We all thought that the first sighting of an Nvidia Tegra 3 chip, aka Kal-El, would be inside a tablet from Samsung, Motorola, Acer or one of the other big guns but, back in September at a trade show in China, it was ZTE who nabbed the début quad-core action.

And now, over in Vegas at CES, the Chinese company's 7-incher is on show at the Nvidia booth so we thought it would be rude if we didn't pay it a visit.

The ZTE T98, as it is labelled in the phone settings menu, apart from the quad-core (or should that be pent-core?) action, also packs Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich, has a 1280 x 800 HD display, boasts 1GB of RAM and offers 16GB of onboard storage.

Cameras are 5- and 2-megapixel, with 1080p action mentioned - although this is probably referring to its output. There's a 4,000mAh battery built in and it measures in at 11.5mm thin. It's not rivalling Victoria Beckham on the skinny front then, but the curved sliver edges do make it appear slimmer than it is.

Our quick test involved a game of Riptide GP (don't all Tegra 3 tests these days?) and some HD video action and, not surprisingly thanks to Nvidia's new baby, all was buttery smooth.

There's no word on pricing or availability as of yet although the suggestion is that it's Hong Kong and Taiwan bound to begin with. We'll keep you posted - it's gonna be a bumper year for Android tabs it seems.