Fine Oils: EVGA Tegra Note 7 Tablet Going To Retail

This particular re-badged model is on Newegg with an "exclusive" pre-order for $199 and will be shipped, or launched on November 19th. Reviewers of all major tech sites got their units to play, and Anandtech had even some time to benchmark this EVGA slate.

I have no desire to retell their stories. You can find them all over the Internet. My own take on Tegra Note is still the same:

1. A hypothetical (or real, in case of Huiwei Fly One) upgraded Tegra Note model with

-- 1920x1080 IPS screen
-- 2 GB of RAM

could be an absolute killer among all tablets of 2013. It's not just me talking, it's everyone's take, so maybe NVIDIA hears this whining and release that second upgraded prototype as reference design for some, or the same re-badgers. At $250 or so, it will sell as hot cakes this Christmas.

2. All reviewers seem in awe of stylus prowess of Tegra Note. It's a pity that NVIDIA didn't equip the slate with more sophisticated drawing/painting app, to show off. OneNote style OCR would also shine on it. Anand himself got very confused when discovering that Tegra Note may have less latency in its stylus tracing than MS Surface 2. Think about it a little bit more: this is an "oldie" Android 4.2.2 device, and not your KitKat ART-wielding speed demon.

3. Nobody really reviewed plenty of other unique features of this Note, starting with Always-On HDR, HD Audio, etc. Sure, it's too early. But just for this stylus that might (God forbid!) beat Wacom stylus in my Fujitsu Lifebook T5010 one day, I think the EVGA Tegra Note 7 tablet is worth every penny of its $199. Stylusophobic Steve Jobs might turn in his grave, but this good stylus is a fact of life now:

Of course, lovers of smearing their finger oils over hi-res screens can stick with their Nexus 7 2013s.

4. On a side note, a missing (or not) AO HDR is not a big mystery. A real mystery is can Snapdragon 800 or the latest Apple's A7X (or what was that?) handle 150 scans per second of their respective sensors to boast similar styli, or not?

UPDATE:
It's always worth to check the real product called "EVGA Tegra Note 7 Tablet" against the NVIDIA September projections:

Ultra-fast performance — Powered by Tegra 4 with a 72-core GeForce GPU and quad-core Cortex-A15 CPU with a fifth battery-saver core, making Tegra Note the world’s fastest 7-inch tablet. That's true, even Anandtech admits that in 90 % of benchmarking cases.

Superb stylus — NVIDIA DirectStylus technology transforms a normal stylus into an incredibly responsive experience with finer point and broader stroke control. It also comes bundled with apps for convenient, stroke-based note taking. That's true, too, NVIDIA has just forgot to mention that this stylus is also pressure-sensitive, to an extent.

Exceptional sound — NVIDIA PureAudio technology offers rich, deep audio — including the widest frequency range in a tablet — through front-facing stereo speakers with a bass-reflex port. That's confirmed -- except for nobody of reviewers fiddled with that "bass-reflex port" to hear the difference. IMHO, in general, it was a bad idea to hide already feeble speaker(s) on the back or on the edges of any tablet, especially in the areas where user tends to cover them with fingers of his/her holding hands.

Groundbreaking camera — The camera uses Tegra 4’s processing power and Chimera computational photography architecture to deliver stunning new features. Tegra Note also brings SmugMug’s Camera Awesome app — one of the top camera apps on iOS — to Android. Camera Awesome delivers exclusive Tegra 4 features like tap-to-track and 100 fps video with slow-motion playback. Always-On HDR mode wasn't mentioned then, and sure, it will be available some time before Christmas.

TegraZone gaming — Delivering unmatched gaming, NVIDIA TegraZone provides easy access to Tegra-optimized games with visual effects that aren’t available on other tablets. Tegra Note also supports a variety of game controllers for console-class gaming. I'm not a gamer, so I have no say here, but those connoisseurs of online Nvidia game streaming might be disappointed by lack of 5 GHz range in Tegra Note WiFi chip. If this slate will become popular (and I sure it will be among frugal gamers), NVIDIA should think of making GameStream available for it on single band, or producing a USB 5GHz/802.11ac/Miracast WiFi dongle accessory for it.

Great battery life — 10-plus hours of HD video playback. Well, it's about it, but everyone cheats about great battery life of their products, so these 10 hours were probably achieved without WiFi, BT, GPS, at 50 % backlight and volume, and underclocked.

Accessories galore — An intelligent slide cover flips and bends to support and cover the tablet. It also lets the tablet be set up in three distinct positions using built-in magnets for added flexibility. Well, in EVGA's understanding, "galore" of accessories included in a box amounts to a single stylus, USB charger, and USB cable, that's it. Slide cover is extra for some $20 or so, a rounded, sharper stylus (or tip) is also an extra, for another $20 or so. Cover for SD card is absent and not even offered as accessory. Which kinda sucks, even if so little.

The DirectStylus Pro Pack enables a variety of writing styles with interchangeable tips. And Bluetooth capabilities turn the tablet into a game controller. Well, sure. Where are those tips? Is there an eraser present on the other end of a "stock" stylus?

Well, I hope NVIDIA will be successful with its 4th Tegra this time not just to stop a chain of flops with all previous Tegras, but also to prototype a good 7-8-incher running Tegra 6 with 2K IGZO MEM display and 3-4 GB of fast RAM, plus 12+ hours of gaming on single battery charge. 2014, here I come.