There have been rumblings of a sub-$200 Nvidia tablet for several months but thus far, nothing has materialized. Nvidia teamed up with Asus at CES to showcase a $250 quad-core slate which is still MIA some four months later. That could all change in the near future as VP Rob Csonger revealed a new tablet platform during a recent annual investor meeting.
The Kai platform will enable Nvidia and its partners to deliver $199 quad-core tablets to market, perhaps as early as this summer. These new tablets will use a lot of the "secret sauce" found inside Tegra 3 in addition to using a lot of innovation to reduce display power usage and utilizing lower cost components.
Csonger didn't delve into any additional details but its sounding like Kai could be a stripped down version of Tegra 3, perhaps similar to what Intel does with their Celeron processors. At this point we also expect nothing less than Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to come pre-loaded on a new tablet.
The idea of a mainstream $199 tablet seemed like a pipe dream not too long ago but products like the Kindle Fire have shown us that it can be a reality, and very successful to boot. Timing could work in Nvidia's favor if they are able to get products into the hands of consumers this summer or sometime in the fall before the wave of Windows 8 tablets flood the market.