The specific type of cores themselves that NVIDIA plans to use in Wayne aren’t specified, though previous Tegra 4 leaks indicated that it would be a quartet of ARM A15 cores doing the heavy lifting. They’ll be joined by a fifth “battery saver core” that can be used for low-power duties rather than waking up the main CPU.

It’s the graphics jump that might be most impressive, however, with the Tegra 4 having 20x the number of GPU cores as the Tegra 2 and 6x as many as the Tegra 3, according to the slide. That’s good for 1440p encoding and decoding (2560 x 1440), while Wayne can also drive a 2560 x 1600 24b or 4K display on whatever device it slots inside.

Hardware-accelerated security features apparently include Secure Boot, h/w DRM, and HDCP, and there’s support for USB 3.0 and a high-performance imaging chip. Dual-channel DDR3L memory support rounds things out.

NVIDIA confirmed the “Wayne” codename back in February 2011, when it first publicly discussed Kal-El, the chipset that later went on to be known as Tegra 3. The nomenclature borrows the names of famous superhero characters, Wayne being a nod to Batman’s Bruce Wayne. It will be followed by “Logan” and “Stark.”

It’s not clear whether the slide is authentic, but the specifications do fit in with whispers of what NVIDIA has planned for the new Tegra in 2013. Going by previous leaks, the first new chips could arrive as early as Q1, though other variants won’t follow until Q3. We’re likely to see more at CES 2013 next month.

[via MobileGeeks]

This machine comes in two flavors, the first being the $99 4GB version – that’s 4GB of internal storage space, mind you, so watch out if you plan on adding a bunch of 3rd party videos to this beast. The other version will cost you $129 and has an internal storage space of 16GB. The display size is, again, 5-inches, with 800×480 pixel resolution – not the best, but certainly not the worst.

This device also offers a really strange – and awesome – rotating camera that your kids will be able to snap away with all day long. You’ll be working with Fuhu’s own kid-friendly app market where they can download at will. You’ll also have access through the parent-secured profile on the nabi Jr to the Amazon Appstore – side-loading apps like a pro!

Again take a peek at our review of the nabi 2 to get an idea of the direction this smaller tablet is coming from. The folks at Fuhu are not messing around when it comes to presenting a kid-centric experience for your family, and this new smaller (and less expensive) version of their nabi universe might be just what the doctor ordered for your tech-friendly toddler. Check it out!

What’s amazing about the top winner in this event is that it’s one of the very few games that’s released to the larger Android world right out of the gate where most TegraZone games are available first only to Tegra processor-toting devices. This game was tested and developed first on the Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 processors and does indeed still work best, or so it’s said, on that set of chips, but has from its birth on the Android platform worked on all processors powerful enough to work with it.

See both games in action on the NVIDIA Tegra 3 toting HTC One X here:

If you’re going to play this re-release of one of the most classic shooter games of all time, we recommend grabbing either an HTC One X (international edition) or any of the many NVIDIA Tegra 3 tablets that have been released this year. The same goes for the second game that’s won an award in this anniversary: Shadowgun THD. This game has been part of the TegraZone family for many months now, and certainly sits in our own review packet as one of THE games to test a device with for performance.

Shadowgun THD won the award for Best Graphics, GTA III won the award for Best Gameplay, and GTA III won the “Best Overall” award. What a fabulous first year for NVIDIA’s mobile gaming portal!

This first anniversary comes alongside NVIDIA’s own “TegraZone Annual Players Choice Awards” which can get you in on one of their seven ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 packs for voting on which NVIDIA-optimized game you love best. Head on over to NVIDIA’s TegraZone mobile voting site to get in on that action right this second. If you’re not in to links, you can also scan the QR-code you see here to get connected directly – whatever’s best for you, man!

Then listen to this: the folks at ASUS and NVIDIA are bringing the action to fans across both SlashGear and Android Community’s readership with a few more packs that you’ll be able to get on if you miss the chance via NVIDIA. Check out both sites to see how an ASUS Transformer Pad TF300, a TF300 keyboard dock, a Logitech game controller, and a Jawbone Jambox Speaker in sweet NVIDIA green can be yours this week. Full details on that can be found in the first TegraZone Anniversary Game Pack post we posted last week – celebrate!

Then while you’re at it, be sure to check out Sonic 4 Episode II, aka Sonic 4 Episode II THD in our hands-on look both below this paragraph and in our hands-on experience pre-release post – and note that it’s on the market right now as well, as you read! Grab it from the TegraZone!

UPDATE: We have our winners and are currently attempting to contact each of them. If you entered this particular giveaway and have a friend request or a message from Chris Burns, this means we are attempting to contact you ASAP! Once we have each of our winners confirmed to be eligible and in contact, we’ll post their names here – stay tuned!

In addition to the three prize packs we’ve got, Android Community has a set of three packs as well, and NVIDIA also has seven prize packs to give away that consist of the same set of devices. To get a prize pack at NVIDIA, you’ve got to vote for your favorite NVIDIA TegraZone game, that being anything from Shadowgun with its fabulous third-person shooter action to Riptide, the king of jetski games made next-level excellent for the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor with next-level water physics and fabulous tricks in mid-air.

First have a look at how you can win one of the SlashGear-hosted game packs here:

1. “Like” us on Facebook: at facebook.com/slashgear/ and leave a comment in this Facebook thread: http://tinyurl.com/crkhold telling us your favorite TegraZone game and why you love it so much – or if you don’t own a Tegra-toting device as of yet, let us know what game you look forward to most!

2. Winners will be selected like so: we’ll pick a set of our favorites and put them in a hat to pick a winner each week for a total of three!

And that’s it! There’s nothing more simple than a two-step giveaway. Next you can get another chance to get in on these packs through the TegraZone itself, NVIDIA providing the packs sent from them (the same sets of prizes) through their portal which leads to a voting interface where you’ll be choosing your favorite game from amongst all the games they’ve got in the TegraZone today! Click on this link: [Player's Choice Awards] or scan the QR-code below with your smartphone – both will work!

And for those of you who haven’t experienced the fury of the tablet you’ll be winning here, have a look at our ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 full review! ASUS sums it up quite nicely: “Running latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the ASUS Transformer Pad is a value packed tablet that with multi-color style, and productivity with expandability when connected to the mobile dock. With a 1.2MP front and 8MP rear auto-focus camera with large F/2.2 aperture and exclusive office software, staying connected and productive has never been easier.”

Giveaway begins May 10th and ends May 31st, 12:01AM PST barring any complications finding the winners. Both winner will be announced once we’ve contacted and confirmed them here in the main news feed and at our official Facebook/Google+ pages.

Competition is open to residents of the US only, over the age of 18. One entry per person. Family members of NVIDIA, ASUS, and SlashGear/Android Community are not permitted to enter. Competition entries are only accepted via the specified SlashGear Facebook page; entries left in the comments section of this or any other post will not be recognized.

The winner will be contacted by an Android Community/SlashGear staff member upon being selected and will be expected to respond to that staff member; they will be expected to respond within 24 hours else their prize may be forfeit and another winner selected. Editors decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Winners agree that their name and details of their entry may be used for promotional purposes by, but not limited to Android Community, SlashGear, and NVIDIA.

Prize consists of a pack including one ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 tablet, one TF300 mobile keyboard dock, one Logitech game controller, and one Jawbone Jambox Speaker. There is no other alternative for prize winners unless this prize should become unavailable, in which case SlashGear reserves the right to substitute another prize of equal or greater value.

Giveaway provided by SlashGear/Android Community. Prizing provided by NVIDIA and ASUS. Any questions regarding this giveaway should be directed to giveaway[AT]slashgear.com.

This game is next in a long line of epic-quality high definition games for the Android mobile operating system, this a move by not only developers to get noticed on the platform, but NVIDIA’s move to bring light to their quad-core processor situation. This game has both high definition cinematic features and HD gameplay and will surely stave off your need to destroy demons all night long on your Transformer Prime – all night long I say! Have a peek at the trailer for this game here:

This game is also set to exist on Apple’s iOS mobile operating system as well as Windows Phone 7 (soon to be Windows Phone 8!) You’ll be destroying your enemies in this free2play format created with the Delta Engine by MobileBits. Have a glance at the game above then head to the Google Play App Store to download the game right this second – free!

