The NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Review
by Joshua Ho on July 29, 2014 9:00 AM ESTDisplay
While this device is targeted towards gaming, as a tablet it also needs a great display. In order to better test this, we turn to our custom workflow in CalMAN 5 to get a better idea of how good the display is. To start, we’ll look at the basics and move on from there. All of these tests were done with sRGB as it provides the best results.
Unfortunately, it seems that the display is a bit dim compared to the competition. It’s still well within spec and plenty bright for indoor usage, but outdoors it won’t be as easy to read. Contrast is definitely up to par though, and as far as I can tell in normal usage image-dependent dimming is disabled, so the display has a relatively high native contrast.
In the grayscale test, NVIDIA has done a relatively good job in keeping a balanced white point, although error ends up a bit high relative to what we’ve seen recently. It’s definitely acceptable for most users, at any rate. It's important to note here that the grayscale accuracy error average is not just a measurement of RGB color balance, as vision also depends upon the luminance aspect to be correct.
The saturation test is where things start to fall apart. Unfortunately, it’s quite clear that the backlight used in this device just doesn’t have pure enough wavelengths for red and blue, and the result is that the gamut is well below sRGB, around what we see for the iPhone 4/4s and iPad mini line. This may be an attempt to improve power consumption, but I suspect that most are willing to forgo some battery life for a higher quality display. NVIDIA’s sRGB calibration is good up to the 80% saturation mark, but everything else past that point will have the same color, so it’s clear that NVIDIA’s display calibration tries to make do with what it has.
As expected, the ColorChecker shows the results of the poor gamut and some issues present in the grayscale. Error ends up relatively high. The display is still decent, but relative to the competition it doesn’t stack up very well.
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surbringer - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Have you tried to run PPSSPP on it ?kyuu - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I can run PPSSPP on my Venue 8 Pro, and the K1 in this tablet is certainly much more powerful GPU-wise than Bay Trail. Shouldn't be an issue.Johnny_k - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Correction: you now can use Gamestream outside your house, (even over lte on the lte tablet version)Remotely access your PC to play your games away from your home.
http://shield.nvidia.com/play-pc-games/
Note that it is in beta
RoninX - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
I'd love to see Anandtech do a real-world test on how well Gamestream works with the Shield outside the home.chizow - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Yes, unfortunate AT did not cover this at all, as I also recently found out GameStream remote was in beta. This is really the killer-app for Shield until Android gaming takes off (if it ever does). I would consider buying one of these if Remote GameStream worked decently well, but I'll probably hold off on either a Shield Portable 2 (with TK1) or a good GeForce bundle with Maxwell.ams23 - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
I am impressed that Shield tablet has even higher graphics performance in GFXBench 3.0 T-Rex HD Offscreen than the actively cooled Surface Pro 2 and Surface Pro 3: http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8296/65868...Note that thermal throttling behavior on Shield tablet is extremely good. There was virtually no throttling until after 115 runs (!) with the GFXBench 3.0 T-Rex HD benchmark: http://images.anandtech.com/doci/8296/TRexRunDownG...
I suspect that the 3dmark Unlimited scores are CPU-limited to some extent. Shield tablet already achieves > 200 fps on game test 1 and > 100 fps on game test 2, so this particular test is not very stressful (relatively speaking) for this GPU.
The web browsing battery life is pretty good all things considered, especially compared to iPad Mini Retina and iPad Air (which have 23% and 64% more battery capacity, respectively than Shield tablet). The Shield tablet has CPU and browser performance that is at least 2x faster than Nexus 7 2013 variant, so the web browsing efficiency is actually quite good in comparison.
UpSpin - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
agreed, those results are impressive and a huge step forward, for both NVidia and all the others.Considering that the Shield uses the ancient quad core 32-bit Cortex A15 variant of the Tegra K1 and NVidia also has a custom dual core 64-bit variant of the K1 I think we can expect a further CPU boost once this 64-bit SoC reaches customers.
jospoortvliet - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
The A15r3 is not exactly ancient but I agree that Denver is something to look forward to 😎Anonymous Blowhard - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
>Games like Saints Row 3 played as if running on a consoleSo, 720p30, Low Detail? ;)
Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Zing! :D