I spent some time with Xolo’s implementation of Nvidia’s Tegra Note recently. It was an interesting experience, because some of the review period overlapped with Dell’s Venue 8 review period, so I ended up comparing both pretty closely.
It was an interesting comparison for a few reasons. First, they’re about the same price, and are both Android tablets. Second, they’re pretty different in almost all other respects. The Tegra Note has a more modern as well as faster processor and GPU, half as much RAM, a smaller physical footprint and also integrates a stylus in the package. Screen resolution was the same for both (720p), and displays were pretty decent IPS panels for both.
At the heart of the Tegra 4, lie 4 ARM Cortex A15 CPU cores with a low power companion core, also an A15, but clocked lower. The main quad core cluster can run at a peak of 1.8GHz, but by default is capped at 1.6GHz in the device’s “balanced” power profile. The GPU is basically a larger version of the one in the Tegra 3, and the architecture is pre-CUDA, so think of this as a cut down of the GeForce 7000 series part.
The Note’s most severe limitation has to be its 1GB of RAM. Secondary storage is not bad, with 16GB internal and a microSD expansion slot for 32GB more.
You can run demanding mobile games like Asphalt 8 on it without an issue. But the overall experience just had too much stutter. It could be that the power management on the cores was contributing to this, or it might even be the 1GB of RAM, I can’t tell.
There’s this issue of build quality too. It was generally good, though a bit plasticky, and the design at the back may not appeal to everyone. There was also a bit of creaking coming from the screen’s borders when stressed slightly, not too much of an issue really. But the screen had severe ghosting. The problem here could be on Xolo’s (basically Lava’s) end, not Nvidia’s, but this is a Form Factor Reference Design (FFRD) implementation in the end, so it’s difficult to tell.
The stylus experience wasn’t too bad, but I’m not sure if you can actually take notes or anything with it. Drawing was fun but simplistic, like MS Paint but with a stylus. Battery life was okay, really, it could last a day without much trouble.
So would I recommend it with the newer Nexus 7 being within a few thousand? For most people, no. But, if your purpose of buying a tablet is gaming, then the Note may be a worthwhile purchase.
