The Nvidia Shield Tablet Review (opens in new tab)

(anandtech.com)

38 pointscrazysaem11y ago18 comments

18 comments

I was waiting for over half a year for the next shield and am very disappointed it's a tablet. I liked the original shield because it allows to stream PC games throughout my house, so that I can play them on my couch or in bed. The other awesome thing is playing emulators on the go. With the tablet I can't do any of those properly, because the controller is not built in and I need to have a place to set up the tablet. So I can't play it on the train or anywhere in my house excepts my desk or my dining room table. If you already have a tablet (or 2 in my case) and wanted this as a gaming device, then that's a bummer. It's too bad. Everything that targets hardcore gamers fails.

staz11y ago

same feeling here, I don't understand the switch, the interesting thing about the Shield was the form factor. Now it only provide a moderate aventage over existing tablet + Xbox controller

cwyers11y ago

It's not a switch. The point of the Shield line is to create a market for Tegra chips. Adding a second form factor is an attempt to broaden their potential customer base, and more directly compete with traditional tablets. The original Shield is still for sale. (I love mine, and I am certainly open to buying another revision of the original shield with a K1 at some point, but this isn't in place of that.)

shmerl11y ago

An example of regular glibc Linux running on Nvidia Jetson TK1 board (same chipset as in Shield) on fully open stack (nouveau + Wayland):

http://www.codethink.co.uk/2014/06/12/no-secret-sauce-just-o...

I wonder if there are open drivers for other components in Shield (WiFi, accelerometer, etc.) to enable running fully open stack on it. I'd really like to have something like Nemo or Plasma Active running on top of Wayland there.

jwise011y ago

(I work for NVIDIA, but not on the Shield team, and am speaking only in a personal capacity, not a corporate capacity.)

There has been a source release to build Android, at least [0] -- the open source teams, I've found, are very very careful about pushing source the same day they push binaries of updates. I think that WiFi and accelerometer bits are in the kernel, and since they're in the kernel, the source is available [1]. It looks like the binary blobs are for camera, GPS, GPU, and Icera (3G/LTE radio); if you're using Nouveau, then although GPU usage may not be the most power-efficient, you should have most of what you need to run the system.

[0] http://nv-tegra.nvidia.com/gitweb/?p=manifest/android/binary...

[1] http://nv-tegra.nvidia.com/gitweb/?p=linux-3.10.git;a=shortl...

shmerl11y ago

Thanks, that sounds promising! 3G/LTE is rarely open, and I'd go for the WiFi model anyway if anything. Touchscreen driver is also critical for a tablet though.

Do you know if Linux for Tegra R19 (https://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra-rel-19) is using those kernel drivers for WiFi/accelerometer, or that's a bare minimum release?

Also, if this isn't of course under some NDA and etc, do you know if Nvidia plan to merge development of the closed Tegra driver with nouveau for K1? Since Nvidia contributed some code already, may be they consider switching to the same approach like Intel?

Deusdies11y ago

I'm somewhat disturbed by the fact that Samsung (and Apple) seems to be the only one that is pushing for >= 10" tablets. I had a Galaxy Tab S Pro which is not that great (heard the Note line is very good). I ended up gifting it to my dad and I bought myself an iPad, even though I'm heavily invested in Android.

Nexus 10 has no successor, and LG is not coming out with anything with that diagonal, and now this.

dm211y ago

I have a 21 inch "tablet" hanging on my office wall, it's pretty useful as a dashboard and I can put it on a standing desk for typing up emails and watching videos, http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ads/aio-products/slate21-pro.html

ajmurmann11y ago

would be nice if it wasn't power cord bound.

1 more reply

mkl11y ago

Bigger tablets definitely exist, but the thing is they're much bigger, and many don't run on battery. Search "android all in one" to find them. Here are some examples:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/192-7938256-6859156...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2152540/android-on-the-big-sc...

http://www.asus.com/AllinOne_PCs/ASUS_Transformer_AiO_P1801/

zanny11y ago

The Transformer series is usually good. Don't like the proprietary plug though. My 2012 model lasted well and I gave it to my mother as a gaming device that she is still using to this day. The Tegra 3 chip kinda sucked though.

