NVIDIA Shield review

The NVIDIA Shield

The NVIDIA Shield cost $299.00

Release Date :- 31st of July   

Buy from NVIDIA store now click HERE

Unboxing Shield

           

SPECS

• Processor: Tegra 4 at 1.9GHz
• Memory: 2GB
• Display: 5-inch 1280x720 (294 ppi) multi-touch "Retinal" display
• Dimensions: 158x135x57mm
• Weight: 579g
• Audio: Integrated stereo speakers with built-in microphone
• Storage: 16GB Flash Memory
• Wireless: 802.11n 2x2 Mimo WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS
• Connectivity: Mini-HDMI output, Micro-USB 2.0, MicroSDXC storage slot, 3.5mm stereo headphone jack with microphone support
• Motion Sensors: Three-axis gyro, three-axis accelerometer
• Battery: 28.8Whr

Benchmarks

Nvidia Shield	iPad 4	Nexus 10

Geekbench	4335	1773	2345
Sunspider 0.9.1 (Java)	396.3ms	840.8ms	873.3ms
Kraken 1.1 (Java)	7192.7ms	16699.9ms	7930.5ms
GFX Bench 2.7 T-Rex HD (offscreen)	24fps	16fps	12fps
GFX Bench 2.7 Egypt HD (offscreen)	65fps	50fps	39fps
3DMark Ice Storm	19527	-	7769
3DMark Ice Storm Extreme	11476	-	5258

The Shield comes with stock Android 4.2.1, and can run almost every app in the Play Store; but certain tablet-specific apps (like Frozen Synapse) won't install. And Nvidia's Tegra 4 processor, backed by 2GB of RAM, makes Android run exceedingly quickly. There are some limitations, though. The Shield doesn't come with a camera.

There is a microphone, so you can still make your Skype calls and take advantage of Android's text to speech. There's also built-in GPS for all your Google Maps and Foursquare check-ins. There’s no cellular radio, so you’ll need Wi-Fi wherever you go. Jelly Bean also supports multiple users, so if you're sharing a Shield with your household each person can have their own accounts and apps at the ready.

HARDWARE

The Shield is as handheld gaming consoles. Its rubberized outside The twin grips, covered in soft-touch rubber, give your hands an incredibly secure purchase on the device. The twin thumbsticks are just as precise and comfortable as their Xbox 360 forebear, although Nvidia adopted a PlayStation-like symmetrical layout .

The shoulder buttons and D-pad are a little too much like their Xbox counterparts, The Shield's controller isn't just something you flip out for games. It's also the primary way you'll navigate the Android operating system. Not only are there dedicated Home, Back, and Volume keys surrounding the glowing Nvidia button in the center – hold down Volume to mute – but Android also natively recognizes the controller layout exactly as you'd expect it to. The shoulder buttons flip through homescreens, the left stick and D-pad scroll, the A button selects, the B button backs up a step, and you can use the right analog stick as a virtual mouse; from tapping the Y key for a space, to clicking the left analog stick to access capital letters.

DISPLAY

Crisp, large, bright and easy to use -- the Shield's "retinal" 5-inch (1280 x 720) IPS screen. PC games look great on it, as do high-def video and Android games. the IPS screen looks great from various angles, and stands up to the sun's radioactive rays. More importantly, it's affixed to a strong plastic shell with a massive hinge. As a result, the screen can be bent to any degree you fancy and remains in position.

Shield can be used for both media viewing and as a music player. As a media-viewing device, it's a delight to have access to a wide range of viewing angles, and the screen is sharp enough that it's easily watched from several feet away. As a music player, sharply angling the screen offers amplification to the Shield's already loud stereo speakers They're delightfully so loud, that  to the point that sound will shake the entire device during particularly raucous moments. It can also used with Spotify or other music solutions, 

GAMEPAD

Just below those speakers is the rectangular gamepad: Shield offers an adequate facsimile -- button placement is near identical, the only exception being parallel concave thumbsticks (like Sony's DualShock) -- but nothing beats the real thing. The four A / B / X / Y face buttons exist on a flat plane, the Shield's parallel thumbsticks are deeply recessed due to the attached screen -- a dramatic difference; the shoulder buttons aren't clicky on the Shield, and its triggers have extremely strong resistance.

