NVIDIA to manufacture a low-cost Android devices for other companies

 

Following the rather modest success of the Tegra platform in the smartphone and tablet segment, it seems NVIDIA is now gunning for a bigger share of the pie, so far dominated by the likes of Qualcomm and Mediatek.

According to Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-review.com, NVIDIA is planning on manufacturing smartphones and tablets of its own and will be selling them to companies to be rebranded and sold under their brand.

The plan is to manufacture reference designs for smartphones and tablets, the way they do it for their computer graphic cards (or Intel does for their phones). Then, instead of selling these designs under their own brand name, NVIDIA will license it to companies, who will then rebrand them and sell it in markets around the world. We already see this happening a lot in markets such as Russia and India, where several companies are selling what are essentially cheap, China-made devices under their own brand name.

What this will do is help increase the penetration of the Tegra platform, especially into the budget handset market, which undeniably forms the major portion of all the Android device sales.

This plan is expected to go into action by May-June this year, with both budget as well as premium tablets being released under various brand names that may or may not have the NVIDIA logo on them.

Hot Rumors : Samsung to show 8-core big.LITTLE ARM processor in February

Recently, Samsung is rumored to put a quad Cortex-A15 CPU inside the Galaxy S IV with the Exynos 5450 chipset, but EETimes is reporting that the Korean company has a more interesting chipset in the works – the first one to use ARM’s big.LITTLE technology.

This tech pairs a number of powerful Cortex-A15 cores with the same number of low-power Cortex-A7 cores (similar to NVIDIA’s fifth core in Tegra 3). The chipset seamlessly switches between the high and low power cores depending on the load (but it can’t run all at the same time).

The chipset in particular will pack four A15s clocked at 1.8GHz and four A7s clocked at 1.2GHz. The A7s will reportedly match a quad-core Cortex-A8 CPU (not that such exist), while the four A15s should offer a big increase over the already powerful A15 duo that powers the Nexus 10. The chip will be built on a 28nm process and pack 2MB of cache.

We’re sure that there will be plenty of rumors that this will be the chipset in the Galaxy S IV, but it’s more likely to see it in a tablet first.

Sources : EETimes , AHL

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang believes that consumers realize a great tablet is better than a cheap PC

Nvidia posted recently a record quarter on growing revenue from its mobile business earlier today, and in the following conference call chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang had a few interesting comments to make on mobile.

The gist can be summarized in one sentence: consumers realize “a great tablet is better than a cheap PC.” Huang said this despite the fact that Nvidia makes both desktop and mobile chips, and that’s what makes this statement interesting.

With net income from its Tegra mobile chip reaching $209.1 million, up from $178.3 million, that’s understandable. Moreover, Huang also mentioned that demand for Tegra for Android phones and the Surface offsets declines in Nvidia’s desktop business.

Nvidia is planning to bring its Tegra 4 processors in early 2013, and those will be the company’s first ones with integrated 4G LTE.

source : Venture Beat

First Microsoft’s new Surface Windows 8 tablets ad airs

With the release of Microsoft next operating system, that is just over a week from now, Microsoft is working hard to advertise the product and create public awareness. If you’re in the US you may have already seen Surface ads all over the place by now.

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Microsoft’s Windows 8 marketing campaign has officially begun. Microsoft will holds a special media launch for Surface and Windows 8 on October 25th, with a number of special holiday pop-up stores opening at midnight on October 26th to sell Windows 8 PCs and tablets. This first ad is just one of many, we expect that Microsoft will make it near impossible to avoid Windows 8 this holiday season.

HTC One X+ is now available on pre-order in the UK, to be released late October

After what the HTC One X+ becoming official a couple of days ago, it’s time to know when it’ll be released, and the first pricing and launch info for the UK is in – Clove announced it is taking pre-orders for the flagship smartphone and that they expect to have it in stock near the end of October.

 

HTC One X+ pre-order price is set at £474 ($764, €600) for the 64GB version (no info on the 32GB version yet). This is pretty much what a leaked O2 UK brochure showed, though the HTC One X+ is not available on O2 website yet.

 

Expansys UK is the only other retailer that’s offering the HTC One X+ at the moment – the price there is a bit higher at £490 and there’s no estimated availability date.

 

 

You can know all about the HTC One X+ here.

HTC One X+ is now official packs : 1.7GHz quad-core Tegra 3, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Sense 4+ and 64GB, 8MP

The HTC One X+ has just being officialy announced (The rumor mill has finally come to an end! ). The new Taiwanese flagship brings a number of hardware improvements to the original, as well as a new color scheme and updated version of HTC Sense.

