NVIDIA Tegra Note 7 Review
by Brian Klug on November 12, 2013 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Mobile
- Tegra 4
- NVIDIA
- Tegra Note
It's hard to conclude the review for the Tegra Note since my thoughts focus mainly on its competition. For a while now, it's been hard to recommend any tablet in the 7-inch class that wasn't the Nexus 7, and the refresh made it even harder to do so. At present, the Tegra Note 7 enters a market that its predecessor arguably defined, but it's much more crowded now. At the high end we have the iPad Mini which just was refreshed with a retina display, in the middle we have the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 with active stylus, and then finally the refreshed Nexus 7 and now the Tegra Note 7.
It's a market where what product makes the most sense ultimately depends on what you want to do with it. If you want a smaller iPad, buy an iPad mini in one of the two flavors it now comes in. If you want an all around great 7-inch tablet, go for the Nexus 7. If you want to take notes or to save a bit more money versus the Nexus 7, the Tegra Note has a strong value prospect with a lower cost stylus solution that works surprisingly well and solves one of my main complaints with the other note-taking devices – fast pen tracking almost devoid of latency. If you absolutely need an active digitizer with hover capabilities, Galaxy Note 8 will do the job.
NVIDIA's Tegra Note 7 undercuts the refreshed Nexus 7 by $30 and comes in at just $199 from partners who will soon be making them available to shoppers. But that $30 savings comes at a price – that dollar amount means you lose the high DPI display, 5 GHz WiFi connectivity, get slower internal storage, and trade some battery life off. What you do get in its stead is what we've touched on – an even faster hardware platform with faster CPU and GPU, reasonably well executed note taking capabilities, and audio that sounds better, even if it isn't necessarily louder. Like anything, which combination of tradeoffs is "better" really is a story of tradeoffs.
This has to be frustrating for NVIDIA, because with Tegra Note 7 it has arguably built the original Nexus 7's spiritual successor, though I couldn't imagine Google ever being happy without a high resolution display. What it has done however is give all of its partners a tablet that they can sell, bundle, and use to differentiate their current lineups. I suspect building NVIDIA's brand in the mobile space and at the same time making the traditional GPU partners happy with a tablet platform they can somewhat call their own is the real success story for Tegra Note.
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amdwilliam1985 - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Same here, I was hoping for the Nexus 5 review, from the Hangouts they did last time, it sounds like it should be coming soon, hopefully tomorrow.I'm kind of waiting for "Brian's stamp of approval" before I hit the purchase button for the 32GB Nexus 5.
augiem - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
"but everything else is underwhelming, especially the screen."While I think a 1080 screen would be nice, I can certainly see why Nvidia chose to go lower. Look at the on-screen benchmarks like T-Rex. This tab is easily 2x the speed of the 2013 Nexus 7. Nvidia, afterall, has made their living in games for the most part. This is actually a very smart choice for gaming concerns. You're not going to notice much in a game. Desktop/web, sure, but not in most games.
mkumar12345 - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
I find it really hard to believe that someone find noticeable latency in Note 3. That has just not been my experience. It seems to be on par with surface pro 2. Only issue is lack of onenote app with inking capability on Android but Microsoft is the one to blame for that.ddriver - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
There is noticeable latency on the note 3, but pretty much on part with wacom tablets I've used, I've never used a cintiq in order to be able to track the pen and the cursor side by side, so the latency is masked when the tablet is standalone and the result is visualized on another display.That being said, latency is not all that bad, it is good enough for writing and occasional sketching, and hopefully will get better when google finally manage to deliver on their long-overdue promise of reducing android latencies to reasonable levels
Drumsticks - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Microsoft is to blame for wanting to differentiate their tablets? Google doesn't even share YouTube with windows 8 or WP8 sadly.And android would have multi-window apps if Samsung would share with everyone else. Companies like to differentiate themselves, that's nobody's fault.
ddriver - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Even though it is a larger form factor and not a phone, I think it should have been also compared to the galaxy note 3, feature and performance wise.Also, maybe the review author should post a scan of his regular handwriting on paper to compare to what he did on the note... Right now I cannot tell whether it is case of terrible handwriting or a device, not particularly good at capturing it.
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
I'd rather spend $30 more and get the Nexus 7 2013.JeffFlanagan - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Same here if I still had use for a 7" tablet, but I haven't touched my Nexus 7 v1 since I got my Galaxy Note 3. Fitting a big-enough 1080p screen in my pants pocket beats a bigger screen that I have to carry. This might change with winter arriving and the switch to a coat with big pockets.Tehk17 - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Why?BigLan - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Could you retest the web battery life for the 2013 n7? I've had mine since launch and never been able to get anywhere close to 12 hours - 7 or 8 is more typical, and is what most users at xda report too. I know the display gets calibrated to 200 nits, but anand is the only review I've seen claiming anywhere near that kind of battery life.