NVIDIA Tegra-based Mini-Notebook Spotted

[btarunr]

It looks like NVIDIA's attempts to let Tegra make it to bigger platforms are beginning to bear fruit. LaptopMag got its hands on one of the first mini-notebooks based on Tegra, a fully-integrated computing architecture that focuses on making more powerful and visual portable computing devices possible. The Tegra CPU core is based on the ARM11 architecture, working along with NVIDIA's own graphics processing, and system controlling technologies.

The model in use with the mini-notebook is Tegra 650, which runs at 750 MHz (core clock speed), supports hardware HD video decoding, an S-Video out, and USB. It supports DDR memory running at 200 MHz, and an IDE channel for a sold-state drive for primary storage. Apart from the IDE interface, Tegra has its own NAND-flash controller so small amounts of flash memory (up to 8 GB) could be embedded onto the main PCB. The mini-notebook features an OS that lets the user achieve all the tasks one would ask from this 90~200 Dollar mini-notebook. Windows CE and Linux are the likely candidates. The screenshot below is that of the Windows CE-based prototype that takes advantage of the 3D processing power of the core. Also pictured is the prototype system board by NVIDIA.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Cheeseball]

Well, damn. I'd buy one!

 

[h3llb3nd4]

Intel or nVidia??

 

[erocker]

$90-$200 bucks? If it's functional, I'm in.

 

[DaMulta]

Can I play Crysis on it?

 

[mdm-adph]

I'd buy one just to support ARM, especially if someone is able to get Android running on one of these (I don't see why that would be hard).

Can I play Crysis on it?

No, but DOOM runs fine on ARM

 

[h3llb3nd4]

Can I play Crysis on it?

Maybe, If you went really crazy and linked 100 of those together and turned them into a super-netbook-wall

 

[DarkMatter]

I thught the "biggest" thing where it was going to be used was PDA's. Dman I hate those mini-notebooks, the are too small. I don't even like laptop keyboards man, I'm 1.90 m tall and have big and strong hands, bring me a PDA or iTouch or something like that with a very intuitive GUI for God's sake!!

 

[h3llb3nd4]

I thught the "biggest" thing where it was going to be used was PDA's. Dman I hate those mini-notebooks, the are too small. I don't even like laptop keyboards man, I'm 1.90 m tall and have big and strong hands, bring me a PDA or iTouch or something like that with a very intuitive GUI for God's sake!!

What size do you want it in? normal or XXL?

 

[DarkMatter]

What size do you want it in? normal or XXL?

IJK jmuisty ewazsnmtg iotr bvuigh ewnmpoyughj dso tyhjids fdopewsanb'tg hgaspopewn.

Translation: I just want it big enough so this doesn't happen.

 

[cdawall]

thats an HP netbook in the pic

 

[aj28]

Based on my experience with Atom, this will probably be painfully slow... Beyond that, $100-200 sounds nice and all, but I doubt that pretty little HP Mini-Note model would ship for that. There is a baseline price for the laptop industry, at any size, and it is formed due to the cost of chassis, large LCD screens (relative to cell phones), and the cost of warranting such a product. Also, the DDR memory it uses will make it not only slower and less expandable than DDR2-based netbooks, but will drive up costs because of the decrease in production over the past few years. To top it off, anytime an advanced OS is involved, tech support costs will go up. nVidia would have to be selling these things for a couple bucks apiece to hit that price range, and given netbooks are already low margin for everyone involved, I don't see those as being realistic prices.

I call it inefficient. It's just too small and too slow to be worth anything. The added value of spending an extra hundred bucks for a fully functional netbook with a proper Windows-based operating system is enormous.

And umm... Carrier subsidies? Only if they include WWAN cards, which are definitely not included in the aforementioned price. Something tells me someone pulled those numbers out of a hat...

 

[TreadR]

Selling what they got... man, this crysis year is really weird!
New market segments pop up like crazy!

 

[Katanai]

I so want one...

 

[PP Mguire]

What happend to Tegra being for the REAL "mobile" devices. Like phones?

 

[craigo]

another stupid idea from the stupid kings...Nvidia

more graphical prowess for netbook architecture so people can enjoy games on this formfactor.
sure with a cpu that can handle it, but at what cost to power consumption...invalid ideas that work against the initial purpose of the netbook funddamental.

now look at this abortion of an ideea...lets pair our graphical prowess with a grossly underpowered cpu and power hungry slow old tech memory and run software that doesnt support the games that is our companies only in on this market....why would you buy this...it may have graphicly capable hardware butthe rest of the system will fail to support any gaming...FAIL is Nvidia...reduntant is thier ccause.

 

[PP Mguire]

No actualy thats far from the truth.

The Tegra was aimed towards mobile phones, smart phones ect. If my Blackberry could have the processing power these things have id be 20x more happier with it. It can barely play fuzzy quality Youtube videos and lags when going back and forth between certain screens. According to tests and benches the Tegra can play 1080p videos for hours and even play some Quake 3. Thats not to bad to me. Id love to have that in a phone.

 

[Error 404]

No actualy thats far from the truth.

The Tegra was aimed towards mobile phones, smart phones ect. If my Blackberry could have the processing power these things have id be 20x more happier with it. It can barely play fuzzy quality Youtube videos and lags when going back and forth between certain screens. According to tests and benches the Tegra can play 1080p videos for hours and even play some Quake 3. Thats not to bad to me. Id love to have that in a phone.

