ZTE U988S (first Tegra 4 phone) inching closer to release

As you well know by now, Nvidia’s newest mobile chip, the Tegra 4, is shaping up to be an illustrious dud, despite its makers trying to turn the tables by manufacturing devices powered by the CPU from scratch.

But we should still see at least half a dozen of Tegra 4-powered gadgets out and about soon enough and built by other OEMs than Nvidia. Most of these will be tabs or hybrids, like the HP SlateBook x2, Slate 8 Pro or Acer TA272, while the only smartphone officially confirmed as of yet is the ZTE U988S “Geek”.

This fellow has been introduced to the world more than a month ago, but ZTE has left a number of blanks to be filled in subsequently, including the phone’s official release date and pricing. The spec sheet had pretty big holes in it as well, most of which have remained that way even now.

Then again, we at least know how much ZTE will charge for the U988S… in China. Namely, 1,999 Yuan sans contractual obligations, which is roughly 320 US bucks. Sounds cheap? Well, it is.

Whatever you might have against the Tegra 4 (and there are plenty of things), the SoC remains a wickedly zippy one, almost as fast in fact as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800. And do you know of any S800-powered devices priced at $350, $450, $550 or at least $650? Exactly.

Not to mention the ZTE U988S has a number of strong suits besides the quad-core processor clocked at 1.8 GHz. There’s a 5-inch Full HD screen, 2 GB of RAM, a 13 MP rear-facing camera, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and even Dolby sound enhancement.

Pretty neat, only we still don’t know when is the thing supposed to be up on Asian store shelves and if it’s ever to make its way to American or European shores. Fingers crossed, right?