Check Microcenter. They are selling the 16GB version for $349, in store only though. Very tempting to me, but my NookColor running CM7 is holding its own so far. I might wait until the next round of tablets to make my upgrade.
This will be just in time or Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. Plus, this is the reason why I didn't buy a Transformer + keyboard promo from Newegg for $399, or any tablet for that matter.
I don't have high expectations for Kal-El. I regularly extol the benefits of many cores on a PC, but I'm not sure 4 cores will have the same advantages on a tablet. You have less background services and run multiple applications less often. I am not convinced Kal-El will be able to compete with Krait's superior per-core performance.
For now, I'm taking a wait-and-see approach. I hope I am wrong because I have great respect for nvidia, who are clearly pushing hard to innovate in a fiercely competitive market.
I'm not going to complain about more cores, but I kind of agree.
My opinion: better follow up to Tegra 2 might have been: add NEON, a faster GPU, and Kal-El's extra low power CPU. Basically, I think they should have made a dual core Kal-El.
In favor of quad core, though: I know ARM9 CPU cores don't use a ton of transistors. So, the actual die size difference between a quad core and a dual core might be relatively small. Plus, marketing for a quad core practically writes itself...
I doubt the dual core Krait will match it, definitely not in browsing performance, where Kal-el will use all cores. Plus, we'll see how Krait fares in performance. I know it's made fully LP which normally means better efficiency but slower performance. I am more excited about the Cortex A15 OMAP 5. I was hoping Nvidia will come up with a quad core Cortex A15 by then, but rumors say they'll continue to use Cortex A9 for a while, and might even skip Cortex A15 in favor of their own custom ARM design (like how Qualcomm is doing it).
I wouldn't hold my breath. A powered USB device could draw as much power continiously as the tablet does under load, raping the battery in the process. In addtion to having to add significantly stronger power circuitry a vendor would run the risk of being slammed in the press/by consumers when thier battery life implodes while playing music of an external magnetic hard drive.
Unless this means being able to run real PC applications, such as Photo and Video editing, Word processing, etc, well then I welcome this product.
As an owner of the Atrix, I know for a fact that dual-core was mostly a gimmick. I sure hope the same doesn't apply to the quad cores. Give me the aforementioned apps, and you'll have my money. Otherwise I'll just wait for the Windows 8 Transformer.
Unless this means being able to run real PC applications, such as Photo and Video editing, Word processing, etc, well then I welcome this product.
As an owner of the Atrix, I know for a fact that dual-core was mostly a gimmick. I sure hope the same doesn't apply to the quad cores. Give me the aforementioned apps, and you'll have my money. Otherwise I'll just wait for the Windows 8 Transformer.
I certainly look forward to seeing the 28nm heterogeneous SoCs duke it out in the coming months and share many of the concerns regarding in particular krait vs kal-el, but my biggest question of all is who is going to stop the mod community from preparing android roms for win8 tablets and vice versa? There will be a handful of multiplatform SoCs in the market so I imagine it is not a question of drivers nor of storage capacity.
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19 Comments
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sprockkets - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - link
Though maybe I'll just settle for a cheaper transformer haha.This is a tablet I've been waiting for.
MonkeyPaw - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
Check Microcenter. They are selling the 16GB version for $349, in store only though. Very tempting to me, but my NookColor running CM7 is holding its own so far. I might wait until the next round of tablets to make my upgrade.quiksilvr - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - link
I remember them saying the keyboard dock will work with future iterations, but this dock looks thinner. Will it still work?chillmelt - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
This will be just in time or Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. Plus, this is the reason why I didn't buy a Transformer + keyboard promo from Newegg for $399, or any tablet for that matter.Kamen75 - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
The TF2 is giving me blue-balls it's so hot.DanD85 - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
5th line first paragraph "didn't not". Sorry!JasonInofuentes - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
Fixed. Thanks!Jason
dcollins - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
I don't have high expectations for Kal-El. I regularly extol the benefits of many cores on a PC, but I'm not sure 4 cores will have the same advantages on a tablet. You have less background services and run multiple applications less often. I am not convinced Kal-El will be able to compete with Krait's superior per-core performance.For now, I'm taking a wait-and-see approach. I hope I am wrong because I have great respect for nvidia, who are clearly pushing hard to innovate in a fiercely competitive market.
nafhan - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
I'm not going to complain about more cores, but I kind of agree.My opinion: better follow up to Tegra 2 might have been: add NEON, a faster GPU, and Kal-El's extra low power CPU. Basically, I think they should have made a dual core Kal-El.
In favor of quad core, though: I know ARM9 CPU cores don't use a ton of transistors. So, the actual die size difference between a quad core and a dual core might be relatively small. Plus, marketing for a quad core practically writes itself...
Lucian Armasu - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I doubt the dual core Krait will match it, definitely not in browsing performance, where Kal-el will use all cores. Plus, we'll see how Krait fares in performance. I know it's made fully LP which normally means better efficiency but slower performance. I am more excited about the Cortex A15 OMAP 5. I was hoping Nvidia will come up with a quad core Cortex A15 by then, but rumors say they'll continue to use Cortex A9 for a while, and might even skip Cortex A15 in favor of their own custom ARM design (like how Qualcomm is doing it).softbatch - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
Please let it be a full-sized and powered USB port. At least powered anyways since I can get an adapter.DanNeely - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
I wouldn't hold my breath. A powered USB device could draw as much power continiously as the tablet does under load, raping the battery in the process. In addtion to having to add significantly stronger power circuitry a vendor would run the risk of being slammed in the press/by consumers when thier battery life implodes while playing music of an external magnetic hard drive.softbatch - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
Didn't stop ACER.TareX - Friday, October 21, 2011 - link
Unless this means being able to run real PC applications, such as Photo and Video editing, Word processing, etc, well then I welcome this product.As an owner of the Atrix, I know for a fact that dual-core was mostly a gimmick. I sure hope the same doesn't apply to the quad cores. Give me the aforementioned apps, and you'll have my money. Otherwise I'll just wait for the Windows 8 Transformer.
Zingam - Friday, October 21, 2011 - link
People like you are really amazing.What you are basically demanding is:
You look at a Harley-Davidson bike and scream: "Dude I want a roof, four wheels and v8 engine! And give me more horse power like 400hp."
Dude, if you need a full blown PC - buy yourself a PC.
I bet you'll be very disappointed how much useless will be a Windows tablet running Photoshop. What you want is a totally different product.
As of now you can buy tablets with Windows. Tablets with Windows were on the market for years and nobody seems to care about them.
TareX - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
That's only because they were so powerless to run legacy apps properly, too UI-impotent to be usable, and too power-hungry to last long enough.Again, what use is a quad-core if you won't have fully fledged media and document editing?
TareX - Friday, October 21, 2011 - link
Unless this means being able to run real PC applications, such as Photo and Video editing, Word processing, etc, well then I welcome this product.As an owner of the Atrix, I know for a fact that dual-core was mostly a gimmick. I sure hope the same doesn't apply to the quad cores. Give me the aforementioned apps, and you'll have my money. Otherwise I'll just wait for the Windows 8 Transformer.
alyarb - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
I certainly look forward to seeing the 28nm heterogeneous SoCs duke it out in the coming months and share many of the concerns regarding in particular krait vs kal-el, but my biggest question of all is who is going to stop the mod community from preparing android roms for win8 tablets and vice versa? There will be a handful of multiplatform SoCs in the market so I imagine it is not a question of drivers nor of storage capacity.russlee - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
beutiful piece of engineering, cant wait to put my hands on itjust digging for more information all around the www, and i have found most information on this (official?) forum
transformerprime.info