Nvidia Announces $99 MID, Tegra on Android

Today Nvidia released a couple of news items. It’s announcing the first $99 high-definition mobile internet device (MID). Also the company says its Tegra chip will run on Android devices while there will be continued Windows Mobile support into the future. $99 HD MID If the $99 HD MID with “days of battery life” that can play high-def video, game, play music, and more sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. There isn’t actually a $99 MID on the market today, but, Nvidia is announcing that it’s possible for manufacturers to create a device that can be sold at this price, and even lower in the $80-$85 range without Wi-Fi or 3G. When we asked how “all day battery life” was possible, given that most devices these days can’t top 10 hours at best, we were told that there’s a low cost battery in the system–a roughly 20 watt-hour battery, single cell–that will run continuously for 12-15 hours of Web to 1000 hours of audio.  The Tegra MIDs should offer “10x the battery life of Atom, too.” Nvidia expects Tegra-based MID devices to run Android on screen sizes between 6-12 inches with the largest being the “size of a Macbook Air.” Smaller slider or clam shell devices in the 4-inch range are also possible. Here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, though, there are rumors of potential manufacturers showing off an HD MID device and we’re going to work to hunt one down. Tegra on Android Nvidia also announced that its platform would support Android from here on out. It hopes that Android will be an attractive option alongside Windows Mobile or Windows CE, which Tegra currently supports. IAC and Yulong, two Asian OEMs, will be using Android in the S2 and N8 phones, respectively.