Review NVIDIA Shield. Play bye young

Cross gamepad, tablet and console. Who could have guessed such a thing? No, not Apple, and the controls are not virtual. This is, of course, about NVIDIA SHIELD: the first truly gaming console based on the Android OS.



The device is very niche, and, at the same time, it has serious competitors. On the one hand, there are the usual portable consoles - PSP and Vita, a family of Nintendo DS. On the other hand, the nastier Chinese have already had plenty of time to produce Android consoles in the PSP format. All of them are clumsy in various ways (someone has obsolete hardware, someone has a disgusting screen), but among these products you can find powerful, bright and fast devices with a good battery and good build quality. On the third hand, oddly enough, “Apple” and their iOS devices, to which vendors came up with various trailing joystick gamepads, and touch control, as a rule, is implemented more or less in iOS games.


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In such tough competition, Nvidia needed to create something really impressive, so as not to look like a gray mouse against the background of alternatives. Did it work out?

Appearance and usability

For the appearance of the console, I must say thanks to the "three whales." The first is the first-generation Sony Playstation console, the creators of which presented the world with one of the most popular gamepads - DualShock.



Its form and possibilities with minor improvements have been living for nearly two decades. Two analog “stick”, cross, four buttons, one “trigger” on each side + one “trigger”. And, of course, vibromotors. The modern version of the Dualshock 4 has gone even further, and there are even more features in it, but this is not about it today.





The second whale was the XBox - the name of the buttons, the Xinput standard, the approach to the console as a universal entertainment device and a home media center directly influenced both the design of accessories and the overall control system.



The third whale is a portable set-top box. The developer took into account all the capabilities of competitors and worked hard to play was really comfortable. And most importantly - to have something to play.

Several types of plastic are used as materials: ordinary black / gray for the case, semi-glossy for buttons, rubberized in those places where you will hold on to the device. Despite the glossy inserts, the device turned out to be very resistant to the appearance of fingerprints (and with similar gadgets, oh, how sweaty hands!).

The screen is designed as a hinged cover: and the console is protected from dust and dirt on the road, and the display itself will not be scratched. Full angle of inclination is 180 degrees, but if you wish, you can customize it "by yourself".



On the back side all the connectors and ports are located, of which there are significantly more than we used to see in mobile devices.

In hand

Now let's talk about the convenience of management. By itself, the console weighs a decent 500 grams: thanks to the batteries at 7350 mAh (28.8 W / h), a rather large case and advanced controls. On the one hand, such weight and solidity cause only approval, on the other hand, it will be somewhat problematic to hold the device in hands for a long time. However, we are talking about the position of "standing" (for example, in the subway) - if you have to put your hands (table, knees), then the problem will disappear.



The sticks are fairly soft and precise, all the buttons are in familiar places. He was also taken care of by the manufacturer and additional controls for controlling the Android OS system and games, for which he is plus in karma: for example, the right stick moves the cursor around the screen, while the left one jumps separately on the screen elements. Everything is pressed easily and confidently, analog controls are also made on a solid top five.

In general, everything is great with both the design and the convenience of control, and this is already pleasing. We turn to the stuffing.

Iron

As the “fiery heart” in the console, a proprietary Nvidia Tegra 4 chip was installed. It was developed specifically for such devices and allows you to display a picture comparable to large consoles of the past generation. The list of characteristics from the manufacturer is as follows:

CPU	NVIDIA Tegra 4 (1900 MHz, 4 cores)
Graphics processor	NVIDIA Tegra 4 (72 GeForce stream processors)
Display	5-inch multitouch display with a resolution of 1280x720 (294 PPI)
Audio	Built-in stereo speakers with built-in microphone
Data storage	2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of data storage
Wireless connection	802.11n (2.4GHz and 5GHz bands) with Mimo 2x2 technology; Bluetooth 4.0; GPS
Interfaces	miniHDMI, microUSB (USB OTG), microSD card slot (up to 128 GB), 3.5mm minijack for headphones with the ability to connect a microphone
Motion sensors	3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis accelerometer

As you can see, the manufacturer did not stint on a full set of game iron. A picture is displayed on a five-inch touch screen with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels, the matrix of which is made using IPS technology: viewing angles and color gamut are more than sufficient for this class of devices. But if you want, you can display a picture on an external screen - when you connect a large screen via an HDMI cable, of course, the weight of the console increases slightly, but you don’t feel much discomfort, and in the heat of battles you forget about the extra load quickly.