There are other issues with control, specifically regarding the thumbsticks. Due to their depth, aiming and controlling the camera in first-person shooters sometimes feels loose. Since thumbsticks are normally above where thumbs rest on a controller, resistance is provided between stick and thumb. As for the D-pad, it's the closest Shield gets to replicating the 360 gamepad. In fact, Shield's is clickier, quicker and more comfortable.

PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE

True to NVIDIA's claims, our Shield review unit's 28.8Wh battery lasted through about 10 hours of near-constant use -- from streaming video and games to media played directly from the device, all while connected to WiFi .The Shield's battery lasts far longer when we stick with PC / media streaming and don't crank the screen's brightness up all the way, though never beyond a day and a half. Charging's handled through the micro-USB around back. Going back up to a full charge from a sub-10 percent battery rating takes three to five hours, which we're calling too long.

Unsurprisingly, the number one battery drain is the massive screen. Tegra 4-enhanced games can also be taxing on the system's battery life.The Shield looks like a game controller with a 5-inch screen attached ,but it's actually a great alternative to tablets too. As a media device, it's top-notch. The delight and convenience of adjustable, locked viewing angles for the screen cannot be oversold; gone are the days of desperately trying to balance your tablet while laying about.

It's also a damn fast Android device. Apps and games load as quickly or better than flagship smartphones and tablets, Shield has zero issues with multitasking. Used in tandem with those loud stereo speakers, we found ourselves comfortably employing the Shield like a portable DVD player.

In many cases, the Shield allows for gamepad input in place of touch. And with something like Hulu or Netflix, gamepad control makes some sense, allowing control without blocking what you're watching. It's pretty cumbersome to hold the Shield's screen with two paws and enter text, but it's better than the gamepad alternative.

PC TITLES

Game streaming is not perfect on the Shield. and it's not as good as playing games directly on a PC. It occasionally hitches, or encounters "network interference," or crashes.  And there's rarely some lags due to the network connection. Like the gamepad itself, Shield's PC game streaming functionality is acceptable.

            

BioShock Infinite played on a 5-inch handheld screen is, if nothing else, very impressive, Similarly, Need for Speed: Most Wanted runs beautifully. Think of it this way: any game that doesn't require twitch reactions works well on Shield. Our attempts at Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 were fruitless.Team Fortress 2, however, was perfectly fine. The distance comes with a heavy helping of artifacting and the occasional loss of sound, but it remains playable.

Shield likely won't replace your PC gaming setup of choice, but it is a great addition. The controller isn't as good as other options, and the lag is a dealbreaker for many folks, but the experience of comfortably playing high-end PC games on a handheld is truly special.

ANDROID GAMES

You can play pretty much any Android game with the Shield's touchscreen, If you’re buying a Shield, you want to play games with controller support

Those games that do support game controllers don’t all play nice with the Shield's joysticks and buttons. Take Crazy Taxi, which just debuted on Android: it supports the Xperia Play and PowerA’s Moga controllers, but not the Shield.

Thankfully, Android isn't entirely bereft of excellent controller games. Dead Trigger works well, and a demo of its sequelDead Trigger 2 has better graphics than any game, battling waves of zombies in a highly detailed environment with pools of water that reflect the entire world. ShadowGun: DeadZone is a perfectly playable online shooter, though there's something wrong with the thumbstick deadzone settings that makes aiming difficult,  Grand Theft Auto III, and better yet Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, play wonderfully on the Shield at high resolution,

PC classic Max Payne shows just how easy it can be to pull off headshots with the Shield's thumbsticks in slow motion.Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic CD, and Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II are not only guaranteed to trigger nostalgia, they're great fun,..

