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Nvidia Shield Tablet And Shield Controller Review

Nvidia Shield Tablet And Shield Controller Review
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The Shield Tablet, powered by Nvidia’s Tegra K1 SoC, deftly handles browsing and media playback duties. Combining it with the wireless Shield Controller transforms the 8-inch device into an exciting mobile gaming platform.

Nvidia entered the ultra-mobile market in 2008 when it announced the Tegra SoC. Microsoft’s Zune HD media player became the first design win the following year. Between then and now, Tegra processors continued to evolve, and while they appeared in a growing list of devices, they never stood out as premier performers.

In 2013, Nvidia decided to launch its own consumer-oriented products to promote Tegra and Android gaming. One of these was the Tegra Note 7, a 7-inch tablet with some unique features that faced stiff competition from the Nexus 7. The other product Nvidia created was a bit more unique.

For the Shield, now called Shield Portable, Nvidia wanted to produce something that wasn’t mainstream. A handheld gaming device with an integrated 5-inch 720p screen running Android definitely isn’t going to enjoy the same sales volume as an iPad or Samsung Galaxy phone. However, it found a following within the gaming community, and Nvidia’s presence did lend legitimacy to Android as a gaming platform. While the Shield Portable works well enough for its intended purpose, a specialized design doesn’t allow it to do much else.

Nvidia’s goal for the Shield Tablet is more ambitious: create a device that, first and foremost, is a great tablet, but also happens to be great for playing games. While it’s difficult to design hardware that excels at everything, it would certainly appeal to a wider audience, increasing sales, and, more importantly, emphasizing the advantages of Tegra and attracting game developers to Android.

Shield Tablet Tech Specs

For Nvidia to hit such a high mark, the Shield Tablet requires some powerful and power efficient hardware. Fortunately, the Tegra K1 SoC delivers. Like Tegra 4, the K1 uses four ARM Cortex-A15 cores tuned for high performance and one -A15 companion core that’s optimized for low power. Moving to a 28nm HPM process and a newer-revision architecture allows Nvidia to boost maximum CPU clock rate to 2.2GHz.

Previous Tegra SoCs weren’t held back by CPU performance though. Ironically, it was the GeForce ULP that consistently disappointed. For Tegra K1, Nvidia moves to a much more modern GPU derived from the Kepler architecture. While this mobile-tuned variant is understandably scaled down from the desktop version (Tegra K1 contains a single SMX with 192 CUDA cores), it’s still the same architecture and maintains full software compatibility. For more information about the new GPU and Tegra K1, be sure to read our Nvidia Tegra K1 In-Depth article.

The Tegra K1 is paired with 2GB of DDR3L-1866 RAM and either 16GB of on-board NAND for the Wi-Fi-only model or 32GB for the LTE version. Storage is expandable via microSD (up to 128GB).

Although lacking 802.11ac Wi-Fi support, the Shield Tablet does include 2x2 MIMO 802.11a/b/g/n (2.4 and 5GHz). There’s also Bluetooth 4.0 LE, micro-USB 2.0, and a mini-HDMI 1.4a port for outputting video to an external display.

The LTE version employs Nvidia’s Icera i500 Soft Modem, which includes eight programmable cores running at up to 1.3GHz. These specialized DSP cores are paired with a separate RF transceiver chip and support GSM/GPRS/EDGE, HSPA+ (42Mb/s), and LTE Category 3 (100Mb/s). Since the modem is handled in software, it can be upgraded to support additional standards. Nvidia’s documentation states that the Icera i500 is capable of supporting LTE Category 4 (150Mb/s) with Carrier Aggregation and HSPA+ (84Mb/s), but the Shield Tablet does not support the faster speeds in its initial shipping configuration.

All of this hardware is driven by a 19.75Whr (4938mAh, 4V) non-removable battery. That's roughly 20% less than similar 8-inch tablets like the Xiaomi Mi Pad, Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4, and iPad Mini with Retina Display. I don’t expect much of a power penalty from the newer revision -A15 cores, since many of ARM’s tweaks were specifically to reduce power draw. The GPU is an unknown, however. It will be interesting to see if Nvidia reduced Kepler’s power envelope to a level acceptable for a tablet. If not, the Shield Tablet’s relatively small battery may be its biggest weakness.

The -A15r3 CPU cores in Tegra K1, now running at comparable clock speeds to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoCs, should exceed the performance of all currently shipping CPUs except for Apple’s A7, which still maintains an IPC advantage. The Kepler GPU, with its desktop heritage, should easily outperform the mobile focused architectures of its competitors.

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    Trustdesa , 3 October 2014 22:13
    Tried it at EGX London, the frame rate in Trine, Portal was ridiculously low to be acceptable as "gamer" but impressive only if considering that it was running on a tablet.
  • 0 Hide
    James Orme , 5 October 2014 12:00
    Trine Framerate is much better now (I have one of the LTE ones). And believe me I have two Titans and can see if there is even Micro-lag and I get pissed off.

    I also tried Half life 2 on it and although there are odd bits of lag it generally stays at a high FPS.

    I think it needs more then 2GB of Ram so I will investigate if I can utilise the SD card for extra RAM (not sure if this can be done on Android as I have never looked)
  • 0 Hide
    Trustdesa , 5 October 2014 12:21
    Quote:
    Trine Framerate is much better now (I have one of the LTE ones). And believe me I have two Titans and can see if there is even Micro-lag and I get pissed off.

    I also tried Half life 2 on it and although there are odd bits of lag it generally stays at a high FPS.

    I think it needs more then 2GB of Ram so I will investigate if I can utilise the SD card for extra RAM (not sure if this can be done on Android as I have never looked)


    I have tried it last Sunday not two years ago and I have tried to the Nvidia area... so I am sure it was the latest version lol

    I am not saying that it is a bad product, as I love Nvidia too, but it is ok to play every now and then... I have also tried to connect it to a TV and things get even worse (again compared with a traditional gaming system) there is a reason why Trine requires a proper graphic card with massive fans to work so it is not something only related to RAM :) 

    However among the Andoid Tablet it is indeed the best for gaming (for the few games that doesn't have microtransaction / free to play or crap in general) and overall it is a good tablet!
  • 0 Hide
    mi1ez , 7 October 2014 22:13
    I still don't understand how I'm supposed to use this on the train! Balance on my legs?
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