First there’s Kepler, launched this week in its first iteration as the GTX 680, spoken about here by Jen-Hsun Huang in a letter posted by AnandTech:

“Today is just the beginning of Kepler. Because of its super energy-efficient architecture, we will extend GPUs into datacenters, to super thin notebooks, to superphones. Not to mention bring joy and delight to millions of gamers around the world.” – Huang

This should come as at least a little bit of a surprise to those of you who follow NVIDIA in the processor game, as it’s traditionally been Tegra that’s kept the whole Android world on the cuff. That said, it appears very likely that Tegra will be expanding as well. According to NVIDIA’s mobile chief Rene Haas speaking with CNET, Tegra is primed to bring the heat to a relatively forgotten category:

“I can see a world with Tegra-based systems that are very real thin-and-light devices and [on the other hand] more of the power-based systems that have [Intel's] Haswell with [Nvidia] GPUs. I think the middle category, these $499 cheap and ugly machines — battery life is not so great, the chassis is not so sexy — I think that category is potentially under siege.” – Haas

So NVIDIA is going up, down, left, and right with its System on Chips and GPUs and CPUs galore, don’t be surprised if every machine from the smallest system to the most gigantic server has NVIDIA somewhere in the mix relatively soon!

The reason you’re not going to get one definitive answer as to which of these devices is better at gaming is that they’re running completely different sets of not only hardware, but software as well – the only real similarities between these two devices is their display technology, the fact that both units are considered tablet PCs, and the fact that the games they’re playing are made by the same developers.

NOTE: check out our original Transformer Prime review, the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Transformer Prime review, and our new iPad (3rd Gen) review as well for more information on the hardware being used in this post.

We’ve got Pinball HD, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, and SHADOWGUN. There are a few things you should know about each of these games before you judge either device just on their looks – keep that in mind as you see either machine outshine the other. Also note that all of these videos have been filmed with a very simple setup including a stand for the tablet to keep it still and a tripod to keep the camera still, the camera being the fabulous Lumix GF1.

Pinball HD

Both machines perform undeniably excellent with this high definition pinball fantasy of a game, and indeed they should as the game is easily the highest rated pinball game on either market – the developers essentially having no rivals in the space as far as HD gameplay goes. What you’re seeing is a Wild West themed machine with sounds, lights, and special shots galore – and in fact you’ll notice we get the same bonus on both games in this set, shooting the bad guy, fancy that!

The Pinball HD game series does seem to fit the display a bit better on the iPad simply because it’s been tuned to work with a massive range of display sizes in the Android version. Outside of that one tiny factor, there’s really no telling which machine plays the game better here. This is due in part to the amazing processing power of both the A5X chip and the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, but a lot of credit must be given to the developers of the Pinball HD series as well for making such a versatile game – Gameprom for the win!

Asphalt 6: Adrenaline

Here you’re going to see the developer team behind the game, Gameloft in this case, giving quite a bit of favor to the iPad version of the game because ramping their graphics up to Retina-quality allowed them to be featured this week in the iTunes App Store – and who wouldn’t want that honor? So you’re not exactly going to see the most fantastic comparison here when it comes to optimization on the Transformer Prime.

That said, you will notice that both tablets are performing admirably as far as response time and ability to rock and roll with the car goes. You’ll see a few different elements depending on which version of the game you’ve got here – even the car has alternate graphics on the side – but the game is essentially the same, and both machines do bring a generous vision to the racing experience.

I’ve played Asphalt 6: Adrenaline from start to finish on Android, iPad, and OS X, and again you’ve got to give it to the developers for their ability to deliver at least a perfectly similar gameplay experience if not graphics display in each version – fun for everyone! At the moment though, believe it or not, the iPad here is the best of the bunch with its most most updated version of the game.

SHADOWGUN

This game is so very popular in the mobile gaming world that I’d be surprised if you’re reading this post without having played it yourself. Here we’ve got the most advanced version of the basic game for either platform, that being just SHADOWGUN for the iPad and SHADOWGUN THD for the Transformer Prime. This game has been developed by Madfinger Games in close collaboration with NVIDIA for the Android version so it’s set to do fabulously on Tegra 3 processors – you’ll also notice some added effects, more environment action, and even a few more bad guys in this version as well.

The game does appear to move just as smooth on both platforms – both platforms have a disadvantage when it comes to being able to run perfectly smoothly, that being the massive amount of extra pixels the iPad has to work with and the much more diverse environment of the game for Android. So who is the victor here? Let your eyes decide!

Facebook Exclusive: Grand Theft Auto III

An extended video you’re going to love the heck out of watching is the most violent and one of the most classic games out of the bunch: Grand Theft Auto III. This game is an anniversary edition of the original PlayStation masterpiece and has been optimized for the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core chip. That said, it looks pretty darn good on the new iPad as well. Have a look at this link: http://tinyurl.com/7pldtns!

Wrap-Up

When the iPad was first announced, Apple claimed that their new A5X chip would be out-doing the Tegra 3 by four times. I’m not so sure about that, as both setups do appear to be keeping up with one another quite nicely in this basic (and relatively unscientific) environment. The only real way we’d truly be able to see how the CPU and GPU chips in these machines perform against one another would be to have them running the same display, games, and operating systems. But therein lies the problem.

There’s no perfect way to compare single elements in machines without the rest of their components controlled and set equal. The NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor is made for Android and tuned differently for each of the now vast amount of machines it is made for, including the Transformer Prime, several other 10.1-inch tablets, and a variety of smartphones coming out soon. Apple’s A5X chip is made specifically for the iPad 3rd Generation, where there’s an A5 chip made specifically for the iPad 2, another different A5 chip made for the iPhone 4S, and yet another A5 chip made for the new Apple TV.

The only way you’re going to get an accurate comparison between these machine’s processors is to use their final builds in your everyday average lives. What you see above is a set of game demos that, though entertaining to watch, are not perfect indicators of the power of either machine we’re looking at at the moment. The Android and Apple environments are very different from one another, and it’s only you who can make an accurate assessment of what will be best for you.

That said, we’re going to keep trying our best to figure out how else we might keep the battle a-brewing! Next we’ll be comparing other GPU-intensive tasks like processing video – we’ll see how that goes when both machines bring on the 1080p video to the streets for a real all-out knife fight!

BONUS: Check out our current Transformer Prime Quad-Core Pack Giveaway for your chance to win your own Transformer Prime!

HTC opted for plastic rather than metal for the One X, a polycarbonate casing that helps keep weight down. While the sides have a high gloss finish, for aesthetic appeal, the back is soft-touch and matte for easier gripping. The speaker grille has, the company is keen to point out, been micro-drilled with perforations rather than using a separate grille section as on the Sensation series, keeping the design more cohesive.

In the hand, like many polycarbonate devices, the feel is still a little less premium than with metal. It’s light, though, and the side profile of the plastic chassis – into which the Super-LCD panel slots – gives the impression that, like the Galaxy Nexus, the handset is curved, even though the glass itself is entirely flat. On the back there are pogopins for a docking station or other accessories, together with a small pop-out microSIM tray accessed with an iPhone-style pin. No microSD card slot, however – 32GB of onboard storage is your lot – and the 1,800 mAh battery is non-user-accessible.

They share space with the Tegra 3, NVIDIA’s latest processor, along with HSPA+ connectivity, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and – for the first time in an HTC phone – NFC. In the US, AT&T will have an exclusive version of the One X, adding in 4G LTE connectivity but replacing the Tegra 3 with Qualcomm’s S4 dual-core. Having seen the S4 benchmarked last week, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

There’s also a microUSB port with MHL-HDMI output support, though HTC also has a new MediaLink HD wireless HDMI dongle which hooks up straight to your TV or projector’s input. Swipe up on your phone with three fingers and the output is automatically mirrored to your TV, with certain apps – like HTC’s own Watch video rental service – allowing you to use the One X’s display independently from playback on the big screen. That way you can check your email while you watch a movie.

A front-facing camera lives above the display, but the main action is on the back, where an 8-megapixel camera with an LED flash and 1080p Full HD video recording lives. HTC has used a Backside-Illuminated (BSI) sensor for improved low-light performance, together with an f2.0 lens that, the company claims, delivers 44-percent more light to the CMOS than a regular smartphone’s f2.4. That means either better shots in mediocre lighting, or faster regular photos.

Rather than instantly convert to lossy JPEG and then do color correction and other tweaks, HTC has used its own image processing chip – the mundanely named HTC Image Chip – to do all the heavy lifting on the RAW frame, before it gets converted and loaded into the gallery. There doesn’t appear to be any way to access the RAW images, however. It’s a swift camera too, with 0.7s to load up and then autofocus lock in 0.2s – faster, HTC boasts, than the blink of an eye, which comes in at around 0.3s – and while we haven’t got our stopwatches out here at MWC, it’s certainly one of the fastest cameras we’ve used.

HTC has reworked its camera app as part of overall changes introduced in HTC Sense 4.0, bringing more functionality to the primary controls rather than demanding you dig through for them. It’s a welcome change: now you can shoot photos and video simultaneously – the camera button stays on-screen while you’re filming, and frames are captured without interrupting video – and holding your finger down on the shutter release automatically triggers burst photo mode. That can be preset to fire off up to 99 frames, with a viewer automatically loading when you lift your finger.

