Guess what the first word of this Nvidia video is? a) Welcome b) Today c) Intel

The Tegra demonstration is impressive, showing HD video content being decoded in around 1W instead of 12W but they clearly didn’t cover all bases. For a start, you can’t even run a big screen backlight at 1W and if I’m doing my research correctly I can see that Tegra doesn’t include a communications and radio subsystem. Even so, what exactly are they trying to compare here? They are putting a general purpose CPU (i’m guessing its Celeron there) against a dedicated video codec in a video decoding test. Not only that, they are showing their new tech against Intel’s old tech. Booo!

I’m sure the NVidia board is impressive but come on guys, lets see you doing some general purpose computing with Wifi, BT, 3G, storage, USB and compare it against a Silverthorne/Poulsbo combo that will do the same in a MID-sized board in under 5W. Bring out the MIDs Nvidia. Or better still, send them to me and I’ll perform a special selection of Chippy tests on them.

In an article over at CNet, Mike Rayfield, general manager of NVidia’s mobile business reveals that the company will show its new Tegra platform and a MID reference design (left) this week.

Tegra comes in 600 and 600Mhz flavours and will be formerly revealed tomorrow if earlier news is correct. It will be interesting to see if this is a Cortex A8 based device with enough processing power to give the Atom Z-Series a run for it’s money.

The reference design looks like an oversize Nokia N96 to me which certainly isn’t a bad thing as it’s likely to have a bigger 4.8″ screen at Internet-friendly resolutions. You could also fit a nice big battery in there for all-day life.

One really interesting aspect of the ‘leak’ details is that the design is being built exclusively to work with Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile 7 is mentioned too. The article also hints that the MID-range extends from 4-inch minitablets (with keyboards hopefully) up to subnotebooks for NVidia. Stick that in your diagram Steve!

Update: Engadget published a few more details:

• The first Tegra systems will be handhelds or small laptops with screens ranging in size from 4-inches to 12-inches.
• Starting prices for the initial devices will range from $199 to $249
• More at Engadget

Update: Gizmodo have an image that seems to suggest that Tegra uses an ARM11 core but its not 100% clear where the image comes from.

I’ll be keeping an eye on new Nvidia Computex website over the next 24 hours. Also note that there’s a MID section on the ARM website that shows the N95 and iPhone as new products.

Update. ARM issued a press release. Tegra will use the ARM11 MPCore (up to four cores) technology.