ASUS planning quad-core Tegra 3 tablet, yet another Intel slate
The Eee Pad Transformer may be wowing tablet lovers with its unbeatable price-to-features ratio today, but ASUS looks to have its sights set on even mightier devices for the future. DigTimes reports that the Taiwanese company …
Context & Ripple Effects
ASUS only began shipping the Eee Pad Transformer as its Android 3.0 tablet in late March 2011, and the device's price-to-features ratio is already winning over buyers — the one confirmed claim in this report. DigTimes now says the company is looking past that launch, with a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 tablet reportedly in planning alongside yet another Intel-based slate.
Both new-device claims are explicitly rumored and unconfirmed at this point, so the signal here is directional rather than product-specific: ASUS appears to be running a dual-track silicon strategy, keeping an ARM/NVIDIA line and an x86/Intel line alive simultaneously while the Transformer establishes its Android credentials.
First-order effects
- If the DigTimes report holds, NVIDIA would gain one of the first named design wins for its next-generation quad-core Tegra 3 platform, giving the chip a flagship tablet showcase beyond current dual-core parts.
- Intel would pick up another OEM tablet commitment for x86 silicon, a category where its presence so far has been marginal against ARM-based Android slates.
Second-order effects
- Rival Android tablet makers competing directly with the Transformer's price-to-features positioning would face pressure to line up quad-core roadmaps of their own rather than cede the performance tier to ASUS.
- NVIDIA and Intel would effectively be bidding through ASUS's roadmap for the same OEM slots, sharpening ARM-versus-x86 pricing and feature competition inside a single vendor's lineup.
Third-order effects
- A pattern of OEMs sustaining parallel ARM and x86 tablet tracks points toward silicon vendors competing on roadmap cadence — quad-core availability becoming the gate for premium-tier Android tablets — though both device reports remain unconfirmed.
- For the supply chain, a successful quad-core tier would shift component demand toward higher-end Tegra-class parts and away from the single/dual-core chips anchoring most 2011 Android tablets.
The trend: Tablet OEMs are hedging across ARM and x86 silicon, with next-generation chip roadmaps like NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra increasingly dictating which vendors can claim the premium Android tier.