Nvidia: First $199 Kai Tablets Will Be Announced This Year

From PC World: The first tablets based on Nvidia's Kai platform, which is being built to enable quad-core, 7-inch Android devices for around US$200, will be announced in the second half of the year, an Nvidia executive said this week.

"During the course of the second half of the year you'll see a number of partners start to announce their $199 Tegra 3-based tablets," said Ujesh Desai, Nvidia's head of product marketing, in an interview at the Computex trade show in Taipei.

He wouldn't name the manufacturers but said there will be a mix of top-tier and lesser known vendors. "I think you'll be surprised," he said.

Kai was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and is an effort by Nvidia to produce a reference design for a 7-inch tablet that offers a reasonable level of performance at a low price.

That's a difficult challenge, as even Nvidia admits. "The truth is, it's incredibly difficult to manufacture a low-cost tablet at all, even with a compromised experience," it said in a blog post this week. But apparently it thinks it has found a way.

Kai tablets are intended in large part for fast-growing, developing markets such as China, but some models will likely be sold in the U.S. as well, Desai said.

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