I did not disassemble the device, but I was very interested in how it was arranged inside. A nice tutorial on disassembling NVIDIA SHIELD showed up on the site of colleagues in the shop - I’ve quote several images from there:

Soft

The console is running a modified OS Android 4.4.2 KitKat. Upgrading to 5.0, most likely, is not planned, and is not particularly required - our prefix’s smartphone features do not need anything, and you can turn on the ART program execution environment in the settings. It makes no sense to talk about the capabilities of the OS: the manufacturer didn’t cut off or bit off anything, everything that works on any conventional Android tablet will start on Shield. The key difference in the software is NVIDIA's branded services: the Tegra Zone game store, streaming services from PCs and NVIDIA servers via the Internet.



Inside the Tegra Zone service, there are games and applications fully optimized for the capabilities of your device: improved graphics, full support for all controller features with correct display of control tips during the game, additional content and other premium benefits for owners of such cool stuff. Downloading the game from the Tegra Zone, you can be sure that everything will work just like on classic consoles in the best sense of the term: out of the box, no problem, with maximum settings, no brakes , control will be licked, network features work as it should.


The second one is the delivery of content “from the big brother” to the small LCD display. If your computer has a mobile or desktop GTX class video card (from GeForce GTX 650 and newer), a normal processor, 4 gigabytes of RAM and the latest version of GeForce Expirience application is installed - you can connect any available game and play it using the image transfer capabilities from computer to mobile console. All that is piped from you is a minimal set of up-to-date hardware, updated software and presence within the same local network.

Well, to finish off competitors, Nvidia offers a third, ultimate aspen stake in the form of online streaming of games from its own servers. This technology is called NVIDIA Grid . Service, in fact, is an improved version of the broadcast games from the PC. In the world of business applications, the SaaS (Software as a Service) phenomenon has become habitual and accessible, and now it has reached games.

Personal impressions

I spent almost a week with this device, and for two days (weekends) I didn’t let it out of my hands. There are no complaints about the Android component: everything works as usual. There is a browser, applications from Google Play are installed, all toys are launched and working. Some part immediately understands the control from the gamepad, some requires w3bsit3-dns.com and a little tambourine, but you still have a touchscreen display: no one bothers to intercept the console “a little deeper” and play “in the old manner” - poking a finger at the display. Games from the Tegra Zone - complete roofing. The graphics are really amazing. Yes, I know that you can break an ordinary game on a regular powerful smartphone and turn on almost the same effects on ordinary devices like the Galaxy S4 or LG G2 (and more powerful ones, respectively). But here everything is out of the box, and management is much more convenient than virtual sticks and virtual buttons.

But the very thing, nevertheless, cool is the ability to pick up the TV without any problems and drive Real Racing 3 or the same GTA San Andreas on the big screen. You look, in a couple of years and GTA4 will get to mobile phones, with some optimization, of course. That's just in GTA4, you can play Shied'e even now: run it on your PC, send it to the console and go ahead, steal-kill-love pigeons in the most free city in the world.


GTA IV on NVIDIA SHIELD. But the stream.

The console is just an absorber of free time. It is convenient to play on it, to sit on a chair in front of a computer - no need, in races and other arcades - the most it. In addition, no one bothers to put the PSP emulator or the old console and enjoy eight-six-quarter games from childhood - other consoles can only dream about this. If you are not confused by the game of shooters with a gamepad - everything is OK with them. The only negative - RPG and Action-RPG play is not very convenient. In the same Diablo3 on the PC, the control from the gamepad was never implemented.

As for the battery life - according to my subjective observations, from full charge to 0 no less than 6.5 hours works, and with incomplete loading, all 10.

Summing up

NVIDIA SHIELD for almost a year, but it does not give up. Powerful stuffing, excellent screen, convenient control. Streaming PC games and the Nvidia Grid service do their job. Communicating with the console is not just nice, but very nice.

Advantages and disadvantages:
+ Convenient to play!
+ In optimized games even more convenient to play!
+ Grafon!
+ Gameplay!
+ PC games!
+ Capable battery!
+ You can easily display a picture on the big screen !!!
+ Beautiful appearance
- Price
- This thing will devour all your free time

I did not read the license agreement - perhaps the thing eats not only time, but also soul.

As a mobile game console NVIDIA SHIELD - unequivocal Win. The high price (at the time of the publication of the review - 11 100 in the Yulmart store ) - these are the consequences of currency fluctuations, but even this price is quite competitive. As for the prices for the games themselves - they are significantly lower than for mobile consoles of classic performance, and we also have Android on board, if you know what I mean.



By the way, the Shield we reviewed today is now the penultimate generation of systems from NVIDIA, because the new SHIELD Tablet has appeared on the new K1 processor is no longer such a universal, but nonetheless interesting tablet. If you want to read about it, put a post like;)

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» Another review of NVIDIA SHIELD on Habré

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Good Game!