Nvidia Shield

Since mobile gaming has become so prevalent, the idea of game systems, handhelds, and mobile devices as separate product categories has become much more vague. There are dedicated systems like the Nintendo 3DS and Sony PlayStation Vita, but there are also smartphones, tablets, and phablets that run Android or iOS and can access tons of games. They're not often very good games compared with the dedicated devices, but they're there and they're readily available.

The Nvidia Shield tries to combine a dedicated gaming handheld and an Android tablet into a single, gamepad-equipped, feature-filled device. However, it's still an Android device. While this $299 (direct) handheld is the best gaming-oriented Android system I've ever seen and a truly impressive piece of technology, it's limited by its library?for now, at least. The Shield has the added and unique benefit that you can stream PC games to it, but only on a local network and only with a specific type of Nvidia video card, and once you leave your house it becomes just a powerful Android device with Android games on it.

Design
The Shield is thoroughly beefy for a handheld, completely dwarfing the 3DS and Vita with its 6.4-inch wide, 5.5-inch deep, 2.1-inch thick frame. It weighs a sturdy 1.3 pounds, making it heftier than the 3DS and Vita combined. This bulk makes the Shield a surprisingly solid device, giving a sense of stability and durability, even with the flip-up screen, that both Nintendo and Sony's handhelds lack (and neither of those devices feel particularly fragile to begin with).

If you've seen an Xbox 360 controller, you have a sense of the Shield's size and shape. It's a large, curved chunk of plastic with a vague U-shape, plus comfortable hand grips that hold trigger and bumper buttons on each shoulder. When closed, the controls and screen are completely protected except for the shoulder buttons. The back of the Shield holds a micro-USB port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a mini-HDMI port, and a microSD card slot, all completely uncovered. A small rubber door for the ports would have helped protect them, but the ports themselves are very welcome, providing a variety of standard connections to use. You might need to get a mini-HDMI-to-HDMI cable if you don't already have one; mini-HDMI is a less common connector type than full-size HDMI.

When open, the Shield reveals a 5-inch, 720p touch screen under the lid, two large, silver speakers, and a series of gamepad controls on the body. Two large, concave analog sticks sit next to each other in the center of the Shield and a direction pad sits above them to the left, like on a PlayStation 3 controller. Four face buttons labeled A, B, X, and Y in an Xbox 360 controller pattern sit across from the direction pad, and five system buttons, Shield, Home, Start, Mute, and Back, sit between them. The Nvidia button is the largest and only backlit button, serving as a Home button that goes straight to the Shield menu, while the regular Home button goes to the Android home screen.

The touch screen looks bright and crisp, with 720p resolution that suits its size. It easily compares with the Vita's same-sized, 960-by-544 OLED screen, with an even sharper picture thanks to its higher resolution. The 720p screen isn't very impressive compared with the larger, over-1080p Google Nexus 7, but among gaming handhelds it's the best in its class.

The two silver speakers on the gamepad are surprisingly powerful, blowing every other Android device I've used out of the water with how much sound it can put out. It can get significantly louder than a 3DS or PlayStation Vita, and while it isn't as loud as a separate, dedicated speaker (which you can connect using Bluetooth or the headphone jack), it has some of the best speakers I've seen on any portable gadget that wasn't itself a speaker.

Unlike the Nintendo 3DS and Sony PlayStation Vita, the Shield has two ways to put what you're playing in your hand on your HDTV. The mini-HDMI port streams 720p video to the screen with nearly no latency, making playing any game on your HDTV simple, if tethered by a cable. It also supports Miracast, so you can wirelessly stream the Shield's screen to a Miracast-compatible HDTV or connected Blu-ray player. Miracast isn't quite as useful as a direct HDMI connection, because it has too much latency to play games with, and the picture can break up with signal hiccups. Still, both connections are welcome, and Miracast can be very handy for streaming a movie, music, or Web site to your HDTV, even if you can't game with it.

The flip-up screen and gamepad controls are great for gaming, but not so great for non-gaming features. You can control the system using the analog sticks to manipulate an on-screen cursor and on-screen keyboard, but it still feels cumbersome if you want to use the Shield for more mundane Android tablet or smartphone functions like Web browsing. Also, without any camera whatsoever, you can't do video calls or take any pictures with it. This is primarily a gaming device.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/TgQDQowpdu4/0,2817,2422446,00.asp

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