NVIDIA is doing something different with Tegra 4, very different. To
bring up its silicon, each vendor usually makes a reference design phone
and tablet with a selection of approved components, packages a BSP
(Board Support Package), and ships that and some engineers to customers.
Rather than never letting the reference design see the light of day,
this time NVIDIA also made it into something they can sell directly, a
portable gaming device called Shield.
It’s no secret that Tegra 4 isn’t exactly the success that NVIDIA
probably hoped it would be. While the initial word was that Tegra 4 had
an obvious set of design wins following momentum from products which
shipped in 2012 through 2013 with Tegra 3, but it’s obvious that Shield
will now effectively serve as NVIDIA’s launch vehicle for Tegra 4.
Shield is an aspirational product and not an easy one to nail down –
enthusiasts are picky about controllers, Android gaming is still largely
an unknown, and the question remains what presence handheld gaming
consoles will have in the future. To answer all those questions NVIDIA
sent over Shield, a Falcon Northwest Tiki with GTX 760 inside, and
Parrot AR Drone 2.0 for us to review. Read on for the full story.
Introduction and Hardware
With Shield, NVIDIA gave us a rare glimpse into some of the stages of
design. When Anand and I saw Shield at CES, it was more of a prototype
than real, reviewable sample of the portable gaming device. The analog
sticks weren’t weighted right, the plastic felt somewhat creaky, the
triggers and bumpers felt hollow and strange, and the D-Pad worked, but
not amazingly so. It was exactly what you’d expect from a prototype, and
as Shield inched closer to final release the hardware got successively
better and better, until the final unit dropped on our doorstep.
The hardware that is the shipping Shield today is a world better, it’s
everything I was hoping Shield would end up being in terms of a
controller, with the right balance and in-hand feel.
There’s so much scrutiny on the fit and finish of mobile devices these days, for NVIDIA to build a mobile device
and
gaming controller at the same time invites a whole new level of
scrutiny, potential issues, and things to get tuned just right. I’ve
purchased a few high end gaming controllers in my day (like a kitted out
$125 Scuf FPS Competition
Xbox 360 controller that I love), but hesitate to review them because of
just how much there is to talk about, and how much of it comes down
ultimately to taste.
Anand and I gave feedback to NVIDIA early on that they should arguably
use the Xbox 360 controller as something of a baseline for tuning their
controller components. With the Shield what we get is nearly exactly
that. The analog trigger resistance, bumper clickiness, and analog stick
friction feel remarkably like the 360, perhaps just a tad less. I
consider the 360 controller out of the box nearly perfect, but some of
that is adaption and familiarity versus being some global maxima for
perfection. At the same time, if the PS3 controller is your bar, you’re
probably going to have a bad time initially with Shield until you’ve
adapted. Where Shield does borrow somewhat from the PS3 controller is
the analog stick positioning, which is bottom center, instead of opposed
top left and bottom right. One of my initial complaints was that my
thumbs can collide with each other when left stick is at limits to the
right, and right stick is at limits to the left (a complaint about the
PS3 I have as well). NVIDIA seems to have spaced these a bit more and my
thumbs aren’t quite hitting as much as they were previously.
Since the display has to close flat on the control surface, some of the
shape is gated by the limitation that you can’t have the analog sticks
or buttons ramming through the display, so they’re sunken down a bit.
The rest of the interface (A/B/X/Y, NVIDIA, Back, Home, Start, Volume
and D-Pad) rest roughly in the same plane. The spring preload on the
buttons is great, though I wish they were maybe a touch less mushy for
A/B/X/Y, and although I’m not much of a platform gamer, the D-Pad feels
so much better now than it did before.
The shape of Shield fits in my hands really, really well. The bottom is
a grippy, rubberized material that grabs the hands well and plants the
Shield solidly on any surface you put it down on. The interesting shape
on the back side, means I can rest my middle finger in a sort of folded
position along the inside (something you can’t do with most wireless
controllers) and it feels great. I have no issues with the mass of
Shield fatiguing my hands or feeling awkward since it’s so well balanced
and ergonomically shaped down there.
On the front of Shield is a green-tinted intake and grille for the
device’s active cooling. When I first heard that Shield had active
cooling I was a bit shocked, but it turns out to be completely
unobtrusive in actual use.
With Shield open you can see the 5-inch 720p display surrounded by a
somewhat large bezel. This remains my only complaint about Shield – I
wish it had a slightly larger display that took up more of the fold-out
area. Below that are stereo speakers that go loud (I love that stereo is
now a feature showing up in more devices) and in the very middle is a
microphone.
On the back of Shield are its I/O ports, which are microUSB 2.0,
mini-HDMI, headphone jack, and microSDXC. There’s also the exhaust
grille for Shield’s active cooler back here. Above the microUSB 2.0 port
is a small charge status LED which is amber while plugged in and
charging, and green when fully charged. I remain confused by the choice
of mini-HDMI, when smartphones and tablets have universally adopted the
microHDMI format plug, and I’m buried in those cables compared to a
relative scarcity of mini-HDMI ones, though NVIDIA has shipped mini-HDMI
GPUs before.
On the top of Shield is, well, a small shield, which NVIDIA calls a
tag. This snaps onto the top and adds a bit of a customization option,
it’s held in place with magnets. Out of the box the tag is a metallic
silver material. It looks great but I’ve already managed to put a few
hairline scratches into it, which leads me to my next point.
NVIDIA has a carrying case option available, but it really needs to
give some kind of carrying case away with Shield. Although Shield feels
really well constructed, right down to even the hinge mechanism, I’d
like a better way to protect it, especially while traveling. I know I’m
going to put more scratches into the silver tag while traveling with
Shield in my bag, for example.
For features and specifications click here :
nvidia shield specifications
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