Tegra and Honeycomb seem to be everywhere at MWC. We spotted the Acer Iconia 100 yesterday but that seems to be the only 7″-er. Everything else is 10″. At this early stage in the Honeycomb lifeline there isn’t a lot of time for manufacturers to make huge differentiation in the software layers so LG have chosen to go the hardware route on their tablet and have added 3D cameras. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test them.

With Honeycomb being so new its difficult to come to any conclusions but I saw an amazingly sharp and high-contrast screen that was let down by a user interface that should be a lot, lot smoother.

On the back you have a removable panel which seems to be only for the Sim card. I think I must have missed something there but I’m sure there’s no removable battery. Build quality overall seems very good and the gaming experience was an obvious step up from what I’ve seen on other devices. If developers jump on the bandwagon and optimise for Tegra, it will a real advantage in the gaming space.

With that 3D feature in the device I’m certainly not expecting it to be cheap and I wonder, is anyone really crying out for 3D camera like this?

With an incoming surge of Tegra dual-core Android tablets and phones hitting the market Nvidia have made the move to highlight Tegra optimised games. To do this they have created a new Android app called Tegra Zone that will soon be available via the Android Market.

Tegra Zone will launch highlighting several games including Dungeon Defenders, Fruit Ninja HD, Back Breaker THD and Monster Madness. The highlight from that list is Dungeon Defends as it’s the first Unreal Engine 3 game to arrive on the Android platform offering immersive gameplay and stunning graphics.

Tegra Zone is designed to complement the Android Market as it offers additional information about the game such as professional reviews, gameplay videos and game trailers while at the same time allowing the user to download the game through the Android Market.

Source: Nvidia via TheNextWeb

The Engadget team got some quality time with a working Notion Ink tablet this morning and their report sreavels some good details about the performance, buid, screen and software.

One of the key features is the PixelQi screen which Engadget report to have good viewing angles, great sunlight reading characteristics but a slightly washed-out color mode. The build and weight is reported to be good for reading although at 1.5lbs (680gm) I’d argue that it’s still too heavy for long-term use. You need to be in under the 500gm mark for that. Admittedly that’s a huge challenge for a 10” device.

Engadget report some details about the UI but aren’t singing its praises at all -  “a few of us Engadget editors were perplexed by some of the features.”

Overall one gets the impression that all the software work might be in vain following news about Honeycomb today but it’s good to see the tablet working and, finally, a product for the Pixel QI display technology.

Check out the Engadget post for more details.

The tablet featured first in the press conference but there were no product announcements. We’ve actually left the event to head on out to the ASUS press conference.

The tablet has the “ability to allow is to enjoy nearly all the content that we would like to enjoy on a computer today” says Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who went on to talk up the potential market for tablets, his excitement and of course, the Tegra 2.

Surprisingly, he then said “have patience” and went on to explain that devices should come to market in the fall. Just how long is this Tegra story going to drag on?

Here are the relevant slides from the conference…

The UK company ICD (Innovative Converged Devices) has an interesting product called the Ultra. Its a 7” device based on the Nvidia Tegra 2 platform and runs Android. (Detailed overview here.) We weren’t able to see it running so we can’t confirm if this is a true Google Android phone device or just a build based on the open-source components. Like the Mobinnova Beam, if it comes with Google apps and the Marketplace, it’ a good indicator that Google are taking the non-voice segment seriously.

ICD Ultra specifications

The IC Ultra is heading for Verizon in the US and as ICD is known to be working with T-Mobile in the UK, we hope that it will reach the EU shores too.

Meet:Mobility Podcast 38 is now up. Recorded on Dec 30th 2009.

JKK, Sascha and I talk at length about the main CES 2010 topics including Pineview, consumer tablets and other mobile computing devices. Also covered: Camangi Webstation. Viliv N5. Tegra. Predictions for 2010.

Listen, subscribe or download the podcast at Meet:Mobility

You can also find the podcast on Mevio where it’s available in a number of different formats and on iTunes (Please rate the show on iTunes.) You can also subscribe via RSS.

Looking quite sexy and with a brain to match, this is one pad we’ll be keeping a close eye on when we go to CES in Jan.

It’s a large, 10.1-inch 1024×600 device running Android on a Nvidia Tegra T20 platform and has some really noteworthy features.

• Pixel QI screen – Lower power. Better outdoor readability.
• 3G
• A-GPS, Compass, ambient light and water sensor.
• HDMI out
• 3MP AF camera.

You won’t see that lot appear for under $500 but even if it’s $600, it would make a very interesting home-to-office device. 10.1-inches is a little too large for our liking and the 1.7lb weight means it’s a two-handed device but this is definitely an interesting product.  It reminds us of  the ‘Haiku’ Microsoft ‘Origami’ concept of 2006.

The Tegra T20 is unknown to us at the moment so this could also be something that will be announced at CES. Information available at the moment leads us to believe this could be the next-generation Tegra platform. We’re wondering whether this could be a multi-core Cortex A5 implementation; a natural progression path from the multi-core ARM11 that Tegra currently uses.

Notion Ink Tegra Android smartpad uses Pixel Qi display – SlashGear.