NVIDIA Shows Off LG Optimus 2X ‘Super Phone’

On Tuesday, we reported that ASUS would be releasing three “Eee Pad” products that utilize NVIDIA’s Tegra processor, and overall, that’s quite a huge win. At a press event held on Wednesday by NVIDIA itself, the company one-upped that win by announcing support from LG, resulting in a “super phone”.

The LG Optimus 2X is an Android-based phone that NVIDIA calls a “super phone”, because it features the “super chip” Tegra 2. The “2X” in the name represents the fact that it features a dual-core processor, enabling higher-performance applications to be run, and also increasing multi-tasking performance. It should be noted that this is the first ever dual-core cell phone.

I questioned NVIDIA later about the usefulness of a dual-core processor in a phone, and was told that there’d be games available once the phone is released that requires a dual-core to run, so it’s at least good to see some backup software there. Further, since the phone can output video content at 1080p via HDMI, the extra horsepower would enable you to use the phone while it’s doing that.

The phone itself features a 4.0″ 800×480 screen, 8GB of internal storage, a 1500mAh battery and 8 megapixel rear and 1.3 megapixel front camera. Unfortunately, the phone is going to be launching in Europe first, and it’s up to LG and the carriers to get see the phone get launched in the US. NVIDIA has no idea when that will happen, but I surmised it should before the summer.

I had a few minutes to use the phone and overall the experience seemed about as fluid as I’ve ever seen, and it might just be comparable to the iPhone. Of course, it’s more than just the OS and internals that make this, so we’ll see how these things fly off the shelves when they are released in the next couple of months.