The folks over at Asus were nice enough to send us a brand new Transformer Pad before they hit the US market here in a few days. The tablet itself is Asus’ attempt at creating a powerful tablet with strong on-paper specs, but keeping it at an affordable entry-level price for people who could possibly be shopping for either an Android tablet or a netbook. Coupled with the separately sold lapdock accessory, the Transformer Pad is capable of taking on your most important business and then handling your favorite Android apps with ease. Read on to see how it is almost the perfect example of when good looks meets affordable functionality.

At a recent talk in Seattle, Mike Rayfield of NVIDIA got up and spoke about all things performance, particularly in the mobile sector. There is no denying that the power has grown in mobile phones, we have seen the first quad-core mobile processor, Tegra 3, be released by none other than NVIDIA themselves. Rayfield explained how at the current rate, processing power in mobile devices are now almost at the level of an everyday gaming console in the coming years.

What this graph doesn’t show however is the next generation of consoles that are going to be out by 2014. They will have much more power than this estimate shows. I am all for the Temple Runs and Cut The Ropes on my phone but can ever see my phone or tablet replacing the console that I have next to my TV. I’m anxious to see what developers can do with all this new power, but on the flip side am fearful of what it’s going to do to my battery. Do you guys want to play Halo 4 or Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on your tablet or phone?

Via:  NVIDIA

If you were of that mindset that you would own a device with NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 inside and be able to attach to a 4G LTE network in the next few months, you should change that mindset immediately. We have noted this a few times now, but the Tegra 3 does not currently work with LTE. According to NVIDIA’s general manager, Mike Rayfield, we may not see any T3 devices with LTE until Q3 of this year. Speaking at the HTC Frequencies conference in Seattle this week, Rayfield mentioned the T3 is capable of working with LTE, but that “the guy with who has LTE isn’t all that excited about working with me [NVIDIA].” For those not familiar, he is referring to Qualcomm, one of their biggest competitors and also the company leading the LTE modem charge. Fortunately for all of us, NVIDIA acquired a company called Icera to help them build out their own LTE modems.

On a related note, a new version of the Tegra 3 which is currently called the Tegra 3+ (T3+) will arrive some time towards the end of the year. This processor will be “high performance” and a “significant boost” over the current T3. Specific details one what NVIDIA has done to pump up an already powerful processor was not revealed, but we’re excited. We assume it’ll have even better power consumption techniques while remaining crazy fast.

So no LTE in T3 devices for a while still. Like we said earlier in the week, get ready for a wave of dual-core Snapdragon S4 devices on all U.S. carriers. Unless of course the newly leaked Galaxy SIII and its quad-core chip have found a way to get in bed with LTE modems.

Via:  PCMag

According to Chinese site VR Zone, pictured above is a leaked roadmap of four upcoming iterations of the Tegra 4 processor from NVIDIA. I know, I know, we are just starting to see the first Tegra 3 devices and now are going to talk about what’s next? It’s tough not to when you see “4-PLUS-1″ and “A15″ on the same chart. That would mean the same quad-core architecture as their current T3 chipsets, but bumped up to cortex A15s over the A9s that most chipset manufacturers use today. We are talking monumental performance increases here.

We are also seeing LTE mentioned which is always a good sign, along with clock speeds ranging from 1.2-2.0GHz. The chart mentions 2013 for rollout.

While we always get excited about the future, we would love for NVIDIA to put out a Tegra 3 LTE device first, before worrying about the Tegra 4.

Via: Engadget, VR Zone

After seeing Asus and NVIDIA standing on stand at this year’s CES with a 7″ Tegra 3-powered tablet that they said would be available for $249, our collective jaws put a dent in the floor from hitting so hard. But what if the price ends up being even lower than that? Rumors over the last couple of months have suggested that a “Nexus” tablet would launch some time in the first half of the year, potentially at $199. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang essentially confirmed that such a tablet, or at least one at this price point, is on the way and would be powered by their chipsets. At $199, “expensive memory” and other build materials would need to be cut out, but the processor would remain a Tegra 3 to give it exceptional performance. Huang fully expects “Android” tablets to reach such a low price by this summer.

While I’m excited for $199 quad-core tablets, I’m a little concerned that by cutting out other high-end parts, these tablets will be one trick ponies. Does anyone really want cheap memory in a device? Does that mean cheap screens too without high pixel densities and resolutions? Or does that stuff matter? Would you rather have power and a low price than a high price and pimped out specs?

Via:  The Verge, NY Times

Seriously, this is our Transformer Prime review. As you know,we first got our hands on this next-gen Android tablet back in December, but for reasons we can’t explain (other than Kellex being bored to death with Android tablets), we are just now putting it all together. Apologies are in store though, we really have no excuse for this being 5 months late. With that said, you should already know that it is one of our favorite tablets as we talk about it probably more than any other Android tablet that is available. It’s a beast of a slate, so let’s get started. 

We are teaming up with NVIDIA once again to offer you all a chance to win the top Android tablet on the market. The Transformer Prime along with its matching Lapdock station, was the first tablet in the world to sport the powerful quad-core Tegra 3 processor, capable of delivering an Android experience no other slate can. With the unparalleled gaming experience that the Prime and NVIDIA’s Tegra Zone can deliver, this tablet should have been on everyone’s Christmas list. But don’t worry if Santa didn’t bring you one, here is a another chance (for two of you) to receive one along with a docking keyboard station.  

During yesterday’s iPad event, Apple’s new A5X processor was one of the big topics. With it’s quad-core GPU, Apple is so confident in it that they felt the need to toss out a slide comparing it to NVIDIA’s new 12-core GPU in the Tegra 3. Some how some way, they came to a conclusion that their A5X is 4 times faster than the Tegra 3. There was no footnote, detailed explanation as to how they came to that conclusion, nothing. Not that this should surprise us since Apple spouts out unsupported numbers in every press conference that they do, but it was strange enough to get people to ask some questions.

The folks from NVIDIA spoke with ZDNet about the slide, and while flattered that they were mentioned, cannot wait to get a hold of the new iPad next week to run some real benchmarks and then decide. They aren’t guaranteeing that it will destroy the A5X by any means, because they aren’t about to head down the road of Apple’s off-handed claims. Instead, a company spokesperson had this to say:

 “We have to understand what the application was that was used. Was it one or a variety of applications? What drivers were used? There are so many issues to get into with benchmark.”

The new iPad will arrive next Thursday, so we should know the true tale then. 12-core GPU vs. 4-core GPU? Fun, times.

Update:  A reader has pointed out that Anandtech compared the Tegra 3 to the A5 in the iPad 2, and the GPU in the A5 (not the new A5X) ran circles around it. I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that the A5X will also, but wanted to throw this out there for you.

Via:  ZDNet