So when will quadcore tablets be available?

[KDOG]

I'm specifically waiting for these to be available before I buy. I'm wondering how long of a wait I have. Any credible info?

 

[zerocool84]

I wouldn't expect them until next year the earliest. Things get announced but actual products containing them takes time. Kal-El is supposed to come out this year which is quad-core but I honestly don't expect anything until next year.

 

[Bateluer]

I wouldn't expect them until next year the earliest. Things get announced but actual products containing them takes time. Kal-El is supposed to come out this year which is quad-core but I honestly don't expect anything until next year.

I read recently that Asus could likely launch a quad core Tegra 3 before the end of this year. Seems unlikely though. Execution with these ARM SoCs is pathetic. Announce SoC, ship products 8-10 months later, after the announcement of its successor.

 

[DivideBYZero]

I read recently that Asus could likely launch a quad core Tegra 3 before the end of this year. Seems unlikely though. Execution with these ARM SoCs is pathetic. Announce SoC, ship products 8-10 months later, after the announcement of its successor.

When a SoC is annouced it is often only then released for sampling with OEMs. To build a product around it in 8-10 months is very impressive, to think otherwise risks showing no understanding of how complex creating a mobile device is. You don't just slap it in and hope for the best like a desktop CPU in a socket.

 

[Monster_Munch]

There have been rumours of a quad core Amazon tablet this year.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/230904/amazon_tablet_rumored_for_august_or_september.html

Rumor has it that Amazon will launch an entry-level tablet with a dual-core processor and a premium tablet with a quad-core processor.

If anyone could pose a threat to the iPad in the tablet market, it's Amazon. They have sold millions of Kindles.

 

[LostPassword]

Im waiting on amazon one as well.

 

[JS80]

It's crazy how porn isn't driving technology any more.

 

[jaydee]

Anand said tablets in August, phones early next year I believe. Asus is planning for a Tegra 3/Kal-El Eee Transformer 2 in October/November. Seems too good to be true, but I'm optimistic.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4181/...re-a9s-coming-to-smartphonestablets-this-year

NVIDIA went on to be even more specific. Tablets based on Kal-El will be available starting August 2011, while smartphones will be available this Christmas and into the first half of next year. This is either NVIDIA over committing to an unrealistic future or the most aggressive schedule we've seen from an SoC vendor yet. NVIDIA won some points by actually pulling off the coup with Tegra 2 this year, however it's still too early to tell whether we'll see the whole thing repeated again just 9 months from now. I'm willing to at least give NVIDIA the benefit of the doubt here.

http://androidcommunity.com/asus-ee...ice-cream-sandwich-expected-in-q3q4-20110623/

 

[Mopetar]

How necessary are four cores going to be for anything other than gaming? I'm more interested in the improved efficiency of the new architectures more so than the addition of more cores. Being able to clock those cores higher is probably going to yield a larger performance increase than just tacking more of them onto the SoC.

 

[poofyhairguy]

How necessary are four cores going to be for anything other than gaming?

Better battery life for one. The faster the cores can blow through tasks and get back to an idle state, the longer the battery lasts. A quad core with all cores at idle uses less battery than a single core that is running at 100%.

Another big advantage of the next Tegra generation is BUILT IN virtualization support. Imagine using Linux or Windows virtualized on the system.

 

[Mopetar]

The question is whether or not having four Cortex-A15 cores is significantly better than only having two Cortex-A15 cores. For most applications, I don't think it will be as there won't be enough work to really saturate all cores. Virtualizing a desktop OS is another matter, but I can't see more than a very small percentage of the overall tablet market doing things like that.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The question is whether or not having four Cortex-A15 cores is significantly better than only having two Cortex-A15 cores. For most applications, I don't think it will be as there won't be enough work to really saturate all cores. Virtualizing a desktop OS is another matter, but I can't see more than a very small percentage of the overall tablet market doing things like that.

I 100% disagree. With tablets like the Transformer offering laptop-esk form-factors, I believe that there already is a demand for that much power by users that want at least a large fraction of laptop capabilities on their tablet. Applications with just 70% of the complexity of modern day Photoshop and Office programs would max even the quad core generation of ARM tablets. Until the average user can at least get the equal functionality out of a tablet that is gotten out of a nicer netbook, there will still be a gap (so maybe two more generations).

 

[Mopetar]

The biggest problem is that a lot of power applications really need a mouse once you've docked the tablet to a keyboard. Using a touch interface isn't bad when you have the device in your hands, but it wouldn't be fun having to keep reaching up from the keyboard to touch the screen.

Also, the iPad already has loads of apps styled after traditional productivity and creativity applications found on PCs. They've got their office suite ported to iOS and they have garage band and iMovie. They're not as powerful as their desktop counterparts, but if someone's going to be number crunching 20k rows of spreadsheet data, I don't think the tablet is the proper device for them.

Based on the way I use my tablet, extra processing power really isn't all that necessary. I'd rather that they focus on bumping the RAM as much as possible. The computational power gap will always exist. Notebooks will always have larger, more powerful CPUs. Eventually the ARM SoCs will reach the same level of performance that current notebook CPUs are at, but by then notebooks may offer the performance found in a high-end workstation today.

But that's besides the point as I think that there are already a lot of users who can get equal functionality from a tablet. If they just want to check email, browse the web, watch movies, and play simple games a tablet is already more than capable. I'd imagine that most forum members here need something more sophisticated and powerful, but I think that most of us are on the far end of the bell curve in terms of needs.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The biggest problem is that a lot of power applications really need a mouse once you've docked the tablet to a keyboard. Using a touch interface isn't bad when you have the device in your hands, but it wouldn't be fun having to keep reaching up from the keyboard to touch the screen.

That is easily fixed. I have used a Bluetooth and USB mouse with both my Nook Color and a friend's Xoom. Bring on the real apps!