NVIDIA has been teasing the Tegra 4i for quite some time – the integration of a Tegra 4 SoC with the acquired NVIDIA i500 LTE modem technology. In truth, the Tegra 4i is a totally different processor than Tegra 4. While the big-boy Tegra 4 is a 4+1 Cortex-A15 chip with 72 GPU cores, the Tegra 4i is a 4+1 Cortex-A9 design with 60 GPU cores.
NVIDIA and up-and-coming European phone provider Wiko are announcing at Mobile World Congress the first Tegra 4i smartphone: Wax. That's right, the Wiko Wax.
Here is the full information from NVIDIA:
NVIDIA LTE Modem Makes Landfall in Europe, with Launch of Wiko Tegra 4i LTE Smartphone
Wiko Mobile, France’s fastest growing local phonemaker, has just launched Europe’s first Tegra 4i smartphone.
Tegra 4i – our first integrated LTE mobile processor – combines a 60-core GPU and our own LTE modem to bring up to 2X higher performance than competing phone chips.
It helps the Wiko WAX deliver fast web browsing, best-in-class gaming performance, smooth video playback and great battery life.
Launched at Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, the Wiko WAX phone features a 4.7-inch 720p display, 8MP rear camera and LTE / HSPA+ support.
The phone will be available throughout Europe – including France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, UK and Belgium – starting in April.
Within two short years, Wiko has become a major player by providing unlocked phones with sophisticated design, outstanding performance and the newest technologies. It has more than two million users in France and is expanding overseas fast.
Wiko WAX comes pre-installed with TegraZone – NVIDIA’s free app that showcases the best games optimized for the Tegra processor.
As a refresher, Tegra 4i includes a quad-core CPU and fifth battery saver core, and a version of the NVIDIA i500 LTE modem optimized for integration.
The result is an extremely power efficient, compact, high-performance mobile processor that unleashes performance and capability usually only available in costly super phones.
LG G2 mini also have variant
LG G2 mini also have variant using T4i running at 1.7Ghz. The other variant will use snapdragon 400 running at 1.2Ghz (some sites mention 1.5Ghz speed). The T4i version will also get 13MP camera instead of 8MP that use in snapdragon variant
Is the GPU on this chip based
Is the GPU on this chip based on a Nvidia mobile microarchitecture, and how does it compare to the K1’s Kepler microarchitecture? Does Nvidia have a descrete LTE modem to compete with Intel’s new offering, and the market leader Qualcomm, as more competition can only be good for the modem market, especially for those who need their phones to work in many reagons of the world.
the GPU is the same ULP
the GPU is the same ULP Geforce that has been used in tegra 2, 3 and 4. it is based on nvidia 6000/7000 series architecture which is very old. performance wise it should be much slower than the gpu inside tegra 4 (72 vs 60 gpu cores).
about the modem i’m not sure how well nvidia competes with intel and qualcomm solution. their i500 modem just got certified by AT&T late last year.
Nvidia quote Tegra 4i as
Nvidia quote Tegra 4i as being around 20 to 30% slower than Tegra 4 at the time of release, still a huge performance gain over Tegra 3 an already fast processor for it’s time.
You can easily find this sort of info with a quick search.
Question is do you want a phone that’s a super computer? It is after all just a phone. Do I need an 8 megapixel camera sensor… Canons pro range of EOS SLR lenses barely do justice to an 8 megapixel sensor in optimal light conditions in the middle of the lense, do I need any more for a photograph taken on a flat telephone through a plastic bead for a lens?
I currently have two phones running two contracts, one a Galaxy S2 the other a Nexus 4. Frankly, they both do what they need to do, the S2 was the leap forward the Nexus is the evolution. If I really wanted a bit more grunt I’d go for a 7 inch tablet, I currently have a Nexus 7 running a Tegra 3 and it’s great… when it breaks I’ll look at changing it but I certainly won’t be doing it for bragging rights, and that fact I’ve got 20 megapixel sensor behind a crummy plastic bead of a lens, I’ll leave those conversations for the grey army Apple fans.
In any event, the article is very interesting as if either of my phones broke tomorrow, I’d probably pick one of these up, if it was dual SIM, it would be a no brainer.
A no brainer for people with
A no brainer for people with no brains.
The Tegra 4i was announced 1yr ago and was suppose to go up against the Qualcomm 600s and maybe the 800s last phone cycle.
How many T4is did we see last cycle ZERO. Qualcomm won most of the design wins Nvidia had gotten with Tegra 3. The T4i is limited to a 720p so if you want more grunt your not looking for Nvidia based phone in the future.