The Tegra chipset has been primarily the domain of high-end smartphones but the just-announced ZTE Mimosa X shows that NVIDIA is serious about capturing all parts of the market. While it’s not as exciting as the quad-core Tegra 3 phones we’re expecting at Mobile World Congress 2012, the ZTE Mimosa X packs enough features and power to make many customers happy.
The ZTE Mimosa X is said to be aimed “squarely at the mainstream,” so look for it to come in at a reasonable price wherever it winds up selling. The smartphones will be powered by the dual-core Tegra 2 processor with the GeForce GPU, it sports a 4.3-inch qHD display at 960 x 540 resolution, will run Android Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box and has a 5-megapixel camera on the back.
Interestingly enough, this will also use the Icera modem, a company which NVIDIA acquired in May of 2011. NVIDIA will be able to offer an integrated Icera modem with its chipsets in 2013 and this will give it a stronger chance to succeed against industry giant Qualcomm. NVIDIA will also have to battle chip-making beheamouth Intel over the next few years.
As for ZTE, this device shows that it can produce a good-looking handset with powerful features at scale but you have to wonder if it has something else up its sleeves for MWC. The Mimosa X should land in the second quarter but we’re still not clear on which markets it will land in and at what price.
Regardless, we’ll soon be in Barcelona and give you our hands-on impressions of the ZTE Mimosa X as soon as we possibly can.