Even the LED flash has become more intelligent, now supporting seven different levels of brightness that are automatically selected between based on the proximity of your subject. It’s a great example of how specs on paper aren’t the be-all and end-all of the overall device experience: HTC’s changes actually make the One X better to use as a camera.

Elsewhere, Sense 4.0 is still distinctively “HTC” in its design, but it’s a marked improvement over the increasingly stylized versions we’ve seen before. Widgets are pared back and cleaner, with no unnecessary animations, and the whole OS feels swifter and slicker. HTC has implemented a new multitasker system – triggered by one of the three dedicated touch-sensitive buttons – which shows angled preview panes of each app, similar to a CoverFlow album cover UI, though you can apparently switch to Ice Cream Sandwich’s default too.

We’ll have to save full benchmarking and the like until HTC One X review units are available, but suffice to say that the Tegra 3 smartphone feels swift and lag free, even with what is presumably non-final software. HTC has been ambitious – both with hardware and software – and it’s a challenger stance we’re pleased to see the company return to after so many flabby, me-too devices in 2011. With its sizable display and distinctive styling, the HTC One X probably isn’t the smartphone for everyone, but it’s a very welcome reboot all the same.

Like each of the devices in LG’s 2012 line being spoken about today, this device runs LG’s own user interface over the top of Android 4.0 ICS and is the lightest UI over Android that LG has ever released. The massively impressive 313 ppi display brings this 8.9mm thin device to the top of brightness as well as sharpness, and both the design and the innards are made to create one integrated experience to drive the LG hero strategy into the future. Like the rest of the LG line coming this spring and summer, this device has a hard glass front and a soft and light plastic back with a textured feel.

The LG Optimus 4X HD is the highest powered device in LG’s line of devices now, and is holding the reigns for their very near future in the mobile business. The rest of the LG line this season is using Qualcomm’s integrated experience for both modem and processor, while the LG Optimus 4X HD uses NVIDIA’s quad-core chip to entice the masses. Which line will win out?

This device has been leaked before, but just confirming the device today is LG with great hope that it’ll be amongst the most amazing devices at the show. You can see the rest of the show’s content in our big [MWC 2012 portal].. In addition you can take a peek at the rest of the LG content we’ve got this week in our big [LG portal] as well! Also note that we’ll be posting more photos and a hands-on video for this device soon!

Both of these technologies will be given greater detail and live demonstrations without a doubt, but what they are here is basically thus: Voice over LTE, also known as VoLTE, will be demonstrated as seamless handover of voice calls between and LTE network and a circuit-switched WCDMA 3G network and back again. This demonstration will be done using Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) and will have HD quality voice – this is also known as AMR-WB, aka Adaptive Multi-Rate-Wideband. SRVCC is described as a technology which allows voice calls to move back and forth between 4G and 3G networks, both of these networks having existed side by side already since 4G first existed.

This first step will eventually lead carriers to move voice traffic from 3G to LTE networks, this allowing in turn the 3G spectrum to be used for LTE technology so there’s more than enough to go around for everybody! This technology relies on a single radio in the handset rather than a new one for each air interface. The Icera LTE modem takes care of this LTE VoIP and circuit-switched 3G trade-off on its own, this allowing smaller phone designs, lower power requirements, and better battery life in the end.

For gaming in this environment, NVIDIA will have their software defined radio (SDR) modem ready complete with all three radio technologies, 2G, 3G, and 4G, with the full range of handover capabilities that carriers will be using in the near future. In this case of course NVIDIA notes that it is the NVIDIA Icera modem that’s currently used “more than any other modem to validate LTE handover test cases designed to meet the requirements set by global standards organizations.”

NVIDIA will also be showing off how the Icera LTE modem utilizes their unique SDR technology, this allowing software upgradable functions for both OEMs and carriers with best-in-class power, high throughput, and an extremely small die size. Because of this also, NVIDIA is able to have the following wireless data technologies on their 2012-2013 roadmap, including the following: LTE FDD, TD-LTE, 42Mbps Dual Carrier and TD-SCDMA in addition to existing HSPA+, HSPA and 2G technologies.

Hot stuff for sweet connections! We’ll be checking out NVIDIA at MWC 2012, both of which you can follow along with through the portals linked here! [NVIDIA Tegra] and [MWC 2012] – hit em now!

This device is set to have three Android menu buttons along the bottom, each of them corresponding to one of the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich buttons we’ve seen on-screen on the Galaxy Nexus in the past, one for back, one for home, and one to see a list of the apps you’ve currently got running. This device has been said to contain a microSD card slot (more than likely under the battery cover) and a feel not unlike what we’ve held in our hands in the HTC Sensation.

This device has been said the be launching alongside the HTC One V and the HTC One S, and also according to IT Pro Portal they’ll all be launched this weekend in Barcelona. Above you’ll see the HTC One X and below you’ll see the HTC One S photographed next to the device we saw launch last year, again, the HTC Sensation. Follow along with us all week starting this weekend for all the HTC news you can handle through our [MWC 2012 portal] – active now!

[via IT Pro Portal]

What this means for OEM partners is that they’ll be able to bring devices with both an NVIDIA processor AND an LTE modem to the market faster than ever before. Whenever a manufacturer wants to create a smartphone, for example, they’ve got to work with manufacturers of chips for the modem and a separate manufacturer of chips for their processor if they go with someone that isn’t Texas Instrument or Qualcomm – both of whom have integrated solutions on the market already. This NVIDIA deal will have the big green chip group running a similar business in the near future.

More information on how this solution will bring you, the consumer, the greatest and most powerful products as fast as any manufacturer is able to create them, we’ll let you in on the full knowledge this whole next week at Mobile World Congress 2012. Follow both our NVIDIA portal as well as our MWC 2012 portal starting right now!

[via NVIDIA]

Though there are four main cores to ever NVIDIA Tegra 3 SoC, there’s also a fifth chip that has the ability to perform tasks separate from the four. This architecture allows for exceptional processing power as well as excellent battery life because of how it functions. This system uses its main four CPU cores for such giant tasks as gaming, while the fifth core is only called upon when it’s just processing email or sleeping that needs to be done.

UPDATE – have a look at some awesome 4-PLUS-1 games on the way soon!

We’ve seen this process working wonderfully in the first device to be released with the NVIDIA Tegra 3, the ASUS Transformer Prime, a full review of which you can view here: with an extra review for the updated version here: Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade review. This architecture will be showing up more than once in devices at Mobile World Congress 2012, which you can follow in our own [MWC 2012 portal] all week long.

[via NVIDIA]

This device has the Tegra 3′s four main CPU cores and the fifth low-power drive bringing this processor and therefor this phone the world’s only smartphone-sized 4-plus-1 core-toting smartphone device on earth. This device also comes with no less than the newest version of Google’s own Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the newest version of the group’s world-class mobile operating system. The Optimus 4X has the ability to output video to HDMI via its own MHL port, DLNA support, and a brand new version of LG’s user interface over Android with as much customizability as you can handle.

This is both one of LG’s largest smartphones yet and one of if not THE first smartphone with a quad-core processor to be hitting the market worldwide. You’ll find that LG is coming on strong with this and the LG Optimus Vu at Mobile World Congress 2012. We’ll be at Mobile World Congress 2012 starting this Sunday and will certainly be running around all week looking for all things NVIDIA as well as LG, not to mention the rest of the mobile world at the world’s largest mobile convention of the year! See you in Spain!

Just as we did in the smartphone rundown, it’s important to mention that ASUS plans on bridging the gap once again with the ASUS Padfone – a smartphone with a tablet-like dock for twice the fun! Next there’s NEC with some tablet-like devices with dual-screens and everything! There’s a bit of the ol’ Huawei MediaPad 10 heading our way complete with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich under the hood. We’re almost certainly going to see several new NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core tablets even though the quad-core smartphone will be the focus of the week.

There’s word that Neonode will be bringing multitouch to the next level with multi-sensing technology for tablets (and perhaps for smartphones as well, why not?) To compete fairly directly with the “what is it?” device from Samsung called Galaxy Note, LG Optimus Vu will be bringing the in-between heat. RIM refuses to stay out of the spotlight as it brings PlayBook OS 2.0 to their one tablet solution, the BlackBerry PlayBook. And Samsung says, wait a second, we might as well release another sized device, we’ve almost got them all – lets drop a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1!

HTC also supposedly has a HTC Tegra 3 tablet in the works, but this seems less likely than most rumors, just so you know. Stay tuned with all the tablet news in the world with our [tablet portal] or head down to our [Mobile World Congress 2012 portal] to stick with us for everything mobile at the world’s biggest mobile main event of the year!