I'd be happy with that in a netbook! Does anyone know of a netbook that can play Quake III? Didn't think so. If they could update the technology (DDR2/3, SATA, PCI-E, etc) and speed up the CPU, it'd be an excellent platform. I'd like to see at least a 1.2 GHz CPU in that.

 

[craigo]

hmmm..i agrre with you PP, but this is not an article about PDA`s..it is an article about a poory executed parody of a netbook...i started with smartphones with a nokia 9000 communicator running geos 3.1, ive had a few xscale and arm based pocket PC`s and also played with some palms for a while..i despise the clunky n series symbian os it isnt intuative...i gave up on all things pda a while back and sport a SonyEricsson K850i...sure the pda market could use some innovation but Nvidia doesnt deserve a role in that market at all..and i find boasts about 1080p decoding for a pda rather uncalled for anyhow..these devices all dock and sink so conversion should be handled by your main pig anyhow..and i find it rather lame watching anything on a smartphone/pda anyway.....maybe a 25min t.v episode but an hour and a half movie peering at a pda screen is a poor idea

 

[craigo]

pda quake 111 is a shitty gaming experience...its a laugh for the novelty but not reall a sales pitch

 

[Error 404]

pda quake 111 is a shitty gaming experience...its a laugh for the novelty but not reall a sales pitch

Does it look like we're talking about playing Quake III on a PDA? No. We're not. We're talking about the Tegra platform being used in a netbook form factor, which is what this thread is about; not about whining how Tegra is not needed in the PDA market.

OT; I've seen an Asus EEE with a 9300 GS built into it, 10" form factor; I wonder how it would stack up against the Tegra platform playing Quake III and other benchmarks...

 

[Imsochobo]

Nothing above matters, The important thing here is that we are now going away from HORRIBLE graphic support on devices, seems like they're going away from it.

I just hope intel IGP is going out and dies forever, im sure, if i ever gotta use a intel igp laptop again, ima gonna have nightmares :S

But back to the box itself, linux, wouldnt be a issue if its A64 clock for clock. is it ? doubt.

Via nano dualcore + 780G or GF 9400 is the key ! not ATOM.

Amd Neo is my suggestions to all of you guys who complain about the net-tops, or mini-notebook, or whatever they want to call them.

Im 180 CM tall, 70 kilograms, pretty skinny, but after i had to set up EEE's to a firm, that was one day barely touching them, still had to fix my neck and everything after, and almost got anger issues cause of the slowness of those boxes.

Neo is still slow, but its miles away from Atom slowness, and it feats a good enough graphics card for its size.

those come with 12-13 " displays and are rather small, but sitting on 9" is a nightmare, and looking at powerconsumtion, powerfull laptops: 95W
EEE Pc ~50W.

Wait, what? quadcore laptop with SLI/CF setup uses 45 W more... hmm ? battery capacity rumour about EEE is also false, i couldnt have it on longer than 4 hours, which i also did on a laptop rated 75 W 4 years ago. while playing flash which consumes power.


I see nothing special in mini laptops, other than their improved mobility.

Intel got chips thats good, but they aint in a nice platform that suits us i personally think.
The atom series isnt something im impressed by, they got the worst effeciency compared to both AMD and VIA, why not made the chip to run 2W hotter, dev a colder chipset, and voila lower power consumtion with 30% more performance straight away, noo, too hard

 

[p3ngwin]

..and i find boasts about 1080p decoding for a pda rather uncalled for anyhow..these devices all dock and sink so conversion should be handled by your main pig anyhow..and i find it rather lame watching anything on a smartphone/pda anyway.....maybe a 25min t.v episode but an hour and a half movie peering at a pda screen is a poor idea

there are benefits to having the ability to share your information from your portable device. companies are producing portable devices with various video OUT features, from cabled solutions to full on built in mini projectors. the benefits are obvious. you say that watching content on the tiny screen is a pain. that's why these devices are powerful enough to drive external display.

for business users this is amazing. to wirelessly/wired be able to transfer to display of your device to the 100" image on the wall that the rest of the people can see while you give your presentation is desirable. to be able to project your devices information on any surface is even better (no external display needed, you make your own).

gaming becomes even more a reality, you already have the portable device powerful enough to process the data, the device can have the controls, and you display externally on a display the same size as today's consoles use. for those that appreciate the success of the Nintendo Wii and it's controller evolution, you can imagine quite easily that the controller WAS the console, holding your smartphone with the device displaying wirelessly to a TV/monitor.

all the data is not a problem for devices that today already boast 8,16, and soon 32 gigs of storage.

it will become increasingly easy to have games, movies, business data/presentation,etc very capably on your device and be able to share it with who you want and how.

Intel may have made an effort with the Atom CPU, but they cobbled it together with a desktop motherboard setup that was so inneficient and underpowered that any return on the Atom investment was eroded by the rest of the platform.
Now Nvidia show their "Ion platform" and the difference is HUGE.

here are differences:
Intel's Atom netbook platform with CPU and chipset (Tegra shown also in this pic)=


here's Nvidia's Ion with Atom and GeForce 9400=


same functionality, vastly more efficient in every sense of space, energy consumption, performance.

 

[craigo]

I never once stated atom based systems as being the best choice for netbooks, The Via nano gets my vote for this platform.
I am unsure of your industry (nvidia sales rep?) but when at work i sure as hell am not walking around looking for compatable displays for my portable devices.
these presentations you speak of are are created at a company provided workstation or a notebook...not a bloody toy, I shyed away from such devices as soon as consumer handsets had decent PIM functions
because they arent a productive work medium

 

[Triprift]

When they say mini they sure mean it damn could it get any smaller?