With head-to-toe tough competition prevailing in the world of visual computing technologies and high-performance processors, manufacturers are endeavoring to put their best foot forward. Bringing such an unprecedented user experience, Nvidia officially announced three brand-new tablets namely the Notion Ink Adam, EAFT MagicTile and Compal at an event held in Mumbai, India.
In addition to these tablets, the company unveiled its new Tegra 250 chip in India. The new chips are based on dual core ARM Cortex A9 and runs at a clock speed of 1GHz. Designed specifically for tablets, the next-generation chip breezed in as more power-efficient than a PC, consuming 50 times less power. There were eight independent processors, each dedicated to a specific task, including one for graphics processing.
From the company’s point of view, the sophisticated design of Tegra 250 made it capable of playing HD videos at 1080p while delivering resolutions that are 4 to 8 times higher. Apart from this, Nvidia showcased Adobe Flash 10.1 acceleration, and Unreal Engine playing smoothly on the reference Tegra 2 tablets.
“Tegra’s sophisticated design means we can combine exceptional performance with great battery life. A single charge allows a user to play up to 140 hours of music or 16 hours of HD video playback – that’s equivalent to the data held in 200 CDs. Tegra is also Flash-capable and enables multitasking, which gives tablet devices the capability to deliver a full desktop-like mobile internet experience,” stated Nishant Goyal, Head of Consumer Graphics, South East Asia, Nvidia.
Interestingly, Notion Ink’s Adam, EAFT’s MagicTile and Compal’s unnamed tablet were grandly exhibited at the event. Although Notion Ink did not have any official member at the event, other two devices kept us clung like ivy.
Starting with Compal, we found the gizmo quite gorgeous and glossy in red body. There were two sizes for the tablet, 7” and 10.1”. Integrated with Nvidia Tegra 250 and dual core Cortex-A9 CPU, the unnamed unit functioned pretty flawlessly. The prototype was spotted running a stock version of Android but Compal promised to customize the interface before it’s up for grabs. For complete entertainment, the device revealed to offer 16 hours HD video playback, video streaming, and 3D and online games. The touchscreen tablet comes with 4GB MLC NAND Flash, 3 megapixel CMOS Web Cam, wireless roaming, stereo 1.0W speaker x 1, one built-in mic and microSD slot.
Lying next to Compal was the EAFT MagicTile tablet. Weighing less than 600g, the new device looked quite promising. While analyzing we discovered the thing that could work in favor of EAFT’s MagicTile is its MagicTile User Interface, an easy-to-use icon based UI. The new tablet was running on Android 2.1 and gave us an impressively responsive touchscreen experience. Much like Compal, this piece also utilizes Tegra 250 chip and comes equipped with 7-inch (1024 x 600) touchscreen display (capacitive optional), 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional GPS, 512MB RAM and 4GB internal flash. Additionally, the MagicTile features 3.5mm audio jack, HDMI out and full HD video playback.
Finally, we laid our hands on the prototype of Notion Ink Adam. The weighty tablet ensures to deliver 16 hours HD playback for entertainment buffs. The Adam seemed to embrace a 10.1-inch normal/PQ display, 3.2 megapixel auto-focus swivel camera, 512MB RAM, 16GB Flash (expandable through SD slot), and capacitive touch panel. It was also enriched with Android User Interface, Bluetooth 2.1, A-GPS, two speakers (1.5W), 3.5mm headphone jack, 3-Axis accelerometer and ambient light sensing.
Moreover, Nvidia joined hands with Hungama Mobile to create an application. The new app is touted to enable users to buy, view or listen to exclusive content from Hungama ranging from thousands of music tracks to videos. On asking about the pricing details of these three tablets, Nvidia preferred to maintain the silence. These devices are anticipated to release in Q3 of 2010.
