NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 processor is a beast, simply put. With its quad processor (including a fifth sleeper core), the Tegra 3 has no problems with almost anything that can be thrown up against it, graphically intense games like ShadowGun run with ease and when it comes to powering Android 4.0 devices, like ASUS’s transformer Prime, it’s a piece of cake. But there is one small exception, one area where the Tegra 3 fails when it comes to supporting next generation devices, the absence of LTE support.
As the world craves more power and faster download speeds, it is essential that our products and devices conform and deliver. Despite all its power, the Tegra 3 still isn’t the top choice of manufacturers who want to deliver next gen smartphones in the States or anywhere that supports LTE and that’s because NVIDIA released the chip without LTE support.
But that will all change later this year, the third quarter to be exact. NVIDIA says they’ll be releasing a new Tegra chip, dubbed the Tegra 3+ for now and it will finally support LTE. The new processor will also get a significant performance boost, in addition to LTE support.
If NVIDIA keeps its promise and can deliver an even more powerful chip, with embedded support for LTE, we may finally see some extremely powerful smartphones. Of course, Samsung may just beat NVIDIA to the market with their new Exynos chip (1.4GHz quad-core SoC processor) that will also support LTE and is rumored to be in the upcoming Galaxy S III, which we’ll see for the first time on May 3rd, with a possible June release.
Any way you slice it, we’re about to see some extremely powerful devices ship this year.
Source: PCMag