News - Snapdragon powered Google Nexus 7 refresh will arrive in July

Quote:

---

The updated Google tablet will dump Nvidia Tegra for a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC.

---

Read more.

Its was only yesterday I was reading that Nvidia was stating the Tegra 5 will be more powerfull that the CPU/GPU's found in the Xbox 360/PS3 - at the rate things are going Nvidia may not get a chance to release a Tegra 5

On the strength of the original Nexus7, I'm practially sold on this already at that price. They'd have to seriously butcher the spec/build quality before I'd go looking elsewhere for a 7" tablet.

I have constantly been tempted to buy the Nexus 7 but by the time I was at the tipping point I thought there was a new one due and it seems that I was right at least :D, hate Nvidia so if this is true then it is indeed excellent news as the Snapdragons are far superior.

Be interesting if they did actually come out $50 cheaper it would be very impressive!.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hicks12

hate Nvidia so if this is true then it is indeed excellent news as the Snapdragons are far superior.

---

From a user perspective the only reason you'd ever know its an NVidia/Qualcomm/TI/AllWinner/Whatever SOC is because you read the spec list, delved into the deep menus or tried to install NVidia's game product. All of them have better/worse/faster/slower versions.

Whether or not its good news really depends on which Snapdragon SOC it is, the 200 is probably worse than a Tegra 3 and almost certainly most of the 200 and 400 SKUs would lose out in performance to a Tegra 4, maybe only better battery life.

Wonder if there will be some good "run out" deals on the current/old Nexus 7? I quite fancy having a go at Ubuntu Tablet Edition, but don't think that buying a full price Nexus 7 for that is sensible.

Wonder if the move to Snapdragon will reduce the heating effect that some of my Nexus 7 owning friends have mentioned.

Could it just possibly have a microSD slot? PLEASE!!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tigertop1

Could it just possibly have a microSD slot? PLEASE!!!!

---

Oh look, some flying pigs!

Is that Lord Lucan with them?

Blow me, he's riding Elvis, the aliens have genetically enhanced the old codger with WINGS!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tigertop1

Could it just possibly have a microSD slot? PLEASE!!!!

---

But then you wouldn't use Google Play for music, books, magazines, movies and everything else! No, only the nexus one had a microSD slot and that's in part because it only had 190MB of space for the user's data.

Back on topic, I'm surprised, I thought the tegra 4 was 4 x A15s with companion core which should win out against 4 x kraits which are close but iirc lose out to A15s, and no companion core for both speed and battery life. I can only guess someone at nvidia is doing something silly on the software side :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

From a user perspective the only reason you'd ever know its an NVidia/Qualcomm/TI/AllWinner/Whatever SOC is because you read the spec list, delved into the deep menus or tried to install NVidia's game product. All of them have better/worse/faster/slower versions.

Whether or not its good news really depends on which Snapdragon SOC it is, the 200 is probably worse than a Tegra 3 and almost certainly most of the 200 and 400 SKUs would lose out in performance to a Tegra 4, maybe only better battery life.

---

From a user perspective you would still notice it, taking just the S4 vs the T3 it performs better while using less power. If you actually do anything with custom roms etc then you will much prefer Qualcomm compared to Nvidia because Nvidia lock down their platform so hard its pathetic, only the Nexus 7 did ok because of the strength of Google (google managed to get Nvidia to do something!).

I guess overall though its just my preference, Nvidia has poor business practices and I despise the way they are always going the extra mile to ensure the market cannot use anything. GPU platform is a prime example, Nvidia locks down PhysX which has no reason to not work when you have an Nvidia card as your secondary and an AMD as a primary yet they spent the time to disable it after awhile!.

Cant wait for this new device :).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hicks12

From a user perspective you would still notice it, taking just the S4 vs the T3 it performs better while using less power.

---

Which S4, the A7 or Krait based versions? (There is several of each). You can't identify an SoC with your eyes from how well it subjectively performs, you can only say A is faster than B, to know what A and B are you need to look at the specs... from a normal user's perspective it therefore only matters what performs better, not that you hate NVidia. Battery life is dependent on too many things other than the SoC such as screen, battery size, WiFi power etc. Whether Google's choice is good for the consumer is very much dependent on which SoC they use, I'd take a Tegra 3(Cortex A9 based) over a Snapdragon 200 series (Cortex A5 based) for example.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hicks12

If you actually do anything with custom roms etc then you will much prefer Qualcomm compared to Nvidia because Nvidia lock down their platform so hard its pathetic, only the Nexus 7 did ok because of the strength of Google (google managed to get Nvidia to do something!).

---

Now we're into tinkerer's and power users perspective and of course Qualcomm are so, so much better... which is why the graphics in the ROMs I tried for my Qualcomm based HTC Sensation were glitchy last Autumn because there were no decent Jelly Bean drivers for the SoC. </sarcasm>

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hicks12

I guess overall though its just my preference, Nvidia has poor business practices and I despise the way they are always going the extra mile to ensure the market cannot use anything. GPU platform is a prime example, Nvidia locks down PhysX which has no reason to not work when you have an Nvidia card as your secondary and an AMD as a primary yet they spent the time to disable it after awhile!.

---

The things NVidia do especially irk you in particular but all companies engage in random protectionist behaviour which tends to annoy some people more than others. They're not charities at the end of the day and if you boycott all companies who ever did anything annoyingly unhelpful then you be sitting with your actual stone slate and and chalk.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tigertop1

Could it just possibly have a microSD slot? PLEASE!!!!

---

Google play, google drive and Google play, no real need for Micro SD really. 32GB model is enough for most.

Will it be good enough to upgrade from a N7 though?

For what i use mine for, i suspect it wont. Even at bargain basement prices for its class, its still a reasonably big purchase and from what i have seen so far, people arent big on 'upgrading' their tablet. I mean an iPad 1 might be a bit slow now but an iPad 2 is fine still, surely?

My wish list:
Expandable storage
Stereo speakers
HDMI

If it has that I'll get it

i think that they should have gone for tegra 4 because although snapdragon beats tegra in performance it doesnt in graphics

we dont know what kind of performance to expect with T4 or whichever model of snapdragon they are going for though, so how would you know?

Good move from Google, I am watching forward for the release, hope it will be released globally. Somehow I hate NVidia. Always with policies and allways tries to make money in the dirty way... Just my thought.

Thanks for sharing this info...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loyal986

Good move from Google, I am watching forward for the release, hope it will be released globally. Somehow I hate NVidia. Always with policies and allways tries to make money in the dirty way... Just my thought.

---

Interesting, got any links to back up that 'dirty way' allegation?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nexusmaniac

i think that they should have gone for tegra 4 because although snapdragon beats tegra in performance it doesnt in graphics

---

By what margins does it get beaten?

The original Nexus 7 was an amazing device for its price, if they can keep that up I'll be a buyer.

If they can beat it, I'm definitely a buyer.