The NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Review
by Joshua Ho on July 29, 2014 9:00 AM ESTBattery Life
As always, battery life is one of the most important aspects of any mobile device, and is crucial to staying mobile. There’s not much introduction needed to this, as it’s rather well understood that more battery life is usually better. The Shield tablet features an integrated 19.75Wh battery.
This device is a tablet first and foremost, so WiFi browsing battery life is important. In this area, the tablet does well. However, it’s a bit strange how the device performs worse than the Nexus 7 (2013). The reason why I say this is that the Tegra K1 is on a far more power efficient process (28HPm), has broadly equivalent battery capacity to screen area scaling, and should have a more power efficient display due to the reduced gamut. However, it could be that Cortex A15 just isn’t as power efficient as Krait and the silicon backplane of the display isn’t as efficient as the one in the Nexus 7.
While normally web browsing tests are enough to cover the relatively low-compute use cases for smartphones, video playback is a significant use case for tablets. Here, we see that the gap between the Nexus 7 (2013) and the SHIELD Tablet narrows significantly, which can probably be attributed to the mostly display-bound nature of this test. Due to the much lower APL average of this test, we see that the Galaxy Tab S line does noticeably better in this test because their AMOLED displays mean that black-heavy content dramatically reduces power draw. This is because a black pixel in an AMOLED display is turned off and doesn't consume power, while an LCD display relies on a backlight so it isn't possible to turn off the backlight for a single pixel without turning off the entire display.
Of course, the Shield Tablet is also designed for gaming. Unfortunately, the Tegra K1 introduces quite a massive amount of dynamic range. While it’s fully possible for the Shield tablet to last 10 hours of continuous use on a single charge, running the GPU at full blast gives battery life similar to a gaming laptop. Realistically, if a game is made for Tegra K1 and truly stretches the GPU to the limit, battery life is only around two and a half hours, assuming display brightness is kept down to 200 nits. Of course, anything less intensive will do much better.
NVIDIA has also made it possible to cap the maximum frame rate and clock speed for better battery life. However, it’s quite clear in this test that the tablet isn’t capable of sustaining peak performance the way the Shield portable was, as the Shield portable sustained around 90% of the first run performance while the tablet sustained around 80% of its first run performance. The Shield Tablet also has noticeably higher skin temperatures, although this was a subjective observation.
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fivefeet8 - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Those arguments are the same ones made with the advent of gaming laptops and desktops. I can agree that the market for both is in the minority, but something needs to push the technology forward. At this point, the mobile space is ruled mostly by companies with technologies both hardware and software that have stagnated. Mostly because of the market conditions leaving pretty much only Qualcomm technology, but that has also caused them to become complacent to a large degree when it comes to software.schizoide - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Not really. Back in the day, games drove PC gaming hardware. You would go out and buy that new 3dfx card to play Quake 2. These days most PC games are console ports and low to mid-end hardware can play them just fine.Difference is that today there's an incredibly huge market full of mobile games with very modest hardware requirements, and very few are willing to release titles requiring top line hardware because the perception is those "core" gamers have consoles or gaming PCs.
You're right that if nobody builds mobile devices with higher-end capabilities those games will _certainly_ never come. That's dead on. But at the same time, I'm not going to buy a gaming device without an exclusive game that I really want. And 10 year old PC ports like portal don't cut it.
fivefeet8 - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
That's the same argument you are making against the Shield Tablet. That it's hardware is not needed because most games run fine on lesser powered machines. Software has been playing catchup to PC hardware for years now, but we still have high end hardware to push the envelope.In any case, with the new Shield is a tablet that can do more than most on the market right now while still being able to push the technology forward. And you are correct, I wouldn't buy a gaming device either without a few games I really want, but then I'm not buying it simply for a gaming device only.
savagemike - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
You might not buy a gaming device in that scenario. But this isn't just a gaming device it's also a tablet and as such can fill multiple uses.I'm not positive I'm going to buy one but I might. It's definitely on the list for consideration because it is so flexible. I wanted an 8"+ tablet and would very much like a stylus. Wasn't digging the extra price of the Samsung stylus models though.
For $300 this thing seems like it does lots of stuff pretty well. I would be surprised if there are not bundles for $325 or so that include the tablet and controller come the holidays.
We'll see. Want to see what the 64x version looks like too and also how pricing and quality play out for Android TV.
ArthurG - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
comparing refurb price of a 6 months old item to a brand new model coming out today, very very fair...schizoide - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Sure. Why not? Money is money. You want to buy a small android tablet, Nexus 7 is at the top of your list, right?Friendly0Fire - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
A lot of people don't consider refurbs. I know I don't.schizoide - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Fair enough, then it's only a 25% price premium. Certainly much more attractive, then.abrowne1993 - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
The biggest problems I have with my 2013 Nexus 7 are CPU and GPU performance. If I didn't already have that tablet, I'd buy this one in a heartbeat.TheJian - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
You must be kidding, comparing a refurb of an AGING product to a new product? $230 is the comparison, and for $70 extra you kick the crap out of nexus 7 2013. I didn't realize $300 was 2x $230. I guess I failed math.All the new games that come along with 20nm will likely have problems on that old thing, where K1 will keep on chugging (K1 will be the lowest common denominator next year at 20nm everywhere, and M1 or whatever they call maxwell version will be the new king). Not really interested in running all the games that are built for the lowest common denominator that will run on your aunt's galaxy s2. I'm interested in modern combat 5, asphalt 8, Ravensword, Dungeon Hunter 4 etc. All the stuff coming out this year and forward will get more potent. Though the old stuff is pretty nice too. The library keeps getting larger on android monthly.
Will they sell a lot of them? Tell that to google, they'll be using K1 in HTC Nexus 9. I'm guessing 10mil+ sell in that unit alone and it will probably be $400-500 ;) $300 for a tablet that blows everything else in it's class away is cheap. Get off welfare, get a better job etc and $300 won't sound like much more than $230...ROFL.
One of the other reviews did fine from North Dakota 1600 miles from California ;) Troll somewhere else please. Most of the ports have never sold more than 11mil (halflife2, Portal, Trine2 etc) so most people have never played the ports you're hating on. There are 1.2B android devices sold yearly now and growing. Next year with 20nm chips being at K1 level there will be 1.2B+ units top to bottom that can handle what K1 is doing and that will be what will create major game improvements. Everyone will be holding an Xbox360/ps3 in their hands that can act as a console output to tv. We're not talking angry birds any more even today. BTW, Trine2 came out 2011, Serious Sam3 BFE 2011, Portal 2008. We will start to see even more now especially after HTC Nexus9 hits. Not to mention companies like Gameloft, WB etc creating some top level stuff.