envision a quad-core anything operating within a tablet. Fall 2011 is when we should know for sure.
Caption Contest: NVIDIA CEO flaunts tattoo on stage, still serving cans of whoop-ass
Oh sure, NVIDIA might not have had any physical chips to show off at the GPU Technology Conference earlier this week, but CEO Jen-Hsun Huang did have one very, very special exhibit up his sleeve. Paul: "And below the logo is a picture of all the shipping devices running Tegra 2." Don: "Here are the new logo designs we've been working on, Mr. Huang." Ross: "Take a cue from Peter Moore and go with temporary. You never know where you'll be in even just a few years' time." Chris: "Huang's Boxee Box tramp stamp, of course, would remain a secret." Joanna: "And this is why I hate gun, er GPU shows." Darren: "Whatever. At least it's not a Zune tattoo." Richard Lai: "Yo Intel, this is how embedded is done." Vlad: "Jen-Hsun's displays of support for Notion Ink are starting to get out of hand..."
NVIDIA CEO: Tegra 3 almost done, Tegra 4 on the way, expect a new Tegra annually
Though NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference is primarily about the applications of GPU computing, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang hasn't shied away from revealing new silicon, and he just promised something quite unexpected to attending press: new Tegra chips. Though the Tegra 2 has yet to leave a single dent on the consumer marketplace -- the Boxee Box famously tossed it out -- Huang told us that not only is a Tegra 3 almost done and a Tegra 4 currently underway, but that we should expect a new Tegra SOC "every single year." Forgive us for being a mite skeptical of the company's ability to attract customers, but the only notches we see on Tegra's belt are the Zune HD... and Microsoft's failed Kin.
