Asus chooses Qualcomm over Intel for LTE-enabled MeMo Pad FHD 10

ASUS MeMO Pad FHD10
We’ve already given you a roundup of all the new devices announced by Asus at the Computex expo in Taiwan this year, but as it turns out, the Taiwan-based OEM is not done yet. According to a new post on Engadget, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen took the stage at Qualcomm’s Computex 2013 keynote to showcase yet another Android tablet — one that was not included in the original Asus press conference.

If you’re curious to know what it is, then read on. As you may already know, Asus announced a number of new Android-powered tablets during its press event. One of them was the 10-inch MeMo Pad FHD 10. Its main features include a 10-inch Full HD screen, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and most importantly, an Intel Atom processor. The version announced during the Asus press event is supposed to have built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, among other things. What about a version with built-in 4G LTE?

Well, Asus is indeed going to release an LTE-enabled counterpart to this particular tablet. However, it will not be running on the same Intel chip as the Wi-Fi-only model. Instead, it will utilize a Snapdragon Qualcomm chip with an accompanying LTE radio. And that is why it was unveiled at Qualcomm’s own keynote instead of the one Asus did a couple of days ago.

What does this mean? We can’t say for sure, but it’s likely that Intel was not able to finish its work on the new XMM 7160 LTE chip in time for Asus to make use of it. It’s a good thing that Intel is following through on its earlier promise of launching a new processor family that uses the new Silvermont microarchitecture, but it’s clear that it’s still got its work cut out for it as long as industry giants like NVIDIA and Qualcomm are still in business.

Will we ever see an Intel-based Android tablet with 4G LTE? Perhaps in the future. But one thing we know for sure is that the Asus MeMo Pad FHD 10 LTE — which is said to be scheduled for an official launch some time this fall — won’t be one of them.

By | 2013-06-05T03:00:13+00:00 June 5th, 2013|Android Related, Just the Tablets|0 Comments

About the Author:

Vancouver, Canada

Leave A Comment