ViewSonic Viewpad 10s is tablet based on NVIDIA Tegra 2

If you are reading mobile world news these days from WMC in Barcelona, you are probably aware that there is more and more of mobile devices with Tegra 2 chip inside. I was lucky enough to grab a short hold of one of pre production samples from Viewsonic - Viewpad 10s to be precise.

I didn’t spend much time looking for design and manufacturing quality as they will improve in production models, but instead I was focused on performance and overall experience. As expected, Angry Birds were really flying on this tablet, but we discovered another, very interesting feature. Screen is wide, with 1024x600 pix resolution and beside much more pixels compared to common 800x480 resolution in Android world, combined with physical size it add another interesting benefit. I was able to zoom out enough to have sling and target on the same screen, and at the same time birds were big enough to precisely manipulate them in shooting targets.

Just for showing off power of new NVIDIA offering, I did try Dungeon Defenders. They worked like a charm, and although I don’t like gameplay on this kind of devices, I couldn’t help but to be amazed with overall visual quality. They improved one level up after hooking up to HDTV, with game screen on display at both devices simultaneously. For this kind of performance, you need a lot of graphic power, and just to show you what I am talking about, I run Quadrant benchmark which ended in impressive score of 2128 points, almost doubling Nexus One result with same version of Froyo OS.

Best part is still yet to come as Viewpad 10s has HDMI output (full size) for connecting to HD TV set. Games and videos are flying, and I was really impressed. At the last moment I was informed that in the latest firmware (will be in implemented in final product) there will be USB host support, and it will be possible to connect HID device like mouse or keyboard to it, and at the same watch the screen on HD TV. As expected, video reproduction was flawless, with same space for improvement in up-scaling department.

If you are still asking yourself if it is good, answer is very loud yes. There are many things to be sorted, like no Android market access, but it looks good, very good, especially if price don go over $500. Last info is that Viewsonic plans to introduce two different models, one with 3G connectivity to be sold via telecom providers, one with WiFi connection available for end users in IT shops.