Tweet
This is it: the product that signifies the transition of the tablet from a browser, media consumption and light gaming device into a new breed of fully portable console. Nvidia's Shield Tablet isn't just an Android slate with an Xbox 360-grade graphics core, it's a thoughtful, well-put together device that aims to appeal to the hardcore gamer, and it's especially useful if you currently own a gaming PC with a recent GTX graphics card. On both a hardware and software level, it's Android evolved.Let's get the fundamentals out of the way. Nvidia's latest is an eight-inch tablet with a 16:10 aspect ratio display, featuring a 1920x1200 resolution. It's the first indication that the firm has put gaming first: while browsing is just as fast - if not faster - than any other tablet we've used, reading web-pages simply isn't as easy as it is on 4:3 devices like the iPad or Xiaomi MiPad (which features the same Tegra K1 chipset as the Shield Tablet) - both of which possess 2048x1536 "Retina" displays. The resolution deficit isn't really noticeable, but the way that some webpages fit awkwardly onto the screen in portrait mode definitely is. Viewing in landscape has its own problems - namely a lack of verticality. Widescreen favours media and games - that's the Shield Tablet's raison d'tre, and that's where the key trade has been made.
Tegra K1 marries up faster versions of the ARM Cortex A15 CPU cores found in Nvidia Shield with 192 desktop-class CUDA cores based on the Kepler architecture used in Nvidia's desktop graphics cards. This provides gaming power theoretically ahead of Xbox 360 and PlayStation - in terms of raw GPU power at least.
Read more…
More...