Nvidia Shield Review: Tegra 4-Powered Handheld Gaming

[fanchiuho]

Shield wasn't much of a wow to me IMO, despite all the heavy advertising Nvidia did in the past.
$300 is far too much for me, probably because I can still consider PSVita or 3DS, with the former being a more multimedia friendly device for outdoor entertaining (in terms of looks, WEIGHT, supporting services and all) , and the latter having a large game base to support (Yep I'm a pokemon fan 😍)
And that streaming function, honestly, is totally useless to me.
If I am a fan of Android based-games, yes I may consider this, but for now I would rather save 300 bucks on upgrading my graphics card or buy a console or something.🙁

 

[Lance Theaderman]

I think many of you are missing the main point. This is basically an open Beta for the real deal to come later Tegra5 and onward. This is to learn what works and does not. Shield 2 and so on will be so much more. i am buying one to support Nvidia long term effort. Mark my words will we see with tegra5 streaming pc any where you can get a signal with 4g lte or wifi. Now that is why this will rock in the future. The whole Nvidia grid/ cloud foray should tell you where they are heading!!!

LOL this is a big flop and risk. AMD has a sure thing with the consoles. This stupid handheld will flop because it is to big and there are not enough hardcore geeks like you out there to make it fly well with cell phones becoming more and more powerful and popular. There is no place for this goofy POS called shield LOL. It will be fun to see when nvidia crashes and burns.

I am not so sure console are a "sure thing" any more. This is the first time that a console launch with weaker specs than a medium gaming PC out of the gate. Typically it is Consoles are stronger than the best gaming rig money can buy.(last 3 generations have been for sure) I have built more gaming computers in the last 6 mths for people who are getting away from consoles than I have built in 5 years. Typically they are budget rigs with 650ti boost to GTX760 Nvidia cards or comparable ATI/AMD cards. I can build 650.00 to 1000.00 game rig that does as well or much better than a PS$ or Xbone. Also you can always add a second card to upgrade later on.

Besides I am far from a hardcore geek. If anything I am a Gym rat or an ATV/Dirt Bike fanatic. Gaming is a stress relief nothing more, nothing less. That all said will the shield succeed. I feel confident it will. Nvidia is not looking to sell a billion of them. They are looking to carve out a nice slice of pie in the portable gaming market. I think they will do that with the coming models. I do not think this Shield will sell like hotcakes but as they upgrade it I feel it will outclass all other portable game systems. Besides unlike AMD/ATI Nvidia actually has money to burn...... ;-) If it fails so what. Try something else. They have the capital. They are typically smart with it. That is why they have billions of cash on hand 3.4b and have no debt. AMD/ATI on the other hand are struggling and had to sell their headquarters to get a cash surge. They now rent that building.......I hope they do make a turn around as I like their products. As with the shield....time will tell.

You clearly don't understand how consoles work. Consoles do not work the same way a PC does. A console doesn't have to have a big ass video card, it doesn't need a lightning fast CPU to display great graphics. To compare a console to a PC in terms of hardware is illogical.

You do realize that this generation of consoles Xbox1 and PS4 are nothing but x86 architecture computers with shared memory between the the GPU and the CPU? So Yes you can compare them at this point. I know you can get better graphics on a console verse a computer on comparable hardware since they are coding and optimizing for a closed system. Where as computers have infinite hardware and software combinations. That said these consoles coming soon are the equivalent of a medium game rig by today's standards. Pretty Logical if you know a few things about hardware and software......but believe what you want.

 

[Phillip Krause]

Chris, really enjoyed the article and a Big Thanks for the hands-on demo last weekend. We stress tested the radio and the Shield was good on the other side of the bar about 150' feet.

 

[sadamick]

Got my Shield for $200 for Xmas because it was on sale for $250 and since I bought a new Nvidia GTX 760 I got another $50 off along with 2 PC games. I freaking love it. Also it comes with NVidia Grid Beta app which is Nvidia's game streaming service (similar to OnLive). Since I was upgrading my PC anyway, picking up this much tech for only $200 was a no brainer for me. I'm not really a hardcore gamer but I have a lot of steam titles. I don't have a lot of time to sit in front of my PC. But I do sit on the couch a lot with my wife and watch TV. So the shield is a perfect solution for me. Now I can watch TV and play my PC games.