Nvidia's Project Shield - 'Android & Tegra 4 inside'


I actually think the Pandora is holding up remarkably well seeing as it's being measured against a device built around the latest and greatest soc. Sent from my GT-N5100 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Agree.  In a soccer match, a weaker player can score a goal by using his skills and techniques.  Whereas, a strong player with pure bull power but without techniques can score as well by running over everyone on the field provided that the referee doesn't stop him.  The elegant and skillful player (or the underdog) is way more interesting to watch than watching the bull since everyone knows he'll stampede the opponents to score....and that elegant player is the Pandora  :D

Edit:  My favorite and elegant player of all time  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2b_Dc72D1s
 
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I actually think the Pandora is holding up remarkably well seeing as it's being measured against a device built around the latest and greatest soc. Sent from my GT-N5100 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
^ I agree.

@Shenmue...Well said.... Don't forget I love my Pandora too and I  like you and FaeMinx. ....good peeps.
 
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@FaeMinx..I agree...guess the cylinders will have to give out eventually.

@ Shenmue....well said but did you see how gorgeous Grand Theft Auto Vice City looks?.....and those Sonic games...Metal Sonic...oh my fricking gosh!!!

I still love my Pandora and always will.

Sorry for the double post.
 
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@FaeMinx..I agree...guess the cylinders will have to give out eventually.

@ Shenmue....well said but did you see how gorgeous Grand Theft Auto Vice City looks?.....and those Sonic games...Metal Sonic...oh my fricking gosh!!!

I still love my Pandora and always will.

Sorry for the double post.
Yes.  They are quite good.  P2 will be better though.  :D
 
For any of you in the USA or Canada, and have a Newegg account, they are offering 25% off on select Shield Accessories(until midnight on the 31st, or until funds are exhausted).

Use code NVSHIELD25 if your in the US, and NVSHIELD25CA if your in Canada. This is good on the shield case:14-998-078, Glossy blk shield:14-998-079, carbon fiber blk shield:14-988-080, 10 ft HDMI cable:82-422-074, and 15 ft HDMI cable:82-422-075.

So you get 10 dollars off the case, and 5 dollars off the shields. Pretty good deal overall.

Chris
 
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$40 is too much, $30 the price is right, purchased
Yeah, I agree^

This is why I hadn't bought one yet, $40 for a case, DAMN......That's crazy!

It is actually a very nice case(I had a few arrive today that I'll be selling), I'm not sure if it's 40 dollars worth of good, but it's pretty nice. Nyko was supposed to be making two alternative cases, but besides the announcement at E3, I can't find any other info. I'm sure theirs will be cheaper, but who knows if it's still planned, or if it may ever see the light of day.

For now, this seems like a good deal. Anyone who's lightly interested should jump in, as there probably won't be a better deal anytime soon. Now I just need to get my Skinomi "full body" skin protector, and I'll actually be ready to buy an actual unit :p

Chris
 
Some people are already selling theirs on ebay guess its just a quick thrill device
 
Some people are already selling theirs on ebay guess its just a quick thrill device.
I've actually seen a few used ones listed already, but that's nothing new. I see the same for everything from the Pandora to the latest Android Phones, and back to the latest Apple products.

One guy said he had an emergency come up and couldn't afford to keep it, where the others just seem to not be that interested, or maybe some other reason not given. Oh well, several people got rid of their Pandora's once they launched and I'm still using mine years later. Different strokes, for different folks..........This is nothing new!

Chris
 
Well i guess the world dont move to the beat of just one drum what might be right for jumpman might not be right for some Different strokes exactly m8 PMSL
 
Has there been any word on any 3rd party companies putting out their own shields for this? I like the carbon fiber shield and I bought the glossy with the coupon from Newegg but some more choices would be nice. Some that don't cost $20 each and have nice designs would be cool.

Did anyone else receive a t-shirt from Newegg as well? One showed up at my place today via UPS. Kinda surprised me as I thought only people who ordered directly from Nvidia got those... guess they had extras.
 
Has there been any word on any 3rd party companies putting out their own shields for this? I like the carbon fiber shield and I bought the glossy with the coupon from Newegg but some more choices would be nice. Some that don't cost $20 each and have nice designs would be cool.

