My contract on my N900 is now up (and the sooner i get rid of TMobile the better) so i am looking to get a new phone soon (i like playing with new toys), i've searched the interweb and have seen lots of snippits about the new Nvidia Tegra 2 SoC which will be going into LG, Motorola, etc phones soon.

Is anyone looking at getting one of these new devices when they are released or will everyone be waiting for the N9?

Looking at the ruoured specs the Tegra 2 devices look like they will be pretty hardcore devices with a long spec list to impress, i', just wondering how heavy the battery will have to be.

Sadly battery tech doesn't improve as quickly as CPU and GPU technology for smartphones. From what I've seen of the Tegra 2 and dual core CPUs smartphones being worked on for Android the battery capacity is still the same compared to current-gen smartphones.

Well, there's been a TREMENDOUS amount of research into battery tech recently with some very promising ideas so far. Because of this green movement and the wave of electric cars that will replace internal combustion (and relatively soon), battery tech is a HOT business to be in. Some technologies hint at 4-10x the power capacity of current Lithium ION!!!

Thankfully, mobiles can't get too hot or they'll burn us or too large with cooling mechanisms, so heat is the regulating factor that prevents components that are inefficient. This is unlike the PC industry, where all sorts of cooling schemes are ok due to a stationary and much larger device.

In other words, don't get a Cortex A9 phone.
A 7"+ tablet? Go for it.
It's all about how much space you have for the battery, how much the processors will suck and how badly the software will suck (eg/ Galaxy S and battery management).

A 1GHz Cortex A8 seems to hit the (portability) limit of a smartphone me-thinks, but I'd gladly be proved wrong in the near future

Well if nividia is to be believed then tegra devices should actually use less power than most current processors. A quick google search for "nvidia tegra battery" reveals several site where it is discussed in depth.

http://images.bit-tech.net/news_imag...y-lif/teg1.jpg

This site in particular has a still from an nvidia presentation comparing tegra (i think its first generation tegra not tegra 2 but you can probably assume tegra 2 is just as good if not better), intel atom, and snapdragon. Like I said, pretty impressive if its to be believed.

why would you say that???? The new A9 chips are claimed to actually use 30% less battery and they are more powerful.

Yeah more power doesn't always mean more battery usage, like with the 45nm processors like A4, humminbird or OMAP36xx. And i have seen that to be real on my Galaxy S.

Though i tend to use my phones on the max quite a lot and i have to wonder can the first gen dual cores really improve or at least keep up with the 45nm A8 single cores on the battery usage when the device is crunching heavy stuff.

I was just saying that currently the battery life is okay (not so great) for A8.
The only exceptional device is the iPhone 4 and I think its due to better battery management on the software side.
I own a Galaxy S btw. The battery life on my device is surprising because it is mediocre at best. I could only expect to get better battery life with some software updates, but for now my limited/moderate use is just enough for a day.

I think the early dual-core A9 chips will have worse battery performance because they haven't been optimized yet.
Come mid-end 2011 I think we may see a different story.
But I'd like to be proven wrong, 'tis always nice to make my current beast obsolete.