Nvidia wants its Tegra 2 processor to be a player in the iPad, er’ tablet market. To show what can be done, it is showing off a prototype of an Android-based touch-screen tablet that uses Tegra 2.
The company said the unit’s dual-core ARM Cortex 9 processor is a generation ahead of the A4 processor that’s in the iPad. Tegra II, it said, can do 1080p full HD and Flash, something the iPad doesn’t do.
It said the prototype tablet it is showing has more memory than the iPad and has a front-facing web-cam and microphone. It also has more ports, and a MicroSD card slot and two USB ports, which are not on the iPad.
At 8.9 inches its screen is smaller than the iPad.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told laptopmag.com, ‘The netbook was first, but the tablet is the new generation of leisure computers. In the beginning, people just used these devices to surf the Web, and if the performance wasn’t great when they accessed video, or high-definition Flash, they generally understood. Now the iPad is out, and pretty soon Tegra 2 tablets will be out, and you’ll see high-definition video and Flash, as well as people reading magazines and newspapers on a tablet.’
The iPad has something that Nvidia-based tablets don’t – over one million (mostly very happy) users and counting.
Multiple companies are expected to show tablets based on the Tegra 2 chip and the Nvidia design at the June 1-5 Computex trade show in Taiwan.
Android is the operating system of choice for Dell’s first tablet, the Streak, the company said this week in announcing the product in the UK. Dell did not use either of Microsoft’s two Windows versions: Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 and it also passed on Intel’s power-hungry Atom chip instead selecting the Qualcomm’s ARM-designed 1.0 Snapdragon processor.
Dell, HP, ASUS, Acer and other PC and handset makers are realizing how far they have fallen behind Apple’s iPad, which sold more than one million units in its first four weeks.
Android, perhaps by default, appears to be the tablet operating system of choice over Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7. Verizon Wireless said two weeks ago it’s working with Google to have an Android-based tablet to show in January.
The Streak has a 5-inch screen, about half the size of the iPad’s 9.7 inches. It connects to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G mobile networks and has a five-megapixel camera with dual LED flash.
There is 2Gbs of internal storage and a Micro SD card that can hold up to 32GB of expandable memory, about 42 movies, 32,000 photos, or 16,000 songs, according to Dell. Dell said later this year it’ll upgrade the unit to Android 2.2 with Adobe Flash 10.1.
It has Google Maps – with turn-by-turn navigation, street, and satellite views included, as are Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Dell said video chat will be added later.
Initially avoiding the US market – where iPads flourish and where Apple is expected to suck up all the air when it announces a new iPhone on June 7 – Dell will launch first in the UK, in June, and in the US by summer’s end. O2 will exclusively distribute the Streak in the UK. AT&T is expected to distribute the Streak in the States.
With a screen that small and its lack of invigorating features, any price over $250 to $300 is going to be a heavy burden.
Ron Garriques, president of Dell’s communication solutions group, said the Streak “hits the sweet spot between traditional smart phones and larger-screen tablets.” We suspect it’s a very small sweet spot.