LG to release powerful Nvidia smartphones in Q4

Tegra 2 coming to LG's smartphones
Tegra 2 coming to LG's smartphones

LG has announced a deal with Nvidia to bring its powerful Tegra 2 processor to its mobile phone range later this year.

LG is promising that the Tegra 2 chips will be part of its Optimus range of mobile phones, with a UK release date set for Q4 of this year.

The Tegra 2 chips will see the first handsets with dual core CPUs, as well as low-power GPUs for better graphical reproduction and 1080p video processing to boot.

Not only will the dual-core processors help increase battery life, web browsing will be up to two times faster and gaming performance will be five times quicker, compared to today's 1GHz offerings, such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon.

An Xbox in your pocket

LG is also promising 'console-quality' gaming and 3D capabilities, so we could see 3D phones in 2010, which has been much-rumoured for some time.

When Nvidia first launched its Tegra 2 chips earlier this year, they were tipped for use in the tablet market only - so it's interesting to see they've already moved to smartphones.

"LG is committed to making its Optimus Series smart devices the de facto standard in speed and graphics performance," said Chang Ma, Vice President of Marketing Strategy Team for LG.

"We selected Nvidia because it is the visual computing leader and has a long history of creating amazing consumer experiences."

LG is set to release both the Optimus One Android handset and the Optimus 7 Windows Phone 7 in Q4 this year, so we could see a sneaky bit of Tegra 2 in there as well, although we'd expect it's more likely to debut in new Optimus phones.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.