Microsoft makes a phone with Nvidia

I never heard something like that and every noise from Redmond lately has clearly implied that this would not happen - however it was definitely my understanding that all of the 2009 Zune line-up would be based on Tegra (600 for the iPod Classic competitor, lower-end VGA chip not yet announced for the Nano competitor) so maybe it's a misunderstanding based on the fact Charlie or his source assume Tegra=phone.

In any case, well-placed sources tell the Inq that the phone is powered by the long-promised Nvidia Tegra chip. This means battery life measured in minutes and a long list of promised features that mostly work as long as you don't mind the odd bout of data corruption. Ironically, this is quite the natural fit for an MS OS.
Which is why NVIDIA does 720p decode in less power than it takes OMAP3 to do VGA decode, and also why they have higher audio battery life than any other application processor in the industry - right? There are trillions to things he could rightly bitch about regarding NVIDIA (and even Tegra, such as the fact it's already been delayed by quite a bit and the fact it was originally tied to WM7 in phones must be hurting them quite a bit for 2009).

Anyway it's hardly a stretch to add an Infineon 65nm baseband to a Zune hardware platform and get a mobile phone, so it's not impossible. I'm very skeptical for now though, seems like usual Inq bullshit to me.

EDIT: Another possibility, of course, is that NVIDIA announces their 40nm application processor at 3GSM and create a joint Windows Mobile 7+Tegra platform with MS for third parties to use for products coming out in 2010...
 
Did anyone watch the video of the O-phone in INQ's link? LOL I mean ok some might consider the design as revolutionary, but it still looks awkward to me. If you want to toss it against people's heads it looks ideal, it should though at least bounce back *snicker*
 
Okay if anything remotely like this does happen, here's 10 bucks on the fact it's a 3G MID, not a smartphone (i.e. 4-5" screen, 2/3-cell battery, fast data but no voice). My guess is Microsoft's line-up will look something like this, all of this obviously representing a design loss for Freescale:
- Zune Flash: VGA/D1-level Tegra (unannounced chip)
- Zune HDD: Tegra 600
- Zune Touch: Tegra 650
- Zune MID: Tegra 650 + Infineon HSUPA Baseband

EDIT: And before anyone says 4-5" isn't very pocketable especially 4.8-5"... Does anyone remember NVIDIA's statement earlier this year about how their show device was a prototype and some real devices would be thinner than an iPod Touch (I think that was at Fudzilla)? What's the big deal with, say, a 4.8" screen if it's 7-7.5mm thin? (ofc that's probably a rather generic statement and nearly certainly not about the Zune, but you get the idea)
 
Which is why NVIDIA does 720p decode in less power than it takes OMAP3 to do VGA decode, and also why they have higher audio battery life than any other application processor in the industry - right? There are trillions to things he could rightly bitch about regarding NVIDIA (and even Tegra, such as the fact it's already been delayed by quite a bit and the fact it was originally tied to WM7 in phones must be hurting them quite a bit for 2009).

That is actually a very neat trick. I'm told its achieved, by using a feature of OpenMAX to "Tunnel" data from one part of the device to another without the need to wake up the CPU to service mem copies.
 
And before anyone says 4-5" isn't very pocketable especially 4.8-5"... Does anyone remember NVIDIA's statement earlier this year about how their show device was a prototype and some real devices would be thinner than an iPod Touch (I think that was at Fudzilla)? What's the big deal with, say, a 4.8" screen if it's 7-7.5mm thin? (ofc that's probably a rather generic statement and nearly certainly not about the Zune, but you get the idea)

16:9 or 4:3?

Actually that raises a good question, why isn't 16:9 that popular for handhelds?

Enquiring minds would like to know???
 
TheArchitect said:
That is actually a very neat trick. I'm told its achieved, by using a feature of OpenMAX to "Tunnel" data from one part of the device to another without the need to wake up the CPU to service mem copies.
Yeah, the idea is pretty much the entire chip is power gated down during music playback except for the memory controller and part of their audio-video processor. Interesting that they're using OpenMAX, makes sense! As for how they get those power numbers for video, there is a hint in one of their recent patents, but without being hinted at what it means it probably wouldn't help much because it's rather vague. There's one other company I'm aware of that does something quite similar (in a more extreme form, and in a very different application domain) but it's probably safe to characterize their approach as an exotic way to benefit from parallelism (along with some fixed-function obviously I guess).

Mind you I'm not saying that's a magical solution or even unambiguously the best one in any way; just that it's more than just 'doing what everyone else does better'. It's not hard for me to imagine why it would result in lower power than a DSP+Accelerator or Tensilica-based solution. Whether it can be competitive with or beat other aggressive approaches (of which there are several out there), I have no idea.
TheArchitect said:
16:9 or 4:3?
Actually that raises a good question, why isn't 16:9 that popular for handhelds?
Enquiring minds would like to know???
Well 16:9 is pretty rare on anything but HDTVs; PCs are 16:10 after all. As for why 4:3 or 4:3-like has been the most popular, remember nearly all video content for these devices is SD, and SD content is most frequently 4:3 or 3:2 (the latter being NTSC DVD-like, which is what the iPhone uses)

I think 800x480 (15:9) is definitely getting more frequent in handhelds, in part because it's a pretty nice format for web browsing and having a keyboard (either on-screen via touch or as a slide-out horizontally rather than vertically) - when I said 4.8", TBH I was thinking of Samsung's WVGA OLED, although that's just because it's the only screen of that size I've ever really tried to get more info on (without much success): http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2007/10/samsung-oled-roadmap_468.jpg

EDIT: Oh BTW PMs should work for you now...
 
