HTC Quattro will Probably Cost under $300

When a week ago we talked about the probability that HTC will launch a quad-core powered tablet, it seemed unbelievable, as right before it the company had announced its first quad-core smartphone, the HTC Edge. So we didn’t think the Taiwanese company would drastically switch from Qualcomm to Nvidia. Moreover, there’s also another smartphone with the same processor, the HTC Zeta. As you see Nvidia is more than serious and in coming months it’ll take the crown from Qualcomm, regardless of the efforts the latter is making. And it doesn’t refer only to the power of CPUs, but to prices as well.

As you know HTC’s first tablet, Flyer is currently available at a price tag of $299.99. But it runs only on a 1.5GHz single-core Qualcomm processor, so the upcoming HTC Quattro is assumed to cost more. Fortunately, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told a few tech journalists the company would likely see the price of Tegra 3 tablets drop to below $300 in just a few quarters.

All in all, this is a logical decision, because Nvidia has long term goals concerning Tegra 3 chipsets. I mean an earlier announcement, which states the Tegra 3+ devices will become available in mid-2012, followed by Project Wayne in early 2013. The last one comes with 10-20 times the performance of Tegra 2. So as soon as these chipsets appear on the market, Tegra 3-powered devices won’t be that competitive.

Anyway, at the moment we don’t worry about Nvidia’s future plans, but it’s very nice to hear the tablets like the HTC Quattro will be available for a few dollars.

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