There’s going to be some tablets at the show this year, and indeed last year’s show had one giant basket of them as well, but the real heroes look to be the smartphones with power greater than the greatest machines of 2011. The first big entry into the show is one we’ve actually seen before: ASUS Padfone – with its tablet half and its smartphone half, will it be enough to impress the masses? Or will it need an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core SoC under the hood to keep us clapping? We’ve certainly got a big share of NVIDIA-laden products coming down the pipe, that’s for sure.

Fujitsu is coming correct with at least one 13.1 megapixel camera toting Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone with Tegra 3 aboard. ZTE Mimosa X is a smartphone which may be the last of the Tegra 2 toters. HTC has had one major super smartphone leak with their own quad-core smartphone, Tegra 3 on board of course. LG will be bringing the LG X3 quad-core NVIDIA smartphone to the show. And of course, NVIDIA has already confirmed Tegra 3 smartphones for the first quarter of 2012.

The folks at NEC have revealed three Android smartphone-like devices already. We’ll be seeing the dual-core LG Optimus 3D Cube for ultimate glasses-free 3D action. Nokia will be bringing what very well could be another Symbian device with a massive high definition camera on it – 12 megapixels strong here too! Panasonic will be coming with two devices, one of them an oversized monster of a handset while the other is a device known as ELUGA and has waterproofing plus dust protection galore.

LG will be bringing the Optimus L Series with nothing but Prada style. Sony wouldn’t be caught without at least a few more devices as it recently broke ties with Ericsson, coming out with an Oversized S and Xperia U. The Optimus LTE Tag will continue LG’s push for NFC. ZTE will continue their super collection with the PF200 and N910 complete with Ice Cream Sandwich as well.

Then there’s the LG Optimus Vu, a gigantic addition to the note-like device which isn’t a smartphone but isn’t quite a tablet. The LG Miracle may be the first to tote NFC in a real way for Windows Phone and carry the newest version of Windows Phone with Tango. HTC will of course come with more than one device, showing off the HTC One V complete with beats – it’s got the Hero or Bust situation going on now with its smartphones too, so you know they’re going to be coming in hot! Also watch out for the HTC One X and One S.

We’ve got the Intel Medfield Chip coming to more than one smartphone, and Acer will be bringing their lovely CloudMobile Android 4.0 smartphone on the blocks. You wont see a press conference from Samsung as they play it low-key. Finally, if you’ve never heard of the Lumigon group, you’re not alone!

Stick around the [MWC 2012 portal] to stay up to date with all things Barcelona and watch all the action through the event there as well!

ZTE is a growing name in the mobile space, hammering the low- and mid-tier ends of the market with affordable phones and tablets; the company is believed to be one of the reasons Nokia’s Symbian business is shrinking more rapidly than the Finns envisaged. Still, the Mimosa X is attracting attention that far outweighs its more obvious merits.

NVIDIA had a great year in Android phones and tablets in 2011, its Tegra 2 chipset powering the majority of dual-core slates and a significant number of dual-core handsets. The company was also ahead of the game for quadcore too, its Tegra 3 already in coveted devices like the Transformer Prime. Where NVIDIA was falling short was in wireless: neither Tegra 2 nor Tegra 3 have any onboard wireless capabilities, either WiFi or cellular, meaning manufacturers were still needing to look to the NVIDIA’s rivals to satisfy that element of phones and tablets.

Icera addresses that gap. The company’s modem tech had been quietly shuffling along in numerous USB modems and data cards, while Icera worked on developing its IceClear “interference-aware” technology that promises to triple data rates and boost efficiency, until NVIDIA acquired it in May 2011.

The Mimosa X uses NVIDIA’s Icera 450, an HSPA+ modem for up to 21Mbps (category 14) downloads; the IceClear system will, NVIDIA reckons, mean you’re more likely to see higher speeds at the fringes of coverage. It’s a separate chipset from the Tegra 2 driving the ZTE’s apps and graphics, and NVIDIA says it won’t have wireless integration with the core SoC until sometime in 2013.

That separation is unlikely to present too great an issue at the moment: after all, NVIDIA only needed to deliver a single-manufacturer option to clients already clamoring for Tegra. The Icera 410 is also sampling, with LTE support as well as fall-back HSPA+. NVIDIA is refusing to share the mobile processor market, and 2012 looks to be another interesting year for the phone and tablet power/flexibility/connectivity balance.

This device comes with the ability to access the TegraZone, an application store in which the games for the most part only work with Tegra processors. The smartphone has advanced audio distribution profile (A2DP), Dolby sound, and digital living network alliance (DLNA) compatibility. Inside you’ve got 4GB of built-in storage, there’s a microSD card slot for 32GB more, and of course you’ve got HD video recording and playback. The back facing camera will be 5 megapixels, there’s two microphones for noise cancellation, and there’s a gyroscope for awesome gameplay abilities.

Michael Rayfield, General Manager of the Mobile business at NVIDIA notes the following:

“The ZTE Mimosa X is exciting for a few reasons. The Mimosa X marks the first time NVIDIA technology powers all the major processors in a single smartphone, and also the first time a premium mobile computing experience is coming to the mainstream smartphone market.” – Rayfield

We’ll be checking this device out as soon as possible, it and its lovely NVIDIA Icera 450 modem with the ability to support 21Mbps category 14 HSPA+ data. IceClear interference cancellation technology inside will allow faster throughput at the cell edge and advanced Release 7 features for supporting ultra-low latency network response. Know what all that means? It means you’ve got support for going ultra fast on whatever network you’re on. We’re looking very much forward to this device!

Acer hasn’t been able to resist tweaking Ice Cream Sandwich, and so its A200 build – and, presumably, its A100/A500 versions – will include some custom features. The Acer Ring shortcut wheel makes a reappearance, offering easier access to apps, web favorites, screenshot captures and social networking uploads, and there’s a new and supposedly improved weather widget. App shortcuts have also been added to the lock screen.

The Iconia Tab A200 is one of Acer’s more affordable tablets, landing in January from $330. At launch, it ran Android 3.2 Honeycomb on a 1GHz Tegra 2 chipset, paired with either 8GB or 16GB of storage and a 10-inch 1280 x 800 touchscreen. There’s also a front-facing camera, though no rear camera in order to cut costs.

Acer’s update to the A200 comes a little later than originally expected – the company had initially promised it would drop in January – but is at least more timely than Motorola’s plans which will see many devices wait until Q3 this year before they get a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich. Owners of the A200 should get a pop-up notification that new software is available sometime in the course of the next week.

What this next generation device represents almost certainly is a replacement for the current generation ” target=”_blank”>ASUS Eee Pad Transformer – the original. When the Transformer Prime was announced, ASUS was very clear that its launch did not mean the end of the original Transformer, just that there would be two tiers of tablets (at least two tiers as we would later find out) with the original being priced for everyone and the Prime being priced for the premium crowd. With the original Transformer here getting an upgrade to Tegra 3 quad-core processor for its innards instead of its current Tegra 2 dual-core processor, we’re looking at quite the value proposition indeed!

Given the NenaMark2 benchmark results we’re seeing here, we can see that the device does indeed have a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, a display of a massive 1280 x 752, and Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich. This puts the tablet right in line between the Transformer Prime and its much smaller cousin the ASUS MeMO tablet also announced at CES 2012 – it having similar specifications with a 7-inch display.

Will we see this device showing up at Mobile World Congress 2012 aside the ASUS Padfone and the further developed MeMO tablet? We sure hope so! Stick with us all through the end of the month as we head to Spain and see!

[via NenaMark]

Year on year you’ll find that GAAP EPS for NVIDIA rose 118.6 percent with non-GAAP EPS rising 46.9 percent. The only dips came between quarters, with both revenue decreasing by 10.6 percent to a still impressive $953.2 million for the quarter, and quarterly GAAP EPS and non-GAAP EPS down by 10 cents and 9 cents respectively. NVIDIA president and chief executive officer for NVIDIA Jen-Hsun Huang spoke on the call of a great year and a very bright future:

“I am pleased with our achievements last year. Our GPU business grew sharply. And, with the success of Tegra, we established our position in the mobile market. We expect continued growth ahead, as Tegra 3 powers a new wave of quad-core super phones and Kepler, our next-generation GPU architecture, sets new standards in visual and parallel computing.” – Jen-Hsun Huang

NVIDIA was also sure to note that they’d had many highlights in this first non-fiscal quarter of 2012 already, starting with the Asus Transformer Prime with the Tegra 3 quad-core processor being the first to officially get the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update from Google. Asus and NVIDIA also have a tablet by the name of MeMO they’re excited to be offering soon for a mere $249, utterly inexpensive given its high specifications and Tegra 3 processor inside. They also mentioned the Asus Transformer Prim TF700T, the lovely Acer Iconia Tab A700, the soon to be released Lenovo IdeaPad K2, and the soon to be officially unveiled Fujitsu smartphone without a name – also having Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor under the hood.

Mobile World Congress 2012 will be home to many of these devices in their near to be released form, and we’ll be there to show them all to you in person – in many cases once again!

