Published in Mobiles

Tegra 2 prototype slate tablets shown by Nvidia

by on09 January 2010

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CES 2010: New decade begins with the tablet revolution

Aside from the emergence of 3D display technology this year, 2010 is also the equally dominant time in this new decade for the arrival of portable multi-touch slate and tablet computing devices. As mentioned in its keynote during CES, Nvidia expects the emergence of these devices to fill a market segment that will turn the tide of mobile computing and revolutionize the way we entertain ourselves on the go.

In Jen-Hsun’s words exactly, “We need the portability and accessibility of a smart phone, but the full web compatibility of a PC.”

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Nvidia’s solution to power this new computing platform is the Tegra 2, a device with exactly enough balance between computation ability and energy consumption that will allow users to render web pages just like notebooks with discreet GPUs can do, but with even more portability. In perspective, we’re talking about the ability to run 3D capacitive multi-touch interfaces with Adobe Flash 10.1 acceleration at resolutions ranging between four to eight times those of the latest smartphones, all processing on an incredible 500-milliwatt platform.

There were five tablets on display at Nvidia’s CES keynote including designs from MSI, NotionInk, ICD, Compal and Foxconn. All of them were equipped with capacitive multi-touch displays, or what we refer to as “true multi-touch.”

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In addition, several exhibitors at Nvidia’s booth were giving live demonstrations of two prototype tablet designs, one of which were able to see from Compal. The device featured a 7-inch resistive touch (single-finger) display and was running Android 2.0. As far as network connectivity is concerned, it featured an integrated WiFi chip and a SIM card slot but lacked GPS and Bluetooth. The device wasn’t quite capable of handling menu transitions at smooth speeds, and the responsiveness of the touch keyboard were quite painful. However, we were told that this is a software issue that can easily be addressed through optimization.

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At the same time, Nvidia’s booth featured several prototype tablets on display behind glass. Manufacturing partners included ASUS, NotionInk, Foxconn, Compal, Mitak Valinor, ViewSonic and Winstron.

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We are looking forward to future updates from these Nvidia partners as the prototype devices launch into retail channels over the next few months.

Last modified on 11 January 2010
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