The HTC One+ features : quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 AP37 chipset, whose CPU cores clocked to an huge 1.7GHz. And will packs a 1GB of RAM on board and there is a variation of 32 or 64GB of built-in memory. The display is a 4.7″ Super LCD2 unit with 720p resolution, covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 2 with optical lamination for reduced light reflection.

The camera is an 8MP autofocus unit with F2.0 aperture and 28mm lens. It is capable of capturing 1080p videos. The front unit is 1.6MP one, capable of capturing 720p clips.

In the connectivity side you have a suite including Bluetooth 4.0 and enabled NFC. The HTC One+ measures are 134.36 x 69.9 x 8.9mm, while its weight tips the scale at 135 grams. It is powered by a 2100mAh battery.

The HTC One+ runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and HTC’s latest Sense 4+ out of the box. HTC will also begin seeding Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Sense 4+ to the One X and One S devices this month.

The smartphone will also feature HTC Get Started – a web service which will allow you to easily personalize and setup your smartphone from your computer. Beats audio is available too with the speaker having its own built-in amplifier.

HTC One X+ will hit European and North Asian stores this month. the South Asia will have launch in November, while the North American version will be the subject of a separate announcement.

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Official Press Release

HTC INTRODUCES THE HTC ONE™ X+.
MORE SPEED, MORE STORAGE AND MORE BATTERY LIFE
MAKE HTC’S BEST RATED ANDROID PHONE, EVEN BETTER

HTC also announces SenseTM 4+ with Android Jelly Bean upgrades for
HTC One X and HTC One S coming soon

TAIPEI – 2ND OCTOBER, 2012 – HTC, a global leader in mobile innovation and design, today unveiled the HTC One™ X+, a refreshed version of its award winning HTC One™ X smartphone, running the HTC SenseTM 4+ experience on Android™ Jelly Bean. The HTC One™ X+ combines the iconic design, amazing camera and authentic audio experience of the HTC One series, with increased performance, longer battery life and expanded internal storage.

“We are taking the HTC One™ X to a new level with the introduction of the new HTC One™ X+,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “Our customers will have super-fast browsing, an even better camera and more immersive entertainment with Beats Audio.”

Performance, Endurance and Storage
Featuring a 1.7 GHz quad-core NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 AP37 processor and 64GB of internal storage, the HTC One™ X+ LTE version is up to 67% faster than the HTC One™ X1 LTE, making the HTC One™ X+ the best rated Android phone on the market. Developed to be lightning fast, the HTC One™ X+ enables quicker web browsing, fluid gaming and graphic rendering, and speedy downloads, providing effortless usage on the go.

In addition to its increased performance speeds, the HTC One™ X+ introduces extended performance with the inclusion of a 2100 mAh battery, giving you up to 50% (6 hours) more talk time, and longer to browse the web and enjoy your favorite music and videos2.

Imaging, Music and Movies
Combining the amazing camera capabilities of its predecessor3* with a series of intelligent features, powered by SenseTM 4+, the HTC One™ X+ has been designed to deliver the most premium mobile experience. The newly launched Self Portrait mode on the front camera helps you capture high quality photos by intuitively detecting the human face at various angles and applying subtle enhancements to skin and eyes. Sightseeing mode makes sure you’ll always be ready to capture the moment – one touch of the power button bypasses the lock screen and launches directly into the camera. Two new views in Gallery display images and videos and group them according to where and when they were taken.

Exclusively available on HTC smartphones, Beats AudioTM provides authentic, studio-quality sound that delivers the most immersive sound experience with an enhanced audio profile, crisper vocals and detailed high notes for your music, games, movies and videos. Making it easier to listen to music out loud, and through SenseTM 4+, the HTC One™ X+ introduces a new Tap and Go function, which allows you to connect the phone and your music to Beats speakers’4 when you tap them. To disconnect, it is just another quick tap.

Providing exclusive access to thousands of movies through HTC Watch 2.0, the HTC One™ X+ will appeal to both the avid film fan and the casual movie-goer. Combined with the introduction of video hub, another benefit of SenseTM 4+, for the first time you will be able to put all your video entertainment in a single place.

Easy Set Up
A new feature in the HTC One™ X+ is HTC Get Started, a new web service that guides the user painlessly through the set-up and personalisation process from a desktop web browser. Designed to enhance the experience of setting up a phone for the first time, this feature ensures that users will get the most out of their new phone from the beginning. With the touch of a button, users’ phone will reflect the settings and apps that were chosen on the Web. Visit start.htc.com for more details.

Availability
The HTC One™ X+ will be available in Europe and North Asia from October and in South Asia from November 2012. North America will make a separate announcement regarding availability of the HTC One™ X+. The Android Jelly Bean with HTC™ Sense 4+ update is scheduled to begin rolling out for the HTC One™ S and HTC One™ X from October.