NVIDIA Unveils the Tegra Note, Tegra 4's Hardware Platform

NVIDIA is mostly in the hardware parts business (like its ubiquitous graphics cards) but the company just unveiled a complete tablet platform - including everything down to the stylus -which is powered by its new Tegra 4 system on a chip.

NVIDIA's new Tegra Note isn't the first time that the company has designed a full system around its hardware innards - last year's Project KAI was a reference design intended as a recipe for manufacturers to build a tablet around the Tegra 3.

This year's Tegra Note is intended to be manufactured by companies like EVGA and PNY Technologies, with whatever tweaks they want to make to the recipe. The basic formula for the new NVIDIA-powered Tegra 4 Note tablets include some impressive specs though.

First, of course, is the Tegra 4 system on a chip, which has a 72-core GeForce GPU and a quad core Cortex-A15 CPU, which, according to NVIDIA, will make the Tegra Note the "world's fastest 7-inch tablet."

The 7-inch touchscreen is an HD IPS LCD display, with 1280 x 800p resolution. The display will work with NVIDIA's DirectStylus, which the company is touting as delivering significantly improved passive performance, and which comes with bundled apps for stroke-based note taking. The stylus comes with interchangeable chisel and brush tips for whatever users want to do freehand, be it writing or graphics-based work.

The NVIDIA Tegra Note also comes with a 5-megapixel camera (if manufacturers so desire) and SmugMug's "Camera Awesome App," ported from iOS to Android for 100 frame per second video with slow-motion playback. There's a front VGA webcam as well (with unspecified megapixel specs).

The Tegra Note's battery provides 10 hours of HD video playback, and Bluetooth can turn the tablet into a game controller, while a Micro HDMI connector brings the Tegra Note's content to HDTVs.

NVIDIA is putting the suggested retail price around $199, but that, ultimately, is up to the manufacturers. Expect to see it hitting store shelves starting in October, according to Engadget.