There are more, but generally you'll find that classic titles which originated on Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, PlayStation 2, and classic PC titles are the most likely to have good controller support,.

Even if there were lots of good Android games, Big Android games can take up a couple of gigabytes, and the Shield ships with less than 12GB of usable storage. If you think you’d just use the SD card slot, think again: you can't install apps to the card. Nvidia promises me that installing apps to SD will get fixed in the very first update after launch.

One place you can get great controller games: classic console emulators., creatively acquire copies of games like Star Fox 64 and Metal Gear Solid, but they certainly work. The

Shield's Tegra 4 is plenty powerful enough to run Nintendo 64 and original PlayStation titles, with a few glitches here and there. The shoulder buttons and triggers can be a bit finicky,

So if the app experience isn't perfect, and the Android game catalog is lacking, why would you buy a Shield over, say, a new Nexus 7? : PC game streaming.

It can stream any PC game to the Shield, using Nvidia’s proprietary low-latency remote display technology built into its new graphics chips. There's definitely a tiny bit of lag, particularly the audio. Battery life is also surprisingly good while streaming.

To be sure, there's a lot of equipment involved to make PC streaming work. You need a high-end Nvidia GeForce GTX 600 series graphics card and a fast dual-band wireless router. AMD graphics won’t work,

GAME STREAMING IS A KILLER APP

 The video framerate isn't as high as you might expect from your PC. Even though many PC games support controllers, there are loads that don’t, and there’s no good way to play those that require an actual keyboard and mouse. If you didn't buy a game on Steam, you'll need to manually add it to your Steam library

You can't play a game on your PC and then neatly hand it off to the Shield when you want to walk around: you have to launch it from scratch each time. You can use a mini-HDMI cable to pipe streamed games to a TV, and it looks great, but you can't stream titles to the Shield and then mirror them to a TV with Miracast And though the whole streaming application is clearly a Splashtop hack, Nvidia won't let you control Windows at all, won't let you so much as remotely force-close a game when it fails to sync with the Shield. 

WRAP-UP

At $300, NVIDIA Shield is a hard sell as a portable game console, but an easy sell in place of a similarly priced tablet. Sure, it doesn't have a camera, but it does offer extremely impressive PC streaming, along with wide viewing angles. The Shield remains a "truly strange device," but it's one that we feel comfortable recommending to hardcore PC gamers and Netflix junkies alike.

Nvidia Shield

GOOD STUFF

• Excellent screen
• Killer controls
• Solid battery life
• PC gaming anywhere in the house

BAD STUFF

• Android isn't a great gaming platform
• PC streaming requires expensive hardware
• How do you hold it for anything else?

Is It worth it ?

The Nvidia Shield is a fantastic first effort for Nvidia, a seriously impressive piece of hardware, and a chance for Android gaming to be taken seriously if enough gamers buy in. Most game developers won’t dedicate time and effort to building for physical controllers when the iPad and iPhone audience is the most lucrative.

The Shield is a capable device for $299, but honestly the $229 Nexus 7 is a better short-term bet. You’ll even have $70 left over to buy yourself a PlayStation 3 controller and a pairing app, or to save towards the next Shield, which will come with an even more capable Tegra chip. You might also consider a 32GB iPod touch for the same $299, or an iPad mini for $30 more. They don’t have the same graphical potency, but they fit in pockets, come with cameras, and have Apple’s incredible app ecosystem waiting for your credit card.

Yet if you have the right graphics card and the right Wi-Fi router the Shield’s PC streaming is not to be missed. The killer app for Shield is already here. It’s called Steam, and when it works, it’s glorious.

Design                             6  

Display                            9

Software                         8

Game Selection             6

Controls                          9

Speakers                         8

Performance                  10

Battery Life                     9