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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
87 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous Blowhard - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Didn't see any mention of this; I see it does have Console Mode, but what about the NVIDIA GamePad Mapper software?geniekid - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
The one reason I'd get this over the Nexus 7 is for the microSD slot.Also, I would think the lower resolution would come with some battery savings. I wonder if the inefficiency here lies with the SoC or the display (or something else).
PC Perv - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
What did you use to take pictures? They are horrendous.drexnx - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
feel it all around? lolgeniekid - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
I can't wait for the day when the state of mobile gaming will be such that reviews can focus on actual gameplay benchmarks instead of all the synthetics.Pirks - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
It's already like that on iPad but why would you even be interested in any benchmarks on iPad?Simon42 - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
You said nothing about the sub-par 1gb of ram! Do you have a test that could contrast it with 2gb devices, or at least some subjective impressions? I like to multitask a lot, open 10 tabs and switch from one app to the other, and I highly doubt this thing's superfast CPU can fully compensate for it. I've always felt that my Android devices improved mostly because they went from 512mb and 1gb to 2gb; that with my expectations and with the way I use my devices it has been more beneficial than upgrading to Qualcomm's excellent quad cores.I'm actively looking at something better suited to my needs and with a wider screen than my current 2013 Nexus 7. An SD card to exceed 32gb cheaply - I have lots of PDFs and MP3s - is crucial because any storage becomes slow when full (and now 4.3's TRIM eats battery when it has to work hard) and the stylus implementation looks great, but I won't trade the Nexus' glorious screen, RAM and amazing battery life for some extra speed I hardly need and which is probably only available when RAM is not full.
I was awaiting HP's Slate 8 and I was getting excited about its screen, but it's now confirmed that it too has only 1gb RAM so I'll want to try it but I probably won't buy it unless it multitasks just as well as what I currently have. Does anyone know of any upcoming Tegra 4 device with enough RAM and under 500 grams? I might have to wait for Chinese tablets with that combo and leftover iPad mini screens (Retina or not) or 8.9 inch full HD panels...
Dribble - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Tend to agree - the 1GB or ram would be a killer for me. Think they would have been better charging $250 for a 2GB ram and a full HD screen. Then you might think nexus is nice but for $20 I get an SD card, stylus better sound and a faster soc. Easy sell.ddriver - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
iphones have 1 gb of ram, so "logically" 1 gb ram is the best amount of ramzodiacsoulmate - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
not on android, but kitkat is opitimized for 512 and less ram? maybe facebook app will stop taking up 80mb of ram...