The NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Review
by Joshua Ho on July 29, 2014 9:00 AM ESTWiFi Performance
For the most part these days it seems that the situation for WiFi is much better in mobile than it is anywhere else, but it's still important to test throughput, especially on a device like the Shield tablet that requires low latency, high bandwidth connections in order to support GameStream and GRID. To this end, while NVIDIA hasn't shipped 802.11ac the Shield tablet ships with a 2x2 antenna configuration for a maximum PHY rate of 300 Mbps. Like the Shield portable, this is a BCM43241 chip, likely shared to improve economies of scale. To look at how it performs, we turn to iperf. Before we get into the results of the test, I'd like to thank ASUS for providing the RT-AC68U router to test WiFi perfomance.
Surprisingly, the Shield tablet performs about as well as some single stream 802.11ac solutions like the one found in the Galaxy Note 3. Performance is generally in line with what we'd expect for such a solution, although it would be nice to see 802.11ac for future products.
Camera
While I currently don't have the means to properly test camera, there are still some things to talk about for camera. Both the front and rear camera modules use OmniVision's OVT5963 sensor, which appears to be a 1/4", 5MP sensor. The rear camera has an F/2.0 aperture with 2.95mm focal length, and the front camera has an F/2.8 aperture, with a claimed 4.76mm focal length, although the field of view appears to be somewhat wider. This is the same sensor as the camera in the Nexus 7 (2013). As a rear facing camera, the quality is nothing special but as a front facing camera it's surprisingly high quality. The photo above is with the rear facing camera, the photo below is from the front facing camera. The stock camera application also doesn't show the correct aspect ratio for the camera, so the preview is cropped.
Audio
While I don't have the equipment available to test audio quality and peak volume quite yet, subjectively the two bass reflex ports and dual front facing speakers make for a great experience. It's definitely a major advantage over other devices when it comes to watching movies and playing games as I don't have to cup my hand around the speaker. The larger size of the tablet formfactor means that the stereo separation is much more obvious. On the headphone jack, the device appears to be using a Realtek RT5639 codec. It seems that NVIDIA has continued to use their own speaker protection system that runs on the SoC, as there isn't any clear evidence of a speaker protection IC connected via I2C.
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kron123456789 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Yes, you can use your Xbox360 controller with that tablet.LedHed - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
When is NVIDIA going to start putting competitive SSD's inside of their mobile devices?baii9 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Any comparison with a bay trail win8.1 tablet?nicolapeluchetti - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Am i the only one who doesn't see the point of a gaming tablet with only 2.5 hours of battery when playing games?The need of a tablet for gaming is more related to situations where you have to play for lots of time without charging. I know that you can dial down the graphics and save the battery, but then where are the difference from an iPAd Air (which also has many more games?). This is totally pointless for me, it could have been good if battery lasted 5-6 hours, like it is know it's pointless.hahmed330 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
If you run an ipad air full blast the batteries will last for 2.5 hours only... This is what they did.. If you run say dead trigger 2 or something like that the battery would last per say 4-5 hours.. That's pretty damn impressive by the way... I really hope this is successful as I would love play some really nice games..semi177 - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
the comments on this site used to be good to read. now i just see bashing and misinformed comments. The admin should consider pushing down fanboy war threads much lower down and keep the useful ones on top.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
Anybody know where the 32GB tablet is, or when it will release? not even nvidia shows it as available on their website, nor even mentions it.scbundy - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
So much for Charlie D's prediction that the Tegra K1 was going to be super hot, have a huge heatsink and use 50W.Azurael - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
It's a bit of a disappointment in the display department, much like the Tegra Note 7 (which uses exactly the same display as the original Nexus 7 with a marginally better calibration as far as I can see) The stylus is great (in fact, I prefer it to the Wacom-developed screen in the Galaxy Notes) as is the SoC performance and value proposition - but if they want to appeal to people other than gamers (I would certainly have bought this), they've got to work on that LCD. I skipped the Nexus 5 and bought a G2 despite objecting to its size because the N5 LCD was a massive step backward in contrast from that in the Nexus 4 when calibrated. I bought a 2013 Nexus 7 to replace my 2012 Nexus 7 a few weeks ago because the LCD in the otherwise great Tegra Note is not a step forward. When will device manufacturers other than Apple realise that people do care about the LCD?sandy105 - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
I have both the tegra note 7 and nexus 7 2012 .The one on nexus 7 has bonded fused display while the touch layer and screen are separated on tegra note7 making it very poor and VERY reflective.It also has muted colors and looks washed out.