There was no N10 successor because apparently it didn't sell well enough.

1 more reply

ou81211y ago

I just picked up a Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, and I love the size! The display is amazing. It's fast, too. A pretty nice upgrade from my Nexus 10.

ajmurmann11y ago

Agreed. I would love a 15" tablet for watching movies in bed.

1 more reply

anon411y ago

If only it had 4-8GB RAM. I could actually see myself do stuff on it other than play games. It comes with a stylus and SD card slot! That's almost my whole checklist for a dream tablet:

1. stylus with good support

2. SD card slot

3. powerful hardware

4. lots of RAM

I can't understand why they put so little in.

dm211y ago

They might have tested it and found that it just wasn't an advantage to having more RAM.

The RAM they have in there is pretty fast and the SSD to RAM might be fast enough and Android's RAM management good enough that more than 2GB just isn't necessary (but I haven't seen those tests, just guessing).

There could also be a battery life reason.

It looks like the test/dev/beta version of the Shield did have 4GB of RAM, so I'm guessing there was a decent reason they reduced it.

http://www.droid-life.com/2014/04/23/nvidia-shield-2-gets-be...

msh11y ago

What do you need the ram for? I can't see anything in the Android ecosystem using it.

mschuster9111y ago

Interesting why they didn't license Wacom tech like Samsung did for the Note family.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

18 comments

ajmurmann11y ago

staz11y ago

same feeling here, I don't understand the switch, the interesting thing about the Shield was the form factor. Now it only provide a moderate aventage over existing tablet + Xbox controller

cwyers11y ago

shmerl11y ago

An example of regular glibc Linux running on Nvidia Jetson TK1 board (same chipset as in Shield) on fully open stack (nouveau + Wayland):

http://www.codethink.co.uk/2014/06/12/no-secret-sauce-just-o...

jwise011y ago

(I work for NVIDIA, but not on the Shield team, and am speaking only in a personal capacity, not a corporate capacity.)

[0] http://nv-tegra.nvidia.com/gitweb/?p=manifest/android/binary...

[1] http://nv-tegra.nvidia.com/gitweb/?p=linux-3.10.git;a=shortl...

shmerl11y ago

Thanks, that sounds promising! 3G/LTE is rarely open, and I'd go for the WiFi model anyway if anything. Touchscreen driver is also critical for a tablet though.

Do you know if Linux for Tegra R19 (https://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra-rel-19) is using those kernel drivers for WiFi/accelerometer, or that's a bare minimum release?

Deusdies11y ago

Nexus 10 has no successor, and LG is not coming out with anything with that diagonal, and now this.

dm211y ago

ajmurmann11y ago

would be nice if it wasn't power cord bound.

1 more reply

mkl11y ago

Bigger tablets definitely exist, but the thing is they're much bigger, and many don't run on battery. Search "android all in one" to find them. Here are some examples:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/192-7938256-6859156...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2152540/android-on-the-big-sc...

http://www.asus.com/AllinOne_PCs/ASUS_Transformer_AiO_P1801/

zanny11y ago

There was no N10 successor because apparently it didn't sell well enough.

1 more reply

ou81211y ago

I just picked up a Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, and I love the size! The display is amazing. It's fast, too. A pretty nice upgrade from my Nexus 10.

ajmurmann11y ago

Agreed. I would love a 15" tablet for watching movies in bed.

1 more reply

anon411y ago

If only it had 4-8GB RAM. I could actually see myself do stuff on it other than play games. It comes with a stylus and SD card slot! That's almost my whole checklist for a dream tablet:

1. stylus with good support

2. SD card slot

3. powerful hardware

4. lots of RAM

I can't understand why they put so little in.

dm211y ago

They might have tested it and found that it just wasn't an advantage to having more RAM.

There could also be a battery life reason.

It looks like the test/dev/beta version of the Shield did have 4GB of RAM, so I'm guessing there was a decent reason they reduced it.

http://www.droid-life.com/2014/04/23/nvidia-shield-2-gets-be...

msh11y ago

What do you need the ram for? I can't see anything in the Android ecosystem using it.

mschuster9111y ago

Interesting why they didn't license Wacom tech like Samsung did for the Note family.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse