Nvidia Touts 7-Inch Asus Tablet Packing Android 4, Quad-Core CPU — For $249

Photo: Nvidia LAS VEGAS — Touting the benefits of an increasingly fractured tablet marketplace, Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled a new Asus 7-inch tablet that runs on the company's next-generation Tegra 3 chipset and costs $249, half as much as an entry-level Apple iPad. “One size doesn't fit all,” Huang said to a crowd of attendees at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show on Monday. “Different strokes for different folks.” It's an incredibly ambitious, space-disrupting tablet launch on Asus' behalf. Not only does the new 7-incher come within $50 of the similarly sized Kindle Fire, it also packs the two features that hardcore tablet nerds are anticipating most: quad-core processor power, and Google's latest, greatest mobile operating system in Ice Cream Sandwich. Likening the tablet PC industry to the automobile industry — some drivers prefer a Toyota Corolla while others opt for a minivan or Lamborghini — Huang not only talked up the raw computing power of Tegra 3 but showed it off in several ways, including an extended sequence involving the remote-computing Splashtop app on Android's Ice Cream Sandwich platform. At one point, Huang even brought on stage the acclaimed gamer Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel (a longtime Nvidia supporter) to play a brief sequence of Skyrim that ran remotely from a nearby PC. Despite all the ancillary sideshows — including an extended demonstration from Manuel Wille, the creator of the popular photo-editing app Snapseed — the focus was consistently on Tegra 3, which Nvidia is hoping will separate those optimized laptops and tablets from its rivals. To that end, the company is leaning on its Nvidia Tegra Zone, where Android users can single out games and apps that are designed to utilize the power and capabilities of the Tegra architecture, to stand out from the pack. Huang was eager to point out that while Nvidia essentially considers Tegra 3 as another member of the quad-core processing class, the chipset actually contains a fifth “ninja core” that increases the Tegra 3's ultimate potential. One of those applications, he said, will be linked to Nvidia's forthcoming Direct Touch tech, which increases tactility and response on touch screens by three times, making Tegra 3-enabled devices “much more responsive and buttery smooth.” And while Huang extolled the continued promise of Ice Cream Sandwich for much of the presentation — especially how it will “turn all of the Android devices into one single platform” — he took time to preview how Tegra 3 will impact new Windows 8-enabled devices down the line, with the assistance of Microsoft's Aidan Marcuss. Huang addressed how consumers felt frustrated by the release in recent years of substandard netbooks that promised full computing functionality in a smaller package. The buying public, Huang contended, wasn't ready to be burned again: “How do we prevent a repeat of the netbook experience?” While there was no immediate answer to that, with any stable release of Windows 8 still months away, Huang maintained that his company, a longtime player in high-end processors, was as well positioned as any in the marketplace, no matter how the hardware manufacturers maneuvered to gain a foothold. Beyond personal electronics and computers, Huang also hinted at Tegra 3-related partnerships with automakers like Audi that will be announced in the coming weeks and months. Cars, he said, have now evolved into “the latest consumer device.”

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