![]() ![]() On the front face it boasts a pair of basic analog sticks, a traditional d-pad and the usual YXAB buttons, mirroring an XBOX controller’s format. This $60 peripheral is, in our opinion, an essential purchase especially if you are buying the SHIELD for its GameStream abilities. In keeping with that knowledge, NVIDIA designed a purpose-built controller for their SHIELD Tablet, one which is also compatible with most PC games that can be streamed through it. Simply put, touch screens exhibit too much room for error to be considered viable game controllers. If you ask any gamer about the worst elements of Android games, one subject that typically comes up is horrible input experience that comes with flailing around a touch screen in an effort to keep up with onscreen action. Other than that, we really can’t find much to complain about since the form NVIDIA chose maximizes screen size while still retaining an acceptable device size. Google’s Nexus 7, Apple’s iPad and many other tablets feature slightly rounded edges that improve grip and help with overall comfort. There’s a bit of a beveled edge here but it doesn’t do much for enhancing comfort. The 8” size can easily be manipulated in a single hand, the sharp edges created by the razor-thin transition between the glass and frame make holding the SHELD Tablet a bit uncomfortable. While the design is stunning to look at, ergonomics could be a bit better. Whereas the original SHIELD was a bulky affair, this one is light at just 390 grams and no thicker than most smartphones which makes it infinitely more portable and useful in a wider variety of situations. Meanwhile, a thickness of 9.2mm belies the impressive amount of processing horsepower residing within the body’s restricted confines. Its 8” screen has a relatively minimal border and is covered in edge to edge Gorilla Glass which terminates on each side at a nearly seamless edge. The first thing you will likely notice about the SHIELD Tablet is its high quality construction. While in relative terms the K1 has only about 1/3 the processing power of a GTX 750, NVIDIA’s lowest-end Kepler product consumes 55W while the entire K1 SoC, including those 192 CUDA cores requires less than 2W when fully engaged. This has allowed them to leverage the full stable of advanced technologies they’ve built up over the years, granting a huge advantage over the competition. There has been a lot of talk about the K1’s inclusion of a Kepler GPU and there’s good reason for that: while most tablet SoC’s use third party graphics accelerators, NVIDIA has taken theirs directly from the PC world. While the 2.2GHz processor may not the the fastest on the black anymore, it has proven to be more than sufficient for application acceleration duties. At its heart lies NVIDIA’s new Tegra K1 SoC which combines a 192-core dedicated graphics coprocessor, a quad core ARM A15 CPU running at 2.2GHz and 2GB of memory. Now we finally have it in the wild and after two weeks of intensive use, our enthusiasm hasn’t been diminished and if anything the excitement has grown a bit because the amount of potential here is nearly limitless.įorm a specifications standpoint, the SHIELD Tablet is everything one could possibly want from a high end handheld. Judging by our hands on preview, NVIDIA certainly seemed to be on the right track with the SHIELD Tablet but that first look was done under controlled conditions. More importantly, while other tablets like ASUS’ Transformer series have largely been on the leading front of technology and provide a more than adequate Android gaming experience, NVIDIA’s offering is able to do so much more and a very competitive price. With a focus on delivering the ultimate portable gaming experience alongside all the usual features normally associated with high end tablets, this version of SHIELD hopes to accomplish a lot. The SHIELD Tablet isn’t NVIDIA’s first foray into the tablet market -the original Tegra Note carries that distinction- so it goes without saying that previous experiences have been strong influencers this time around. ![]()
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