Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, recently told the New York Times that the quad-core Tegra 3 SoC incorporates enough cheap commodity components that Android tablets will cost as little as $199 by this summer -- once the cost savings take hold, that is. He said around $150 in build materials have been removed, including expensive memory.
"At $199, you can just about buy a tablet at a 7-Eleven," he said.
The report seemingly backs up previous rumors that Google plans to dish out a $199 7-inch rival to Amazon's Kindle Fire sporting a Tegra 3 SoC. Yet last week brought additional reports from unnamed sources that said Google chose not to use Tegra 3 due to cost, thus the overall price would be lower than previously reported: $149 to $199 instead of $199 to $249. So far the SoC replacement has not been named, if the Tegra 3 was replaced at all (sounds like it's not).
Presently the only real contender against Apple's iPad is the Kindle Fire despite efforts by Asus, Samsung and others. Huang hints that perhaps Windows 8, slated to arrive later this year, will do better in claiming market share from Apple. The slow adoption to Android tablets is seemingly attributed to consumers wanting an experience similar to their desktop, which Windows 8 will provide.
"Android hasn’t developed as I’d hoped,” he admitted. "For many people, though, work is still the primary reason to have a computer. They want Windows to work well, they want Outlook to work well. A tablet running Windows 8 with Tegra could be very nice."
The New York Tames also references to a TechCrunch article posted earlier this week. According to documents and pictures from FCC testing, Sony supposedly has a Vaio-labeled Chromebook in the works running on a rumored Tegra 2.5 SoC (T25). It will sport an 11-inch screen, 2 GB of RAM and a clock speed of 1.2 GHz. It's assumed that the device will be capable of 3D given the possible Tegra chip -- a unique feature which could be an interesting riposte to Apple's Retina display on the iPad 3.
