Nvidia Talks $299 Tegra 3 Tablets and the Challenge of Competing Against the iPad

Toppling the iPad has proved more difficult than some manufacturers might have anticipated. Is it because the iPad is a superior tablet to everything else that's available? Some would argue that's precisely why Apple's magical slate is able to conjure up so many sales, but as far as Nvidia is concerned, there are other factors that give the iPad a distinct advantage.

While speaking to the press in New York on Friday, Jen-Hsun Huang, the often outspoken CEO of Nvidia, said the iPad's main advantage is that Apple can sell the device through its own store instead of having to lean on retailers like Best Buy, The Wall Street Journal reports.


"Everything sold through Best Buy has to pay Best Buy a margin," Huang explained.

The upcoming Eee Pad Transformer Prime from Asus is built around Nvidia's Tegra 3 platform.

As far as Huang is concerned, everything else is secondary and more easily solved, like creating a better usability experience, craftsmanship, and cost. On that latter point, Amazon (Kindle Fire) and Barnes & Noble (Nook Tablet) seem to have it solved, though both ended up cutting corners in the features department and are leaning heavily on their own content platforms in order offer a lower cost slate.

With regards to future tablets, Huang talked up its recently introduced Tegra 3 platform and said it will show up in $299 tablets within the next couple of quarters. He didn't say whether those would be full size (9.7-inch) tablets or 7-inch slates like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, but either way, a $299 Tegra 3 slate sounds rad, doesn't it?