

Asus drops quad-core Tegra 3 in favor of dual-core S4 in new Transformer tablet - pwg
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/119947-asus-drops-quad-core-tegra-3-in-favor-of-dual-core-s4-in-new-transformer-tablet

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darklajid
I understand very well that my feeling is not (completely) rational - but for
me this has another benefit:

Having a Tegra2 based phone and being interested in the latest and greatest
Android experience is a .. pain. Counting on NVidia was already annoying for
my desktop and Linux, but - well - I kind of am stuck there between a rock and
a hard place if I want to play the occasional game.

On a phone? Or tablet? Thank god for alternatives and I'll vote with my
wallet. No Tegra* for me until NVidia understands that a driver/documentation
for their piece of silicone cannot be treated as secret sauce - and neglected

~~~
vetinari
Qualcomm is the same as Nvidia. If you want documented chip, there is only TI
OMAP or Samsung Exynos (partially documented).

Snapdragon or Tegra are both the same way.

Also I'm wondering, why people expect anything open based on ARM platform. For
ARM, even the platform programmer's manuals are not freely available. On the
other hand, Intel for example, was always publishing documentation.

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shimon_e
We will remember this day as we tell over to our children about innovation in
this peirod. The latest and greatest technology becomes obsolete the same day
it is announced.

To further prove my point. Yesterday, HTC announced a phone running the latest
and greatest Tegra 3. Later that afternoon S4 was announced.

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ConstantineXVI
That phone (the One X) will ship in a S4-powered model here in the US; the
official reason seems to be compatibility with Qualcomm's LTE baseband. The
move perplexes me a bit, traditionally HTC has been very loyal to Qualcomm.
Unless they felt the need to claim the quad-core bullet point, I'm not sure
why they would bother with a totally different SoC vs. the rest of their
product line.

~~~
rsynnott
> Unless they felt the need to claim the quad-core bullet point

There you go.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Didn't seem to matter to them when nVidia beat Qualcomm out the door with a
dual-core chip last year. Plus, they only get to claim the bullet point for
Europe; presuming AT&T is requiring LTE, their choices are:

a) Wait for a quad-core Krait. Given HTC's close relationship with Qualcomm,
they likely know it won't be for a while

b) Wait for a Tegra-compatible LTE chip, which hasn't been proven in the
market yet. Still late to market, and with parts of questionable integrity.

c) Fall back on the dual-core chip and ship now. Lose a bullet point in the US
market, but actually be on the market.

~~~
rsynnott
> Didn't seem to matter to them when nVidia beat Qualcomm out the door with a
> dual-core chip last year.

When the Tegra 2 showed up, it was not generally considered suitable for
phones; the one found in a few phones is a slightly different model to the
original. Also, the Tegra 2 was quite flawed; it lacked NEON, in particular,
hurting software compatibility.

It's also possible that supplies of the S4 are restricted; it's a 28nm part,
and TSMC's rollout of their 28nm process hasn't gone as smoothly as they might
like. The Tegra 3 is 40nm, which is now a mainstream process.

