A tablet for gaming – nVidia shield

Though released and announce long time ago, I decided to make a short review of this extraordinary device, made from nVidia especially for gaming. But what makes it so special? Super GPU? Continue reading and you will find out.

Now we all know that when it comes to graphic performance and video cards, nVidia is a winner. So they decided to make a gaming tablet, which gives the best gaming experience for the tablet users, but did they succeed in this? In fact they did, but the real question I would rather ask is “are tablets capable of giving good gaming experience?”. This is the question we should think more about, because in the last quarters, the tablet as a device has lost big percentages in the market. Hybrid devices, ultrabooks and super phablets seem to be overtaking, but that’s none of my business. Let’s take a closer look at the nVidia shield:

Design

As you can see in the picture on the left (click on it), you will see that nVidia really tried to give their best in this device. A stylus, thermal shields and some serious glass protection. Overall I would say that the device has really good design, though it is a bit small to me with it’s 8” display.

Display

As just mentioned, the display is an 8” one, having the resolution of 1920x1200px (a bit better than full hd). No idea if the display is IPS or not, but I think this is not a big issue.

Performance

When talking to performance, this tablet has a lot to say. The nVidia shield has NVIDIA® Tegra® K1 192 core Kepler GPU which is shortly more than enough to run everything on your tablet when it comes to graphics.

The CPU is 2.2 GHz ARM Cortex A15, which in combination of 2GB RAM will give you really smooth performance and experience.

Extras

The standard extras like microSD card, 4G capability and latest version of Bluetooth are here. There are though two extras I would really like to mention here – the camera and the stylus. I take the camera as an extra, because if you are playing games, it is the last thing you will need (except if streaming). The cameras on this tablet (both back and front) are 5mpx, put by nVidia especially for streaming games (as well the microphone support from the jack).

Conclusion

I am really waiting for a new version of this device, as it is a little bit old for me, because I think that there is really something new that nVidia could bring into the mobile gaming market. Still I must admit that this is one of the best gaming portable touchscreen devices available at the moment. With its ability to play 4K videos, this is also one of the most powerful tablets for its price at the moment.