[via NVIDIA]

NVIDIA has come strong to the show with not only a massively impressive first release of their chip on the Transformer Prime, but with detailed descriptions of how their processors work and why we should be jumping for joy at them. As for how excited we should be for Tegra 3 on smartphones, well, just look at the rumors! Just this morning we had another note come through on the HTC Edge, a device that will almost certainly be coming to the MWC 2012 stage with a Tegra 3 processor under the hood.

And you can bet we’ll be there at Mobile World Congress 2012 to bring you all of the NVIDIA action as it drops, including but not limited to phones, tablets, and straight up Tegra 3. You can bet there’s also going to be some LG smartphone action here as well – check the image above to get an idea of what that LG device might look like. Also watch the MWC 2012 and Tegra portals for more up to the minute updates about the whole show! Meanwhile check the power –

“Once that is done” the social media team continued, “we will be able to push it out to you guys.” ASUS has already begun shipping versions of the newer Transformer Prime running Android 4.0 ICS natively, as well as offering an upgrade for existing Transformer Prime owners to get their Tegra 3 slate up to speed with the new version.

Although the Galaxy Nexus debuted ICS late last year, Android device manufacturers are generally still working on getting their existing range upgraded. So far there’s ASUS’ Prime that has been modified, but smartphones and other tablets remain works-in-progress. In fact, even new devices running Android 4.0 are thin on the ground; the bulk of the new smartphones announced at CES 2012 last week were still running Gingerbread.

[via Android Community]

You’ll be working with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, wi-fi, and a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution display on the front. That’s sharp as heck. Have a peek at the video we’ve got flipping this tablet around back and forth and whatnot as much as you could possibly want without actually stepping up to Best Buy to check this device out yourself. You’ve got the ability to access all your favorite Tegra Zone games as well as the most high-powered applications on the market, no problem.

We’ve got a bit more information on Toshiba items from this show (we’re at CES 2012, by the way, if you did not know,) and we’ve got more content than you can shake a cloud at. Have a peek at our [Toshiba portal], our portal for [CES Live], and our more general portal for [CES 2012] for all announcements.

ALSO this tablet starts at $379 for the 16GB version – get it or explore your options – good luck!

This version of Splashtop is called Splashtop THD, that meaning you’ve got a special version made specifically for the Tegra platform. This app will work only with Tegra processors, and will run more than just Skyrim. What NVIDIA had open was a full working version of Widows 7 as running through Splashtop from a PC they had connected to the same wi-fi network – and again, it works, it really works.

Have a peek at the regular version of Splashtop right now on the Android Market, check out our review of the Transformer Prime, and connect the two soon with Splashtop THD. Tegra 3 has a whole new arena to play in. We’ll be waiting!

And what’s better than all this is that under the hood you’ve got both Android and NVIDIA to back you up for the most fully reliable system you’ve ever used! with the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor running this Android-based machine, you’ll be well on your way to a fully integrated experience with no hassle whatsoever – click your controls, select your settings, all of it simple as it can be so anyone can use it. The whole system will be available starting on January 5th (that’s today!) 2012 through Tely.com, Skype.com, and more, all for just $249.

All you’ll need on your end is the ability to sign up for Skype (easy as pie) and a Wi-fi internet connection to get your device up on to the web. You’ll not only be able to be video chat, you’ll be able to send and receive photos whilst chatting as well. Video mail will also be up and running right out of the box. Sound like enough to get you pumped up about video chatting in the living room?

We’ll certainly be seeing more on this device at CES 2012!

[via Tely]

Measuring in at 10.2 x 6.9 x 0.48-inches and 24.6 ounces, the A200 uses its girth to squeeze in a full-sized USB port that can hook up to a keyboard or mouse, or to external drives. Other ports include microSD and microUSB, while wireless connectivity is the usual array of WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1. No word on 3G options at this stage.

Battery life is tipped at up to eight hours, and there’s a front-facing 2.megapixel webcam though no main camera so as to save money. Acer garnishes Honeycomb with its mildly-tweaked UI, including an “Acer Ring” quick-launcher and its Clear.fi DLNA streaming app.

Pricing for the Iconia Tab A200 is $329.99 for the 8GB model and $349.99 for the 16GB model.

“Tegra 3 isn’t concerning us” he said, referring to the NVIDIA chipset found inside the ASUS Transformer Prime and other incoming Android slates. “There are lots of smart people in the world but what we’re going to focus on is product roadmaps that help our manufacturing partners not just single use products … I could go away and make something brilliant with Tegra 3, but you’re going to see hundreds of [Snapdragon] S4 devices in the marketplace.”

The ambitious approach isn’t new from Qualcomm, though the company still remains behind when it comes to pure core count. Qualcomm’s quadcore S4 chipsets, like the 28nm MSM8960, will initially drop in dualcore form, with quadcores on the roadmap later.

Qualcomm has previously argued its design strategy by pointing out that – unlike NVIDIA or Texas Instruments, for instance – the company designs its own ARM-based cores. That allows it to choose its own balance between performance and energy efficiency; as Chandhok said, “we have a design point for mobility that we think is different from what others focus upon.” Whether it can convince customers to look beyond pure core-count and dig deep into actual abilities remains to be seen.

Chidori fighter

While I’m not really sure what to call this game, as technically it does not have a name at the moment, I can tell you that it’s a fighting game made on the Chidori platform. What Chidori does is act as a conduit between game developers and their desire to have their games on multiple platforms right out of the box. Chidori as a collective aims to provide developers with the tools they need to make this happen, and with Tegra 3 they’ve optimized their engine for future developers so they might make the most advanced games in the mobile space with precision and grace.

In this demonstration you’ll see a very unfinished fighting game made inside the Chidori engine environment, complete with on-screen controls and a handful of punch and kick moves. Notice in the upper left-hand corner that there are four green bars moving back and forth as the gameplay progresses – this is a basic look at how each of the four main cores on the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor are being utilized.

Glowball

This game first appeared in a demonstration of what was then called Project Kal-El earlier this year – this project eventually became known as Tegra 3, so you know this game is made to be more than just optimized for this space. Glowball’s main intent is to show off the capabilities of the NVIDIA quad-core processor, allowing you to see each of its magnificent effects off and on live as you play.

There’s also a set of goals you can accomplish in this game, like hitting all the jack in the boxes, but fah! It’s all about the rolling around and having a great time with live-rendered effects. This is the only game of the three in this post that will be available right away when you pick up your Transformer Prime later this month.

Bladeslinger

When you enter the world of Bladeslinger, you should know right off the bat that this is no Cowboys and Aliens. It’s no Infinity Blade either, and it’s certainly not Shadowgun. Instead it’s a combination of elements from each of those franchises, punched together to make you a cowboy with a knife attached to your gun and a mission to destroy the monster infestation upon you. You’ll be hacking and slashing away as well as blasting this hoard in the face all the live-long day.

This game is in development at the moment and will be available inside the first half of 2012 from what we can tell thus far. Until then you’ll do well to keep massacring the radiated beasts in, again, Shadowgun, until the filth is no more. Also meanwhile you should go ahead and check out our full review of the ASUS Transformer Prime to see what you’re missing – get the purple — I mean, Amethyst Gray version! Clearly superior over that alcohol-flavored alternative.

BONUS: Don’t forget about our hands-on with the games Riptide GP and Shadowgun in some battle videos between the Transformer Prime and the iPad 2 – let it begin!

Hardware

The magic in this device is not only in its keyboard dock, but once you get a taste of the ta on its own, its hard to resist the desire to own what basically amounts to the other half of it. Battery life essentially doubles when you’ve got both pieces and with this connection you’ve got the next generation of device in your hands today: a notebook with a touchscreen. Of course to make it all worth it, you’ve got to have an operating system that’ll back it all up – we’ll chat about that a bit more in the Software portion of this review. For now, have a peek at this very clean, modern looking bit of equipment:

Now you don’t HAVE to pick up the keyboard dock for this tablet, as all the processor power does lie inside the tablet bit itself. I’m simply not going to begin going into the supposed “limited app environment” that Android has in this review because I’m of the opinion (through practice) that if you want your device to do something, there’s a developer out there who wanted the same thing and made an app for it. Because of this, the tablet you’re looking at is easily one of the top 5 tablet computers on the market today. Because I’m a fan of Android and am more interested in the development of this operating system than any of the other mobile platforms, I would at this moment choose this tablet above all others, and not least of all because it’s gorgeous to behold.

Circles upon circles carved in a royal shade of metal around the entirety of the back of the tablet with the massive fact showing itself to be entirely Gorilla Glass, flat from the center all the way to the edges. The only marking you’ll find on either the back or the front is the lovely ASUS logo which is more than easy on the eyes, it’s downright well designed. The lightness of the tablet is balanced perfectly well with how weighty it must be to convince your humble narrator that it’s not going to bust if I drop it. In fact there’s no way I’ll be able to break this tablet with my bear hands unless I toss it off a building – though you won’t see me attempting this any time soon.

