We have received confirmation from Nvidia that the company’s Tegra Note 7 tablet is getting the latest version of Google’s Android operating system, codenamed Android L.
The Tegra Note 7 is an affordable tablet based on the Tegra 4 SoC and it performs rather well given its price range, beating the somewhat cheaper Nexus 7 powered by an ancient Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC. One of the key goals of Nvidia tablets and gaming devices such as Nvidia Shield is to give its customers the latest and greatest operating system. This is the reason why they will deliver Android L to Tegra Note 7 owners.
No exact date
Tegra Note 7 currently runs Android 4.4.2 and Nvidia officially confirmed that Tegra Note 7 is going to get Android L as soon as Google makes it publicly available. We are aware that Nvidia is not in a position to give any precise launch date for this software, but it won't be long after Google announces it for its own products.
We should be also about some upcoming Tegra products, namely the new HTC tablet, codenamed Volantis. This Tegra K1 based tablet is also getting Android L. With the announcement of hardware based on the next generation Tegra K1 64-bit SoC, codenamed Denver, 64-bit capable Android L ART runtime might speed things up for some memory intensive applications.
What about the rumoured Shield Tablet?
We have mentioned that Shield Tablet is coming with a higher resolution screen and better build quality and if the spec looks anything like Xiaomi's Mi Pad it will be a heck of a device at an affordable price. The 4:3 form factor that goes against iPad mini Retina is not really a surprise as the market reacted well to Apple’s “invention” 4:3 displays and QXGA 2048x1536 resolution.
The Tegra Note 7 was mainly criticized for having just 1GB of memory and a 1280x720 resolution screen, but to be honest the resolution is sufficient given the limited size of the screen. The difference between 1GB and 2GB of memory in everyday use exists, but it is not as big as you may think.
On the upside, Nvidia provides the latest OS updates, which means it does not suffer from the disease that poisons most of the Android tablet community. Nvidia played the software update card really well and plans to continue, with plain Android and timely updates.
