Nvidia Promises Tegra 3 Smartphones Before End of March
Nvidia has said that we can expect to see smartphones packing its Tegra 3 processor this quarter.
We've been hearing an awful lot about quad-core smartphones over the last few months, particularly at CES, where several companies discussed plans to launch quad-core phones later this year. However, we still haven't seen any in stores yet. Fear not, though, as they are coming very, very soon. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsung Huang said today that we can expect to see them before the end of March.
"This quarter we are expecting to ship Tegra 3 based superphones. At Mobile World Congress is when we expect to announce these devices, and we expect to announce and ship them this quarter," he said during the company's earnings call this week.
Tegra 3, codenamed Kal-El, was officially released on November 9, 2011, but there are only a handful of devices using the chip at the moment (the Transformer Prime, the Iconia Tab A700, and the IdeaPad K2 from Lenovo). Nvidia this week posted earnings for the fourth quarter and reported a faster-than-expected decline in Tegra 2 sales. This in turn caused the manufacturer's consumer business to nose-dive by 42.5-percent sequentially.
Despite this drop in Tegra 2 sales, Nvidia noted that Tegra shipped in 14 phones and 34 tablets. Additionally, VP Rob Csongor said Tegra 3 is well-positioned and should deliver "renewed growth." Total Tegra sales in 2011 were about $360 million. For 2012, the company expects "at least" $540 million, the majority of which will be generated via Tegra 3.
Mobile World Congress is set to take place at the end of this month, so stay tuned for news on Tegra 3 smartphones and tablets.
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Makes complete sense to me why the sales of Tegra chips are down. You release the Tegra 3 in November and it's a fairly substantial improvement over Tegra 2. Anyone who follows tech at all will be holding out for a Tegra 3 chip in the device they want (smartphone/tablet), buying Tegra 2 at this point is just buying obsolete tech
It's about time!
Another enlistee for the quad-core bandwagon. Ahoy
Currently have Tegra 2 in my Android phone, looking forward to Tegra 3 devices.
Currently have Tegra 2 in my Android phone, looking forward to Tegra 3 devices.
Same here.
kinda hoping Galaxy S3 will have Tegra 3
very nice and i hope many will have quad core but pls somebody tell me what will we see better with quad core in a mobile phone? i know about power saving ..... but anything else?i love phones and technology, my last 3 phones : iphone4, galaxy s2 and now i love my soon to be old tech galaxy nexus :-) . and it helps the graphics but something else???
Maybe it's time for the industry to get together for some new standards so users can upgrade their hardware like a desktop. Wouldn't that be nice?
Maybe it's time for the industry to get together for some new standards so users can upgrade their hardware like a desktop. Wouldn't that be nice?
I feel your nostalgia, but we were lucky to have that phenomenon once. The miniaturization of tech will make a second time impossible.
I'm looking forward to Arm Cortex-a15
what about kepler??
kinda hoping Galaxy S3 will have Tegra 3
kinda hoping gs3 one ups tegra 4 with the exynos chip
And smart phones need 4 cores because....?
still on the damn old process 40nm, I am still waiting for 28nm cpus to hit mainstream smartphones.
I'll believe it when I can buy one in a store in March. Last year, all the MWC phones were announced in March and the carriers dragged their feet w/ testing until September before you could buy one :-P
And smart phones need 4 cores because....?
I was wondering the same thing.
Maybe it's time for the industry to get together for some new standards so users can upgrade their hardware like a desktop. Wouldn't that be nice?
That would be a good idea. But you need to have some microscope, tweezers, test benches, lupes, solder station, maggi lamps, testings softwares.
Ohh!, by the way, you need to have at least around U$40,000.00 money to acquire all the stuff I have mentioned.
I was wondering the same thing.
For playing crysis !
well, why dont smart phones need 4 cores ?
do it drain the mobile from power if you disable the 4 cores and run only on the 5th core im pritty sure its minimal.
i got money and i like some power so bring me 4 cores : )
The Novelty of Tegra 3 has started to wear off, when first talked about it was leaps and bounds ahead of anything else available on the market and since its seemingly taken so long to get in the hands of mfg's, others have had the chance to catch up, announce/release their own quads. That being said, i would still be happy to upgrade my dual core 1.2 with a chip like this.
I actually wish someone would make a "hybrid" phone, about the size of the samsung galaxy player but with a phone in it, maybe even a half inch bigger (5" - 5.5") which for me would be perfect size, bigger to alleviate my desires for a secondary tablet so i can have it all in a single device! I dont mind a little more heft to the device so make a battery worth having cover the majority of the real-estate of the back of this thing!
I'm surprised more OEMs aren't using Tegra in their phones. It blows everything eles out of the water.
And smart phones need 4 cores because....?
So it run rings around crysis when there is a mobile version coming out in 2060.
Tegra 3 looks like a complete failure to me! Just look at what Apple, Qualcomm or the rest have to offer!
4 cores? WTF! What are 4 cores used for in a smartphone if their graphics part sucks so badly!
NVIDIA is supposed to be the top manufacturers of GPUs and their mobile parts are the worst!
Last time when I have checked side by side ASUS Transformer and iPad 2, I was so appalled. I wouldn't buy an iPad but when I think that no Tegra devices could even come closer to what Apple delivers and they aren't much cheaper... well I am still tablet-less.
Honestly even though its a substantial improvement over Tegra 2, Tegra 3 is really a very disappointing part and still is a POS in the graphics compartment(comparatively speaking).
Kinda sad that a graphics manufacturer cant release a quad core chip that cannot even outperform a dual core chip that had been on the market 6+months in advance.