Ian has had the Nvidia SHIELD tablet for over 2 years now, and he's learned a few lessons along the way that can be applied to other purchasing decisions. Join us as Ryan helps Ian get to the bottom of everything.
Overview
1:14 | Quick Facts
Released July 2014 for $300A few months before Lollipop and Material Design, so the box has a different look than I have ever used it with8” 1920×1200 screenNvidia Tegra K12GB RAM16GB/32GB in LTE modelMicro SD card slotStylusRefreshed model “Shield K1” released November 2015 without stylus for $2004:41 | My reasons for buying it
I allowed myself one major purchase per semester in collegeI was very intrigued by the Nvidia-specific featuresShadowplayGame streaming from a PC (and PC games being ported over)Game streaming from Nvidia servers (I was never going to pay monthly for it though)Streaming to TwitchWireless controllerMini HDMII knew a small tablet would fit into my life, as I had enjoyed the Nexus 7 (both models)Stock Android meant it was likely to get timely updates, and I would be familiarI have a large library of Android games from Humble Bundles, but not enough storage on my phone for most of them14:20 | Hardware
SHIELD Tablet and Nintendo Switch size comparisonGreat design for an 8” tablet from 2014Front-facing speakers double as grips when holding it in landscapeWedge shape tapers the device from front to back (think Microsoft Surface) making it easier to hold in portraitSoft plastic back with “SHIELD” written on it is very 2014 NexusStylusI don’t draw, so I can’t speak to how good it is for that; it does have a chisel tip, and brush strokes widen when you use the wider partI only recently discovered it has a handwriting-recognition keyboard. I wasn’t wowed enough to keep using it or the Google Handwriting Recognition.Screen can differentiate the stylus from skin, so you can have it ignore finger/palmI use the stylus mostly for Hearthstone. It’s nice to be able to see what I’m dragging around on the board.16GB is a joke. Using an SD card is a hassleNexus 9 – WikipediaPixel C – Wikipedia25:04 | Software
Just the right balance of stock Android with nifty features added onMany special features are based on specific hardware, like the stylus or optimizations for the Tegra chip.Some customization options that Android normally hides are totally visible in the system settings.Android updatesUsually ~4 months after they are releasedThis is critical, since the versions of Android that made tablets properly useful (multitasking, improved standby battery life, treating SD cards as internal storage) didn’t come out until after the tablet was releasedThey even occasionally do security updates every few months, about a month after it comes outHas been supported through more major versions of Android than the Nexus 532:40 | Performance
BatteryBetter than my phone, but pretty meh for a tabletImproved greatly with Android 6 MarshmallowStill not as great as an iPad in standbyDon’t stream or record gameplay if you care about battery lifeTablet was recalled in July 2015 far a battery issue that could cause fires. Before it was cool.ResponsivenessThis has been roller coasterMost problems are with “context switching” aka switching apps, loading new infoProblem seems to arise from having storage encryptedFigured this out when I installed Cyanogen and it ran smoothly until I encrypted itUnfortunately, formatting the SD card as internal storage causes the same problemAttributions
Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor – Organic (electric edit)This episode of Second Opinion has a Fringe episode. You should really listen to The Fringe #430: SO #20 — The Other “N” Company!
Listen to more at The Nexus and follow us on Twitter and Google+ for our latest episodes and news.