Second Opinion #20: Nvidia SHIELD Tablet Post-Mortem

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.

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 $300

A few months before Lollipop and Material Design, so the box has a different look than I have ever used it with

8” 1920×1200 screen
Nvidia Tegra K1
2GB RAM
16GB/32GB in LTE model
Micro SD card slot
Stylus
Refreshed model “Shield K1” released November 2015 without stylus for $200

4:41 | My reasons for buying it

I allowed myself one major purchase per semester in college
I was very intrigued by the Nvidia-specific features

Shadowplay
Game 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 Twitch
Wireless controller
Mini HDMI

I 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 familiar
I have a large library of Android games from Humble Bundles, but not enough storage on my phone for most of them

14:20 | Hardware

SHIELD Tablet and Nintendo Switch size comparison
Great design for an 8” tablet from 2014
Front-facing speakers double as grips when holding it in landscape
Wedge shape tapers the device from front to back (think Microsoft Surface) making it easier to hold in portrait
Soft plastic back with “SHIELD” written on it is very 2014 Nexus
Stylus

I 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 part
I 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/palm
I 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 hassle
Nexus 9 – Wikipedia
Pixel C – Wikipedia

25:04 | Software

Just the right balance of stock Android with nifty features added on

Many 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 updates

Usually ~4 months after they are released
This 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 released
They even occasionally do security updates every few months, about a month after it comes out
Has been supported through more major versions of Android than the Nexus 5

32:40 | Performance

Battery

Better than my phone, but pretty meh for a tablet
Improved greatly with Android 6 Marshmallow
Still not as great as an iPad in standby
Don’t stream or record gameplay if you care about battery life
Tablet was recalled in July 2015 far a battery issue that could cause fires. Before it was cool.

Responsiveness

This has been roller coaster
Most problems are with “context switching” aka switching apps, loading new info
Problem seems to arise from having storage encrypted

Figured this out when I installed Cyanogen and it ran smoothly until I encrypted it
Unfortunately, formatting the SD card as internal storage causes the same problem

Attributions

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!

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