16:9 or 4:3?

Actually that raises a good question, why isn't 16:9 that popular for handhelds?

Enquiring minds would like to know???

Ergonomics. Your hand is taller than it is flat, therefore it is more comfortable to hold something lengthwise rather than widthwise.
 
Well 16:9 is pretty rare on anything but HDTVs; PCs are 16:10 after all. As for why 4:3 or 4:3-like has been the most popular, remember nearly all video content for these devices is SD, and SD content is most frequently 4:3 or 3:2 (the latter being NTSC DVD-like, which is what the iPhone uses)

I think 800x480 (15:9) is definitely getting more frequent in handhelds, in part because it's a pretty nice format for web browsing and having a keyboard (either on-screen via touch or as a slide-out horizontally rather than vertically) - when I said 4.8", TBH I was thinking of Samsung's WVGA OLED, although that's just because it's the only screen of that size I've ever really tried to get more info on (without much success): http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2007/10/samsung-oled-roadmap_468.jpg

I went for 16:9 off the top of my head, I can't remember all the ratios (getting old :cry:), but 15:9 or WVGA I'd go along with. 4:3 in a large diagonal gets a bit bulky.

Roll on the roll up display!

EDIT: Oh BTW PMs should work for you now...

Thank you!
 
"The odds LG will be involved are good"? WTF? I knew he was clueless, but give me a break. LG is an OEM, not an ODM. Either it's a MS phone or it's a LG phone. And here's a hint: I have unofficially heard it's the latter, but in plural form and for a long time to come ;)

MS will just be bragging about how this means LG is creating cool devices with WinMob, I suspect. Separately, I think NV has the next-gen Zune contract but that's not a phone.

As for why it's legal, who knows it's pretty dumb, but Michael Hara certainly has a tendency to say a lot of non-public things...
 
"The odds LG will be involved are good"? WTF? I knew he was clueless, but give me a break. LG is an OEM, not an ODM. Either it's a MS phone or it's a LG phone. And here's a hint: I have unofficially heard it's the latter, but in plural form and for a long time to come ;)

So LG will be going with a Tegra platform and a moorestown platform for mobile devices (albeit different segments within it) ?

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...e-first-moorestown-mobile-internet-device.ars
 
tangey: LG's phone business doesn't care about Moorestown. They just want to design a MID with it, just like every other MID the likes of Gigabyte, OQO, etc. - it should be much more attractive and hopefully higher volume than the Menlow-based stuff, but it's still a niche play as far as I can tell.

tongue_of_colicab: Most OEMs won't want to say that it's a Tegra, but rather just that it has 720p video playback/record and OpenGL ES 2.0... However, I think LG has traditionally been more open about the chip stuff - heck, when I was at their stand at MWC09, the person giving around-the-clock presentations even mentioned it had an Infineon baseband and an AMD processor every time! :eek: That doesn't mean you'll see it on the box though, and you nearly certainly won't see it on the menus...
 
Oh, looks like Charlie was wrong and was either mislead or probably misinterpreted the timeframe:
http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/01/nvidia.tegra/ said:
Although Perez declined to offer specifics regarding which companies would be launching Tegra-based devices, he suggested that a number of products should be available by the end of the year and NVIDIA is set for a significant announcement at the Computex Taipei conference held in June.
Good ole Derek though, so much for keeping a secret :p
Company representative Derek Perez noted that the technology is extremely flexible and could easily be used with other platforms, such as mobile gaming devices.
I would presume that to be a separate announcement however, because if this is just the [insert handheld console name] stuff then that's not as important for the core Tegra business...
 
*cough* HTC *cough* ;)
I'm not convinced; HTC is going to remain a very large buyer of Qualcomm chips nearly no matter what, they've had a very long relationship and Qualcomm even has a minority stake in the company! Although you could say the WM & Android flagship models would be a big deal, but I don't think that's it.

Derek said in another article:
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/tough-times-ahead-for-nvidia-part-two-587706?artc_pg=2 said:
More importantly, he is adamant that Nvidia will announce a partnership with at least one of the big mobile phone makers within a year.
Given HTC's position with Qualcomm, I don't see it being them. Samsung/Nokia/SE are pretty much all out of the question. So unless you consider something incredibly unlikely like RIM/Apple/Palm, you're left with LG. Which is also by far the most bullish company for Windows Mobile right now, while NV is the most bullish for it on the semiconductor side.

Of course, I guess the [insert handheld console] announcement would be significant too, but I see zero reason why that should be announced at Computex...
 
Back
Top