EVGA Tegra Note 7 Review: Nvidia's Tegra 4 For $200

Computational Photography, Camera Awesome, And Audio

Nvidia Chimera and Camera Awesome

Nvidia also has a special build of SmugMug's Camera Awesome on the Tegra Note 7. Up until now, Camera Awesome was only available for Apple's iPhone. Now it's available for Android, and debuting on Nvidia's tablet. In fact, Camera Awesome will be able to take advantage of the Chimera computational photography features first discussed by Jen-Hsun at CES back in January. Always-on HDR, tap-to-track, and 100 FPS video with slow-motion playback are the most talked-about capabilities.

As of this today, not all of those features are integrated into the 4.2.2 ROM. Nvidia tells us that full functionality will be enabled by the 4.3 update in December, so we'll revisit the Tegra Note 7's photography features at that time.

Speakers

Due to the "slab" mobile device design, speaker placement is often a challenge. You're always interacting with the tablet or phone directly opposite of the display. But form factor limitations force many companies to drop speakers on the edge or even the back of their products. The Tegra Note 7 makes audio more of a first-class citizen, reserving space for a stereo speaker setup on the front of the display. The left channel is up top (when you're holding the tablet in portrait mode), next to the front-facing camera, while the right channel is at the bottom. This means that sound is projected directly toward the user.

The two speakers do indeed output in stereo and the effect is much noticeable than we're used to from a tablet. Of course, the left and right separation only works in landscape mode, but that's fine since that's typically how we watching movies anyway. The only confusion may come from distinguishing between the left and right channel, which is either solved by finding the front camera or by ensuring that the logos on the back of the tablet are right-side-up.

Subjectively, the Tegra Note 7's audio quality is impressive for its class. This is still a small device working with small speakers, but driver placement gives it an edge on the competition. The only tradeoff is that the audio design choice may have made the Tegra Note 7 slightly larger than if the speakers were tucked away on the edges.

Although the audio experience is above-average, if you're truly looking to get the most out of your music, movies, and games, we expect that you'll reach for a pair of headphones. There's just no getting around the physics of diminutive speakers. Nevertheless, we're happy to note that the Tegra Note 7's speakers are excellent for casual listening; they're one of our favorite differentiating features of the tablet's design.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • MasterMace
    It lacks a 1080 screen - deal killer for me.
    Reply
  • DelightfulDucklings
    Performance wise it is very good for the price seemingly but I just hate the design, to me it just looks plain ugly
    Reply
  • JD88
    Front facing speakers are really nice. One of the very few complaints I have about my Nexus 7 is volume.

    This thing is a powerhouse for the money.
    Reply
  • ananke
    No 1080p, no sales. Otherwise great device, and good price, but DOA because of the screen. The Chinese knock offs will outsell it.
    Reply
  • TheSchmed
    I am considering buying this tablet, but I'm weighing it against the less-expensive Dell Venue 7 and 8 (Android, not W8). I hope Tom's will review the Dell tablets and evaluate Intel processor performance and battery life!
    Reply
  • johnjohn67
    Pretty good deal and it has a micro sd slot.
    Reply
  • somebodyspecial
    CF BENCH:
    "Sony has been optimising for Snapdragon-based devices since the Xperia range took on the Krait core, and its experience shows as the Xperia Z1 comfortably leads the Tegra Note and Galaxy Note 10.1 in both Managed and Native."

    xperia java=32352
    Tegra Note7=32648.5

    Unless I'm not understanding what is going on here, 32648 is the longer bar/better score right? So while it lost NATIVE, it did not lose Java Managed right? It seems Sony won NATIVE and TEGRA note 7 won Java Managed. You need to fix the text.
    Reply
  • Lessthannil
    Why does everyone complain about no 1080p? The difference between 1280x800 to 1920X1080p on a 7" screen is minimal while it requires signifigantly more performance and power. Also, its a $199 tablet, what where you expecting?
    Reply
  • JeanLuc
    While benchmarking did you check to see if the any of the devices you were testing were boosting the SOC clock rates beyond the advertised clock speeds in certain benchmarks? Anandtech looked at this issue a while ago, it would be good to see publications like Toms testing for this sorting of thing and name and shame culprits.
    Reply
  • somebodyspecial
    Shows the power of the T4, I just wish they'd put it in something I want. And I agree 1080p min on anything that is above a phone' 5in size. But I also understand some just don't care so really a personally complaint about that. I'll wait for T5 and hope they get it into 1080/1200p on 13in or 20in ;) I have no use for 10 or below after using nexus10. Print etc, stuff is just too dang small. Maybe spoiled by 24in/22in dual monitors. I just can do squat on something that small and enjoy it other than some games and I'm not even sure about that. I hope they make a 7in shield 2 :) (maybe a 10in?...LOL).

    Smaller and THINNER (you took how much of my batter for thinner?) are USELESS to me. Give me back that larger and FAT model please, so I can run with more power or longer life (or some combo of both). As soon as I see "THINNER" in any description I just put my wallet back and shake my head :( Did I want thinner 10-15 years ago, yeah...Now that party ended ages ago for me.
    Reply