Did anyone else receive a t-shirt from Newegg as well? One showed up at my place today via UPS. Kinda surprised me as I thought only people who ordered directly from Nvidia got those... guess they had extras.
I'd like some more shields as well, I haven't heard of any third party ones. Maybe some will pop up on Ebay.

I just received my T-shirt yesterday, wasn't expecting it since I didn't get it with my order I just assumed they had run out. It's not only for people that ordered through Nvidia, Newegg and other retailers had them as well.
 
Some people are already selling theirs on ebay guess its just a quick thrill device
Yeah I just ordered a used one on ebay, cost an extra 100 or so Euro, but that's mostly import and shipping. Cheapest way I've seen to bring one into Ireland so I jumped on it.

Oh, and I got a T-shirt with it!
 
Some people are already selling theirs on ebay guess its just a quick thrill device
Yeah I just ordered a used one on ebay, cost an extra 100 or so Euro, but that's mostly import and shipping. Cheapest way I've seen to bring one into Ireland so I jumped on it.

Oh, and I got a T-shirt with it!
^ you made a wise choice . Make sure you check out the FPS Conduit....the first 2 levels are free. The second I played Sonic Episode 2 my jaw dropped  :eek:   ;) . Dead Trigger is free and looks and plays amazingly and I am anxiously waiting for the sequel. Oh yes and if you like jet ski games [my favorite] Riptide 2 is amazing and has great water physics.

Congrats !! ;)
 
I didn't even preorder from Newegg, I just placed a regular order about 5 days after the shield had been released and they sent me a shirt a few days ago. The coupon codes where included with my shirt. From what I read over on the Nvidia forums, they where supposed to give them to preorder customers, but they received them late and had to ship them out after the fact.

Here's a customization thread over at Nvidia: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/572441/nvidia-shield/nvidia-shield-customization-thread-/. This guys came out pretty cool.

I ordered the replacement shields, but I doubt I'll use them(probably just sale them). I'll wait on some custom decal skins, and then I'll just cover the silver shield that comes with the unit. I'm sure some cool designs are on the way.

To those of you who have had your shield for awhile, how are you enjoying it now that a few weeks have passed? What's your favorite games, emu's, things to use it for? How is the comfort level of holding the unit for extended periods?

Chris
 
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I didn't even preorder from Newegg, I just placed a regular order about 5 days after the shield had been released and they sent me a shirt a few days ago. The coupon codes where included with my shirt. From what I read over on the Nvidia forums, they where supposed to give them to preorder customers, but they received them late and had to ship them out after the fact.

Here's a customization thread over at Nvidia: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/572441/nvidia-shield/nvidia-shield-customization-thread-/. This guys came out pretty cool.

I ordered the replacement shields, but I doubt I'll use them(probably just sale them). I'll wait on some custom decal skins, and then I'll just cover the silver shield that comes with the unit. I'm sure some cool designs are on the way.

To those of you who have had your shield for awhile, how are you enjoying it now that a few weeks have passed? What's your favorite games, emu's, things to use it for? How is the comfort level of holding the unit for extended periods?

Chris
^If you want to sell me the glossy lid I will buy it from you.

I still am enjoying my Shield very much. I find it very comfortable for my rather large hands. I have used it for a couple hours at one sitting with no aches or pains. I do rest my hands on a surface though as opposed to holding the unit with no bottom support.

The battery life varies depending on what you are doing...I get about 5-6 hours of battery life  on average. Yes I know this pales as compared to the Pandora but it is a matter of what type of software you are using.

Conduit HD, Max Payne,Sonic 4 both episodes, Real Boxing, Renaissance, Chuck's Challenge, Virtua Tennis, Blood Sword, AVP Evolution, Shine Runner,Riptide 2, Dead Trigger, Expendable,Turbofly HD and GTA Vice City..all games I own and highly recommend.

I find the PS1 and N64 emulation to be amazingly accurate since the updates and finally I can play Conker 64 on N64Oid.   I am a fan of Hulu + and enjoy this app.You get 2 free months of it too. The wifi is very fast and surfing the net is effortless.

The screen is crystal clear and responds to touch extremely accurately. Though I do not use touch as much as the game pad. There are mouse functions but I do not use them, though I experimented  once and found it accurately executed.

The only thing I have not explored yet is the streaming of Steam games because I do not have the proper computer or proper video card .....I own an iMac and Macbook [please no jeers].  

My rating overall of the device would be 9.5/10. 