The keyboard dock has been sent to us to review in a box right alongside the tablet itself, and indeed it does belong with the tablet – let me reiterate: this isn’t a tablet, it’s a collapsible notebook. Though I cannot yet see this as a total replacement for the MacBook Air (or whatever else you folks are using to replace that luxury on the PC side), it is an excellent option for those of you wishing to work in a brand new environment where Android is still your system and your screen is touchable.

You’ll find that switching between the tablet and the keyboard-attached amalgamation is quick, simple, and judging by the latch on this monster, the whole thing is held quite securely in place for the long haul. Don’t expect to be getting the thing out of there with one hand, but plugging it in with one hand is certainly doable. And get this: in this (and the orignal Transformer) is the first place you’ve got a notebook that takes photographs from its back, and not just terrible photographs, nice ones.

As far as the other side goes, the inside – for the fellow who asked: there are two little rubber bumpers on the keyboard side that hold the display away from the surface, but the Gorilla glass wouldn’t have to worry about getting scratched either way because Gorilla Glass is more than tough enough to resist such smooth foe. Have a look here at a close-up view of the keyboard in all its glory in hands-on video Two:

The hinge is strong enough to be relatively tough to move when it doesn’t have the tablet plugged in, and the whole rig is difficult to open up when attached if you’re holding a baby in your other arm. I guarantee you I’ve tried it. This of course means that the connected keyboard/tablet combo wont come flying open accidentally by any means. Like the rest of the sections you’re about to read, know that anything you’d like to know about that I haven’t covered here is more than open to discussion below: ask any question you wish and I shall respond, your wish is my tap and click!

Display

In this tablet you’re going to find the lightest whites, the darkest blacks, and the brightest display with its Super IPS+ mode with over 600 nits (a nit is a unit of visible-light intensity, just so you know) — that compared to the iPad 2′s 350-400 nits makes for a big gap, but considering the rest of the tablet world is somewhere in the same area for brightness, this including the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the non-Super IPS+ mode of the Prime, these numbers aren’t going to make a BIG difference unless you’re holding them up side by side. The difference comes when you’re standing outside holding the tablet in direct sunlight – and here you’ll find the brightness to make a big difference.

The resolution on this device is 1280 x 800, the panel having a 16:10 ratio and 10.1-inches in size diagonally. Compared to the 9.7-inch iPad 2 display, the pixels per inch on the Transformer are a dominant 145 PPI over the Apple tablet’s 132 PPI. Compare this to the display on the next most popular Android tablet on the market with the Kindle Fire at 169 ppi and you might have a heart attack until you realize that this is because 1024 x 600 pixels are smashed into 7-inches of display instead of the Prime’s 10.1 – much easier to get dense down there at the smaller level.

Final assessment: this is the best display on a 10-inch tablet market today. It’s bright, dense, your games and text are sharp and readable, and you can use this beast outside in the summertime.

Benchmarks

While it’s interesting to mark up a bunch of benchmarks on this and the rest of the tablets in the market, the Transformer Prime is a perfect example of where even though you’ll see lesser tablets out-do it at first glance. What you’re not seeing is the real-world performance here in these tests, and that is always what matters most. Normally I don’t mention this stuff as it should be a given whenever you’re looking at benchmark tests performed on completely different pieces of hardware, but here the truth is quite relevant, as the results are quite deceptive.

As such, feel free to head back to our Hands-on and Unboxing post to see a whole collection of benchmark results on both the Transformer Prime and the original Transformer. Also head back to our ASUS Transformer Prime vs iPad 2 Benchmark Tests post for more of a fight between the two, but remember that the numbers do not perfectly reflect the power within in any case. Have a peek at our hands-on with both devices in the following video to see a bit more of a real-world test of performance, as it were. Games is what you’ll see here, games galore I tell you!

Above you’ll see the iPad 2 on the left and the Transformer Prime on the right, same for the video below – in the video above you’ll see the game Riptide GP, below you’ll see the game Shadowgun. You’ll find that both games have been enhanced in several ways, some big, some small, and though the gameplay is comparable on both machines, the Tegra versions on the Prime are clearly the cooler gaming experiences. Will the iPad versions be updated eventually? Maybe, you never know.

These games are but a taste of the handful of apps developed by gaming groups hand-in-hand with NVIDIA to optimize them for the Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Head down to the software portion of this review to see a few more in high action.

Camera

In this category I’m not even going to begin comparing the camera to any other tablet save one, only ONE tablet in the world at this very moment can hold any kind of candle to the Transformer Prime in any respect, and that is, believe it or not, the $800 HTC Jetstream. What you’ll find is that not only do both of these tablets have the only 8-megapixel cameras in the tablet market, the rest of the market’s cameras are absolutely terrible, especially when compared to these two. Of course the price difference between the Prime and the Jetstream provide you with a clear choice in this case, but their cameras taken aside from that are fairly similar.

Have a peek at a few more examples of what the Transformer Prime’s 8-megapixel camera can do here for photos and for video, the video being 1080p of course. The front-facing camera is the same basic 1.2-megapixel camera we’ve seen on many tablets and smartphones before, it being only of the quality you’d use for video chat – someday we’ll have high quality chat, someday!

Note also that the Transformer Prime boasts a lovely F2.4 aperture, the same rating the iPhone 4S has, so it’s not just the megapixels you’re enjoying here, it’s the guts.

Software

Before we go any further, you should have a look at our first in a series of hands-on videos (and yes, the second is posted above, but it just worked out that way!) Here you’ll find that your humble narrator starts exploring the Transformer Prime by showing off the original Transformer and the app selection it has. The reason for this is that it’s essentially the same set you’ll get with the Transformer Prime, and the reason for THAT is ASUS promotion of the Transformer and the Transformer Prime as a family of devices. Instead of tossing their “older” model under the bus, they’re offering it for the lower of two prices, the Prime then considered the “premium” choice for consumers for its advanced build and processor, not to mention is two lovely color options.

What we’ve gotten here with our review unit is a set of apps direct from NVIDIA and several of their partnered developer groups who made games with the developers at NVIDIA optimized for their newest builds. In this case, for example, there’s a fighting game created to show off the performance of each of the four CPU cores, here simply branded “Chidori.” What Chidori represents is an alliance of gaming groups joined together to provide tools and resources for developers to make their games cross-platform as easily as possible, and their aims with Tegra 3 are made clear in a quote from Katsunori Yamaji, CEO and Executive Producer at Premium Agency Inc for the announcement of the chip last month:

“Tegra 3 is equivalent to a console game machine, and we believe devices with it will play an important part in next-generation games. We’ve been working on optimizing our cross-platform engine Chidori to fully support Tegra 3. To support Tegra 3′s multi-core engine, we’ve optimized our 3D effect tool. And we’ve adapted our high-quality shader library, Aoi, to Tegra 3, allowing truly beautiful imagery.” – Yamaji

Have a peek at what Chidori has to offer in this very pre-production demo:

Next have a look at the game you’ve seen a couple times before if you’ve been following along with the NVIDIA crew and their quad-core processor since before it was called Tegra 3. This game is called Glowball and it’s been in development since the processor inside this tablet was called Project Kal-El, it still here showing off what it was intended for since the start: the pure loveliness of what this device and its system on chip are capable of in the graphics department.

Then behold another early build: Bladeslinger. Much in the same style as the Infinity Blade series and its ability to show off the wonders of the A5 chip in the iPad 2, here Bladeslinger (even in this Alpha or Beta build), looks and acts impressive in every way.

Battery

There are three pre-set modes you can be in on the Transformer Prime, the first being Power Saving Mode, the next being Balanced Mode, and the final being Normal Mode. NVIDIA and ASUS have assured us that Balanced Mode is more than enough of a powerhouse to run all the games we’ve been burning through here, but you know good and well that we want the most powerful mobile processor on the planet working as hard as it can the entire time we’re testing the battery. That said, if the Normal Mode battery life is any indication (and it certainly is), the Power Saving Mode will last you until the end of time with battery life.

What you’re seeing above is a look at the battery life AFTER the firmware update that came in early yesterday from ASUS. The battery life you’re seeing from the reviews run before yesterday are, as I’m sure you say, not the best, but what’s happened after this update came down today was a vast improvement in battery life (amongst other things) including what appears to be the 5th core doing its thing while we have the device with the display off. Have a look back at the post entitled Variable SMP: the brain of quad-core mobile computing and see not only how there’s actually five CPU cores in the Tegra 3 processor in this device, the fifth is activated when the others aren’t needed, this saving you energy in the form of battery power. It’s like a ninja in the night, a ninja fighting for good!

