Engadget
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Engadget Review
NVIDIA Shield tablet review: a solid slate with a gaming addiction
Summary
The Shield Wireless Controller is a solid gamepad in its own right, outfitted with plenty of useful bells and whistles for interacting with your NVIDIA devices. But the high price tag leaves a sting since you can't use it with anything but those NVIDIA devices.
Pros
- Feels good in hand
- Lower latency than Bluetooth controllers
- Clickable mousepad makes menus easy to browse
Cons
- Mousepad is not very sensitive
- Built-in microphone is oversensitive
- Only works with NVIDIA's hardware
- Must be purchased separately
NVIDIA's Shield gaming handheld was a peculiar, singular device: an expensive Android portable aimed squarely at consumers that had already purchased high-end desktop GPUs. It was novel and fun, but it wasn't for everybody: If you weren't a gamer, there wasn't much point to owning a Shield. Now, that's changing: NVIDIA's second-generation gaming device isn't a quirky handheld; it's a tablet. Specifically, the Shield tablet is a $299 8-inch gaming slate powered by NVIDIA's new Tegra K1 processor. It wants to be everything to everyone: a high-end gaming device, a superb media tablet and a performance benchmark that will drive the mobile industry forward. Most of all, it wants to appeal to more than just the hardcore gamer. Does it? Let's find out.