It my not be for everyone because even with the carry case it is bulky and rather clumsy to take along say on a boat or train ride. Also I would not want to stand stationary for any length of time waiting for the choo choo using this. Another negative might be the small library of Shield games at this point especially the Tegra 4 optimized games but I am being optimistic things will beef up in the coming months.

One thing to add....the Shield looks and feels very well put together and as soon as one puts his/her hands on it , I reckon they will agree with me.
 
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Said I was going to do a review but as I look around at other reviews I see the same things I would mention being said over and over. I have nothing new to bring to the table other than comparing it to the Pandora. So in shy of a full review I'll just give some impressions after a week or two of using it constantly.

Feels awesome, you get used to the weight real quick, can play for hours upon hours in a row without fatigue or discomfort. Controls are fantastic, not the best of the best, but the best all in one. The Pandoras dpad is still the best but the shields other controls are all better than the Pandora. Also ergonomically it's much superior to the pandora in my opinion. The pandora is more mobile because of it's size, but I don't find it to be a big challenge to carry it along with me. Durability is defiantly in favor of the shield, it's a tank and has very high quality plastics the pandora has "good enough" plastics but is completely fragile in comparison.

Get retroarch and the vast majority of your emulation (PSX, SNES, NES, GBA, GBC, VB, PCE, NGP, SMD, SMS, SGG, 2600 etc etc) will be dreamlike goodness. Drastic offers the same level for NDS. N64 & PSP are about the same level of playability with some games working remarkably well and others are just not compatible or too slow or glitchy to play. Given the brute power of the device its a much better experience on the shield vs the Pandora. I am still in the process of getting a 139 romset to test MAME but others say mame4droid reloaded is great. There's a select few ROMs that are supposed to give the system a challenge that I promised I would test. The tip of the hat to the shield for game console emulation because it has the power to push perfect framerates even with all the fancy filters and scalers enabled and even in more primitive emulators PSP, N64, Saturn etc, it can push them harder to get framerates not achievable on the Pandora.

The area the Pandora has the shield licked is computer emulation. Game computers (Amiga/c64 etc etc) and qemu are just natural fits on the Pandora where it's possible to do some of those systems with great or lots better actual performance but getting them to run is an absolute pain in the ass in my opinion and using them even worse. This is where having a on screen keyboard is no substitute. Storage is another strong suit of the Pandora with a practical max space of 256GB vs the shields current 80GB (less usable) 64GB micro + 16GB onboard. Battery life for emulation has been consistently the same 10 hours that I used to get on the Pandora with the same conditions (all radios off & half brightness) The vast majority of the emulators you find on the Pandora have similar ports on android and in some cases are ports of the same software.

Full support of Android vs Linux is the obvious difference here and could honestly be changed or converged upon on either device with either device fully supporting both OS's in a dual boot situation. All it takes is a community project or dedicated skilled developer on either or both devices. Full controls (analogs especially) in android games that support it is a major tip of the hat to shield in that respect. The Pandora has a lot of exclusive games that haven't been ported to android yet so the shield lacks a bit with the sheer number of games and apps that actually take advantage of all the controls and would benefit a lot from Pandoras software catalog if a Linux port were to be done. But the android games that the shield does play natively are unplayable or nowhere near as good on the Pandora with its unfinished android port or lack of power, or a combination of both.

As far as comparisons of the two devices aside from the price difference where I won't talk about because of the production scale of the two. This feels to me what the pandora 2 should be, or at least share a lot of the same qualities. Lots of

things people have been asking for in the pandora 2 are what are already in the shield. I'm not sure if this is a positive, but this looks like what craig's Pandora 2 would be if it had a keyboard attached. HDMI, rock solid wifi, higher def screen, R2 trigger buttons, microsd slot (not sure if a positive) Real analog sticks, quad core cortex a15 processor, 2GB ram (I think he wanted 8GB) these are all things people have been asking for and this has those things. This already has a lot of the things the pandora has as main selling features and does a lot of them one better. Minus the keyboard, and the OS it runs, this shares a hell of a lot of the similarities as the pandora even down to the clam shell design. That can't be overlooked.

Haven't gotten a chance to use the PC streaming yet or the miracast but those add a whole other aspect to the functionality that the pandora doesn't have. One allowing the shield to display what another machine is processing, and the other being another machine displaying what the shield is processing.

Think that sums up the subject at least in my opinion.
 
