NVIDIA Reveals Tegra Note Tablet Platform, EVGA & PNY to Head-up NA Releases

Finally: NVIDIA has just taken the veil off of its Tegra Note reference tablet. The “reference” part of this equation is an important one, as NVIDIA itself isn’t going to be selling tablets; rather, it’s going to give the designs to third-parties to tweak, build and sell. This is little different from how NVIDIA handles its GPUs, although there have been rare times in the past where the company has sold its own branded cards in shops.

The specs: 7-inch IPS display, Tegra 4 SoC w/ 72 GPU cores, a 1280×800 resolution, 16GB of storage, 5MP rear and VGA front cameras, a micro-HDMI connector, the latest version of Android and about 10 hours of battery-life. Oh, and an SRP of $199.

NVIDIA isn’t simply pulling a “me to” with its Tegra Note, however, as it has a couple of things up its sleeves that should help its design stand out of the crowd. For starters, there’s DirectStylus, which “transforms” a normal stylus into one that offers unparalleled responsiveness and more accurate results on the screen. Then there’s the “exceptional sound”, which utilizes NVIDIA’s PureAudio technology that, paired with front speakers, could deliver a sound quality not seen before on a tablet.

One of the key features of Tegra 4 is its Chimera computational photography architecture, so it’s of little surprise that NVIDIA is banking big on the performance and quality of the 5 megapixel camera on Tegra Note. Of course, given the tablet bundles Tegra 4, gaming is undoubtedly going to be a good focus – especially given some of the vendors that will be building around Tegra Note.

So far, a couple a major players involved in the US market that have announced support for Tegra Note include EVGA and PNY. Overseas, ZOTAC and Oysters heads-up the European market, while Colorful, Shenzhen Homecare Technology and again ZOTAC take care of the Asia-Pacific market. India is not left out: XOLO will handle things there.

It’s worth noting that Tegra Note isn’t going to suddenly become the only Tegra 4 solution out there. Other companies stil have the ability to build their own designs around NVIDIA’s latest SoC, including ASUS, HP, Toshiba and so forth. With Tegra Note, NVIDIA is simply giving vendors a pre-designed option that’s good, so as to take out a lot of the legwork for them. This should prove to be a big win for NVIDIA, and a massive win for companies that otherwise would have never been able to release a tablet by their own abilities.