Motorola’s 10-inch Android 3.0 Tablet Has Tegra 2 Processor

Motorola badly wants in on the Android tablet game and its first shot at the form factor has been confirmed to pack a dual-core processor from NIVIDA. This can be none other than the Tegra 2 chipset that will also power at least two of Motorola’s smart phones next year. A couple of screen shots of the 10” tablet have appeared online now—“Confidential Motorola Restricted Property: Not for Sale” is stamped on the back—and some unofficial specs have also been leaked.

Rumored specs of Motorola’s unnamed, 10-inch Android tablet:

• 10” touchscreen at 1280×800
• 1 GHz, dual-core NIVIDA Tegra 2 processor
• 32 GB of internal storage
• Micro USB port
• Mini HDMI port (the Tegra 2 chipset supports 1080p video playback)
• microSD card slot
• Android OS 3.0 ‘Gingerbread’
• Verizon will probably be the first carrier to offer the tablet
• Gyroscope support for games

This is quite a bit to go on. Acer is also going with the Tegra 2 processor in its announced but so far unnamed, large sized tablet because of the 1080p HD video playback abilities the chipset supports. While Motorola has not released a name for its coming tablet, the names ‘Trygon’, ‘Everest’ and ‘Stingray’ are all possibilities.

Interestingly, Motorola’s coming two Tegra 2 powered smart phones—the Motorola Olympus and Motorola Etna—are both named after mountains. My money is on Everest. Don’t hold me to that however, as product names change up to the last minute all the time and these could all just be internal codenames and not actual brand names.

Motorola has been doing very well with Android on Verizon’s network so the fact that Verizon Wireless is the first expected carrier is no surprise. How well Motorola’s tablet will fare now that Verizon is selling Apple iPads bundled with MiFi mobile hotspots for 3G network connectivity is another story. Especially since Verizon is expected to offer some version of Apple’s coming iPad 2 next year.

Regardless of which camp you stand in—iPad or Android tablet—you have to admit that manufacturers are really upping the bar with 1080p capable hardware and dual-core processors. The Tablet Wars are almost upon us. The Samsung Galaxy S Tab was just the first of the coming wave. Just like there are so many Android smart phones available, Android tablets will soon start flooding the market. More competition means better products for all of us.