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Said I was going to do a review but as I look around at other reviews I see the same things I would mention being said over and over. I have nothing new to bring to the table other than comparing it to the Pandora. So in shy of a full review I'll just give some impressions after a week or two of using it constantly.

Feels awesome, you get used to the weight real quick, can play for hours upon hours in a row without fatigue or discomfort. Controls are fantastic, not the best of the best, but the best all in one. The Pandoras dpad is still the best but the shields other controls are all better than the Pandora. Also ergonomically it's much superior in my opinion. The pandora is more mobile because of it's size, but I don't find it to be a big challenge to carry it along with me. Durability is defiantly in favor of the shield, it's a tank and has very high quality plastics the pandora has "good enough" plastics but is completely fragile in comparison.

Get retroarch and the vast majority of your emulation (PSX, SNES, NES, GBA, GBC, VB, PCE, NGP, SMD, SMS, SGG, 2600 etc etc) will be dreamlike goodness. Drastic offers the same level for NDS. N64 & PSP are about the same level of playability with some games working remarkably well and others are just not compatible or too slow or glitchy to play. Given the brute power of the device its a much better experience on the shield vs the Pandora. I am still in the process of getting a 139 romset to test MAME but others say mame4droid reloaded is great. There's a select few ROMs that are supposed to give the system a challenge that I promised I would test. The tip of the hat to the shield for game console emulation because it has the power to push perfect framerates even with all the fancy filters and scalers enabled and even in more primitive emulators PSP, N64, Saturn etc, it can push them harder to get framerates not achievable on the Pandora.

The area the Pandora has the shield licked is computer emulation. Game computers (Amiga/c64 etc etc) and qemu are just natural fits on the Pandora where it's possible to do some of those systems with great or lots better actual performance but getting them to run is an absolute pain in the ass in my opinion and using them even worse. This is where having a on screen keyboard is no substitute. Storage is another strong suit of the Pandora with a practical max space of 256GB vs the shields current 80GB (less usable) 64GB micro + 16GB onboard. Battery life for emulation has been consistently the same 10 hours that I used to get on the Pandora with the same conditions (all radios off & half brightness) The vast majority of the emulators you find on the Pandora have similar ports on android and in some cases are ports of the same software.

Full support of Android vs Linux is the obvious difference here and could honestly be changed or converged upon on either device with either device fully supporting both OS's in a dual boot situation. All it takes is a community project or dedicated skilled developer on either or both devices. Full controls (analogs especially) in android games that support it is a major tip of the hat to shield in that respect. The Pandora has a lot of exclusive games that haven't been ported to android yet so the shield lacks a bit with the sheer number of games and apps that actually take advantage of all the controls and would benefit a lot from Pandoras software catalog if a Linux port were to be done. But the android games that the shield does play natively are unplayable or nowhere near as good on the Pandora with its unfinished android port or lack of power, or a combination of both.

As far as comparisons of the two devices aside from the price difference where I won't talk about because of the production scale of the two. This feels to me what the pandora 2 should be, or at least share a lot of the same qualities. Lots of

things people have been asking for in the pandora 2 are what are already in the shield. I'm not sure if this is a positive, but this looks like what craig's Pandora 2 would be if it had a keyboard attached. HDMI, rock solid wifi, higher def screen, R2 trigger buttons, microsd slot (not sure if a positive) Real analog sticks, quad core cortex a15 processor, 2GB ram (I think he wanted 8GB) these are all things people have been asking for and this has those things. This already has a lot of the things the pandora has as main selling features and does a lot of them one better. Minus the keyboard, and the OS it runs, this shares a hell of a lot of the similarities as the pandora even down to the clam shell design. That can't be overlooked.

Haven't gotten a chance to use the PC streaming yet or the miracast but those add a whole other aspect to the functionality that the pandora doesn't have. One allowing the shield to display what another machine is processing, and the other being another machine displaying what the shield is processing.

Think that sums up the subject at least in my opinion.
Nice review.  I wish Pandora 2 will come soon and beat the shit out of the Shield.  I think NVidia browsed the web (boards.openpadora.org) before making the shield to see what gamers want and built the Shield around these suggestions.
 
Take the shield, give it pandora's excellent dpad, add a keyboard, and 2 full sized sd slots and dualboot linux & (a solid port of) android and the pandora 2 could be a real winner IMO.
 
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