In other words: even on Normal mode, which is what you’re seeing above, we’ve got 10+ hours of battery time. When it comes to running the device with the dock attached, we’re talking about another 50-75% increase in battery time. If you’re using your tablet disconnected from the dock and you’re running HD streaming video to your HDTV, you’ve got much closer to 7 hours of uptime. The biggest killer of your battery is going to be the Super IPS+ mode, which I recommend only using if you’re hanging out on a parade route on the 4th of July in Texas, because even without this feature activated, you’ll be fine out on the town on a normal midwestern sunny day.

Wrap-Up

The ASUS Transformer Prime is without a doubt the finest Android tablet to date, and barring those with an addiction to having what they call the “widest” or “finest” app collection in the land, I’ve got no qualms with calling this the highest quality slate on the market today. Of course the app production ecosystem for the iPad 2 is stronger – people still see it as an easier place to make cash. With Android it’s still not so easy to make a winning application, especially one that’s supported by a market that has a real vetting process. But lo and behold, those of you who are developers of games specifically, you’ve got NVIDIA to work with, and not only do they give developers wanting to work with them the resources they need to make their game optimized for their processors, they promote the heck out of your games by giving them to us to test out.

With NVIDIA promoting this tablet as the first quad-core processor toting tablet on the market, ASUS has a brand tie-in that the rest of the chip producers simply haven’t offered as of yet. NVIDIA is pretty darn good at pumping themselves up as the group to trust for gamers, and with that power the rest of the applications the everyday user uses are more than supported as well – and NVIDIA knows this, and NVIDIA promotes this. Meanwhile you’ll find many (not all), but many of the other devices like this on the market simply promoting their device as having a “super powered dual-core processor” without a brand, or in Apple’s case, they simply re-brand the processor as their own – this is also smart.

So what more could you want? I know what you Android lovers want: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Lucky you, ASUS has already promised to deliver that system sooner than later, with an announcement of when coming sometime later this month from what we understand. The only limit this device has that I’m concerned about is its current system, Android 3.x Honeycomb, the entire line of which (3.0, 3.1, and now 3.2) have been fun to work with, but haven’t been as up to the task of everyday usage in every respect as Ice Cream Sandwich has been in the few short weeks it’s been in the wild.

Therefor I tell you this: if you’re deciding between an iPad 2 and this device, you’re doing it wrong. Buy the one that feels better to you, and go with it. There’s no perfect test to decide between the two, it always comes down to personal preference if you ask me. If you’re deciding on which Android tablet to get, look no further. The rest of the Android slate world has been completely blown away.

Have a peek at the photos below and the video above and know this: this isn’t the end of our review, this is just another bit of it. If you’ve got any questions on this (or any other device we’ve reviewed for that matter) feel free to ask in the comments below. We and I will do our best to answer!

The 260 x 175 x 12.4 mm slate weighs in at 720g and comes with either 8GB or 16GB of storage. There’s a 3,260 mAh battery, good for up to 8hrs of video playback or 400hrs of standby Acer reckons, together with 1GB of RAM and a full-sized USB port for connecting external peripherals like keyboards. A microSD card slot can be used to add to the storage, and the 10.1-inch display runs at 1280 x 800 resolution with a 2-megapixel front-facing camera above it (but no rear camera).

There’s the usual WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, GPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack, gyroscope and accelerometer, together with DLNA media streaming under Acer’s clear.fi brand. The company will preload a slightly customized UI, too, with the so-called Acer Ring offering shortcuts to the browser, gallery, volume, multitasking and other elements of the system.

Pricing is yet to be confirmed, though we’re guessing this will be in the bargain area of the tablet line-up. Acer is tipped to be bringing two Tegra 3 based models, the Iconia Tab A500 and Iconia Tab A700 to market imminently.

[via NetbookNews]

When consumers predominantly look at a tick-list of specs, generally with the mindset that “more = better”, how do you get past the immediate assumption that four cores in one phone or tablet are automatically better than two cores in another phone or tablet? It’s a question we’ve asked chipset manufacturers like Texas Instruments – another firm that has shifted to A15 rather than increase the number of A9s in its chips – before, and they generally dodge it, arguing that’s something the brands using the chips in devices are are skilled at.

Samsung, though, makes both the chips and much of the hardware that those chips end up in: it can’t avoid the marketing challenge. The company’s press release this morning did make a vague effort to put the spec improvements into context, hitting on the 2560 x 1600 resolution and stereoscopic 3D support though not with any great gusto. That’s perhaps to be expected from the semiconductor department, but unfortunately most product manufacturers aren’t doing much better either. This reluctance, laziness or inability to tell would-be users why they should care is increasingly going to bite those pushing tablets and smartphones.

The chipset world is split in how it sees next-gen mobile processors taking shape. NVIDIA has thrown itself into the more-core approach, doubling up but keeping the same A9 architecture as it shifts from Tegra 2 to Tegra 3. Texas Instruments has taken the opposite approach, sticking with a pair of cores but shifting to ARM Cortex A15 architecture for a complimentary boost in power. Qualcomm, meanwhile, is hovering in-between: it designs its own chips, licensing the core tech from ARM but tweaking as it sees fit. The custom Krait cores in the Snapdragon S4 series, therefore, will have roughly the performance of an A15 but use significantly less power than either it or indeed an A9, or so Qualcomm tells us.

A good rule of thumb is to look at what Apple is doing, though of course the Cupertino crowd has followed a vastly different strategy with its phones and tablets. An oft-highlighted difference is the fact that Apple hardly ever talks about raw specifications, focusing instead on the experience. The iPad 2 has a dual-core chip, Apple points out, but that’s so that “multitasking is smooth, apps load quickly, and anything you touch responds instantly”; similarly, the graphic chip is faster not just because that looks better on the spec sheet, but so that games and menus are “even more fluid and realistic.”

However, Apple in effect has its tablet and smartphone markets to itself: nobody else makes an iOS-based “iPad” or “iPhone”, whereas Samsung, ASUS, Acer, Motorola and the rest all make Android tablets and phones. In their rush to compete, they’ve all set the benchmark for “success” at being faster/more powerful/more-packed-with-cores. Android Tablet A is 0.23% faster than Android Tablet B, so it is A Better Device.

General consumers don’t understand why that might be the case, however, so they’re forced to translate the specs as best they can. Until now, the tablet market outside of the iPad has predominantly revolved around NVIDIA’s Tegra 2, but that’s increasingly going to diverge as the next-gen chipsets arrive. Context is something that will play a huge role as each manufacturer justifies their choice of processor.

Their challenge is arguably the consumers’ gain: instead of being picked on price, or which has the skinniest chassis (but probably the same specs inside as everything else), or a color option that matches your suit, brands will be forced to explain why buyers should care rather than simply throw a long list of specifications at them. It could even result in a net benefit for manufacturers, too, a refinement in positioning opening up new niches for iPad rivals and allowing them greater space to flourish.

Samsung, Qualcomm, NVIDIA and Texas Instruments have convinced us that there’ll be no shortage of power in the next-gen phones and tablets. Now the industry needs to raise its game in how it dresses that power with something even more important to end-users: context. Without that, every mobile device not wearing an Apple logo is likely to struggle to find its feet in an increasingly impatient marketplace.

Also among the hardware tipped is a 1280 x 800 display, Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD card slot, while the video tips a USB port capable of mounting external drives to access media stored on them. There’s no record for an Acer Iconia Tab A201, the company’s usual nomenclature for 3G-enabled variants, which suggests that WiFi is the only flavor of tablet in this particular series.

Similarly unclear is OS version, with Acer giving no indication of whether the Iconia Tab A200 will run Android 3.x Honeycomb or 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Acer looks to have modified the US itself anyway, with different icon graphics. Earlier this month, the Iconia Tab A500 and Iconia Tab A700 series slates leaked, each running Tegra 3.

[Thanks Manuel!]

We’ve had a pretty decent introduction to this device (and its dock) just this past month at NVIDIA and Asus combined forces for a double-down on launching. This is the first place that NVIDIA will be delivering its quad-core mobile processor that up until recently was code-named Project Kal-El (aka Superman). What we’ve got here now is the Tegra 3 quad-core processor which you can learn all about in the post about how it’s actually got a fifth core, not just four, and the other article all about Variable SMP, the brain of quad-core mobile computing. Both of these posts should sufficiently break down the ins and outs of the processor for you to have an awesome time full of understanding while you rock the Glowball.

Those of you that plan on purchasing this tablet should know that it’s the next generation of Asus’ look at Android, the first coming in the form of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer (without the Prime), a device that plays host to the current dual-core processor NVIDIA has in many Androids: the Tegra 2. You can take a look at our review of the original Eee Pad Transformer tablet from earlier this year. Asus will continue to promote both tablets, but will market the Prime as a premium device while the original will be more of an every-person device with a bit lower cost than this newest addition to the family.

