ZTE's next-gen phone to use latest NVIDIA Tegra 4 chip

Chinese handset manufacturer ZTE is one of a trio of upstart companies from mainland China that have been making a wave in the smartphone market. During the third quarter of 2012, ZTE passed Taiwan based HTC to become the fourth largest smartphone manufacturer on the planet. Chip manufacturer NVIDIA is so taken with ZTE that they made sure to announce that the manufacturer will use a quad-core Tegra 4 processor for the next-generation ZTE handset, expected to be released in the first half of 2013. This contradicts earlier information that the first devices to use the Tegra 4 won't be released until August.

Not too much information was released by NVIDIA. Besides the quad-core Tegra 4 processor, the phone will use NVIDIA's i500 LTE modem. While NVIDIA recently announced a chip that integrates its modem with the Tegra applications processor, the Tegra 4i, ZTE will be using stand alone chips for application processing and for the LTE modem.

The ZTE Grand S is the most ambitious phone from ZTE to-date, although it has yet to launch. It is expected to be offered as a subsidized model for an unnamed U.S. carrier and will have a 5 inch FHD display with a 441ppi pixel density. But to prove what a big win today's announcement is for NVIDIA, the Grand S is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 processor.  Still, previous ZTE models, like the ZTE Grand X, did have a NVIDIA Tegra 2 under the hood.

source: GIGaom