[via Best Buy]

The benchmark from OpenGL we’re seeing here shows off the fact that this device is running a screen thats a massive 1920 x 1152, just like the Acer Iconia A700 Tab that also remains in the shadows as of yet. We can also see that this device currently runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb, but we must wager a guess that we’re starting to enter Ice Cream Sandwich territory as the first device with Android 4.0 in full final release mode has already been sent out to reviewers and is in users hands over in the UK. Note also here that the cores this benchmark is seeing has a minimum CPU freq of 102 MHz, this showing how low the device can go, as it were, as well as 1.4GHz (aka 1400 MHz), this tying in precisely with what we’ve heard from NVIDIA as to what their non-overlocked SoC will be working with out of the box.

We can expect this processor to stay the same throughout its lifespan as the Tegra 2 has, as NVIDIA has kept their clocks on the same dial from start to finish thus far on mobile devices – as evidenced by the start of the Tegra 2 in the LG Optimus 2X and the Motorola XOOM and its most recent house in the Samsung Captivate Glide: all dual-core 1GHz, the lot of them. This Lenovo tablet is also said to be coming with 2GB of RAM and of course will be a powerhouse in the making. Can’t wait!

[via Android Community]

Hardware

This device features a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, meaning it’ll be very very bright and has 480 x 800 pixel resolution. This crushes the mid-range competition for brightness and in most cases for resolution as well, but doesn’t quite match the Galaxy S II for either energy efficiency or, again, brightness. Thus is the difference between Super AMOLED and Super AMOLED Plus – though you won’t likely notice it unless you’ve got both phones in your hands at once.

This device has a relatively solid construction throughout, but when you do handle the phone often you’ll notice the slide-out action happening a little TOO readily, the power button’s placement on the side of the device making a strange bit of accidental flipping happening for your humble narrator more than once. Similarly there is a bit of a downfall on the back cover as it’s easily the thinnest piece of plastic Samsung has ever produced for a smartphone. Once it’s on though, you may well forget about how light it is. This device won’t win any awards for perfect toughness, let’s just say that.

The keyboard is OK, certainly not on the same level that HTC has gotten to with such hits as the recent T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide, but not quite as tightly knit and difficult to type with as the Motorola DROID 3. It lights up for nighttime typing, and as with all extendable keyboards, the whole unit becomes much easier to play racing games with – racing games such as the greatest racing game available for the mobile platform today, Asphault 6, and what do you know – there it is pre-installed!

Software

While the fact that this device does have a pretty decent display and a keyboard for those of you not quite ready to take the plunge with on-screen keyboards just yet, the real power lies in the fact that this handset employs the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor. While this processor may seem less powerful than some of its competitors as it is clocked in at 1GHz per CPU core, you’ll see the results in these benchmarks say otherwise.

The Tegra 2 processor also affords you access to an elite set of games otherwise not available to those without said processor. These games can be found in the NVIDIA Tegra Zone as seen both online and on device as well. This means you’ll be able to play Zen Pinball when its eventually released – yes!

As for the user interface, you’re using one of the newest versions of Samsung’s TouchWiz as introduced back when the Galaxy S II lineup was revealed for the USA. This is Samsung’s finest user interface over Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread yet, and your humble narrator has no complaints. Software is your usual set of Samsung and AT&T added applications as well as the Google standard fare including the Android Market, Gmail, and of course Maps.

Pro-tip: as with essentially all recent Samsung handsets, you can take a screenshot by holding down your home key and tapping your power key. Slick!

Camera

The camera is 8 megapixels powerful and capable of 720p video, and while it doesn’t have the massive amount of editing software built-in like HTC devices do, it does get the job done with some lovely results. Have a peek at a photo or two below and some 720p video as well, and mind the Target:

Battery

This device has a 1650 mAh sized battery inside and hasn’t lasted any less than 10 hours on a single charge for me thus far while using the device for email, web surfing, and playing the occasional game. Playing streaming videos fares not nearly so well at 4-6 hours, but you’ll likely be doing so with your MHL/HDMI converter cord (that you do have to buy separately) to output to your HDTV. That will have you charging at the same time as playing, so no worries!

Wrap-up

This device is surprisingly high quality. There were only two moments when I had my doubts, one of them being when I put the battery in for the first time since the back cover is so very very thin, and the other when I first started to hit the power button and realized I’d have to find a new way to hold the handset because the slide-out keyboard wasn’t held nearly as tight as it was on other recent keyboard phone models from other manufacturers. That said, once I got going, it all went well.

This certainly isn’t the Galaxy S II, but it’s pretty darn nice. Take a look at the brief comparisons in the videos above to other devices on AT&T right this moment, then see if you’ve got any other questions you’d like to ask and ask them in the comments below – we’ll be sure to answer!

This game is one in a series of games made by developers working directly with the team at NVIDIA to create masterpieces optimized specifically for the NVIDIA Tegra processor family. Have a look here at a bit if information on how NVIDIA worked with Zen Studios’ Creative Director Neil Sorens – this bit comes from a short interview done with Sorens posted in the Tegra Zone all the way back this summer in July:

“How easy was it to port your game over to Tegra 2?

We got Zen Pinball up and running very quickly, actually. NVIDIA’s been in the graphics business for a long time, so they know exactly what developers want. It was a very smooth process. They’re like “what can we do for you, how can we make things easier, here are some tablets, just go do what you do best and let us know if you need any help.” It’s been fantastic. On the Tegra platforms, it’s like working on another console. That’s basically what it is and we can do the same assets, same engines, and just get it on there quickly and everything will work. The game runs at 60 frames per second with full texture quality and full physics effects going one. In some ways, this is actually superior to what we have going on with the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. It’s super impressive.” – John Gaudiosi via Tegra

Now have a peek at how far they’ve gotten with this game thus far. I’ll mention it in the video again, but let it be clear here: this isn’t the final release, nor is it a release that’s near enough to release to review. What this is instead is a glimpse of the future, now!

The other game mentioned in the video is Pinball HD, a game you can check out here on SlashGear in a bit of news on how it’s up on Mac OS X (and iPad) or over on Android Community where your humble narrator gave it a full review on an Android tablet complete with Tegra 2.

We’ll be seeing this game SOON for Android devices with Tegra processors from NVIDIA. And of course, expect this game to work twice as nice on Tegra 3, NVIDIA’s quad-core processor coming inside 2011 to the front of the pack with the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, we guarantee!

The videos you’re about to see are magnificent, one of them showing off a game we’ve seen before on the Tegra 2 dual-core processor: Shadowgun. This game is currently only available for devices running the NVIDIA processors Tegra 2 and Tegra 3, and the version you’re seeing here below of course isn’t even officially out yet since the processor isn’t supposed to be in the wild yet. Get wild!

The other application is SuperNote and will allow you to make use of a pen stylus, (which isn’t packaged with the device or even really available from ASUS or anything like that,) this a bit strange outside the idea that ASUS is promoting the tablet as a do-all device. It’s the video above really that you’re going to want to pay the most attention to as it’ll be making full use of all four of the Tegra 3′s active cores, while the app below is more than likely just operating with one.

Now for a couple photos, and you can get the rest back at the source at ZTOP, these pictures showing off what it really means here to be undeniably thin. This tablet, whose details you can get in full in our “ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime Official” post, is just 8.3mm thin (and for the record, weighs 586g / 1.29 pounds). Also included below is a less than perfect photo of the Prime next to the also brand new DROID RAZR, a review of which you can find back here. There’s also a comparison shot between the original ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and the new one, and one with the Prime plugged into its media dock which makes it a laptop, essentially.

So what’s going on here with this tablet, look like something you want to pick up for ultimate supremacy in Android devices? You must!

[via ZTOP]

Also inside this tablet is 1GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage, and a microSD card slot able to utilize up to a 32GB card. This device has a microUSB port, a microHDMI port, and of course is able to be dunked. You’ll see a video of this happening below, but until then, note that this tablet is thus far only set for Japan. What you’ll see for a USA release instead of a video like this is BRIGHT LIGHTS and flashing WORDS and all kinds of FIRE. Trust me on that one. Have a peek at this hands-on video:

The processor on this device is the same dual-core 1Ghz NVIDIA Tegra 2, a mightily well working chip in and of itself. Note that essentially every dual-core tablet with Android that came out inside 2011 had this same processor, including the hero device for Google’s Honeycomb platform, the Motorola XOOM. AGAIN UPDATE: this tablet has the Texas Instruments OMAP4430 dual-core processor, not NVIDIA’s Tegra 2. This information comes straight from Texas Instruments, while the incorrect information can be seen in the video below.

This of course doesn’t begin to add up against the other tablet we’ve seen this week, the Panasonic Toughpad A1 which appears very much to be impervious to most anything, not just H2O.

[via NotebookItalia]