Database Users

CES 2011 tablets

Is it me or the tablets at the CES today were nothing but crap! All this great hardware but had some serious OS issues, or lack there of.
Even the one from Vizio was lagging/skipping frame rates soooo badly. The Adam was EXTREMELY skipping frame rates, and was had crap touch response, and can't see how feasible playing games on that thing because of the way it's designed. Only the PlayBook seems to be as smooth as a baby's bottom, but it's not Android unfortunately.
My SGT pwns them all, at the same time! hah. What are your thoughts so far?

If they would have been able to ship last summer, no doubt I'd have an Adam. I'd really love the Pixel Qi screen and near stock Android, but they seemed to go further and further with their customization there, and it just took too long and I got the Tab. I'm still hoping next year brings 15-19" slates/tablets. I'd even consider a Win 8 slate in that form factor, but Ubuntu/other Linux would be best there as a full laptop replacement.

BuglessFan said:
If they would have been able to ship last summer, no doubt I'd have an Adam. I'd really love the Pixel Qi screen and near stock Android, but they seemed to go further and further with their customization there, and it just took too long and I got the Tab. I'm still hoping next year brings 15-19" slates/tablets. I'd even consider a Win 8 slate in that form factor, but Ubuntu/other Linux would be best there as a full laptop replacement.
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15 and 19 inch tablets?? What are you going to do with those, literally surf on them???
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

I think that size really takes away from the portability of the tablet

I dunno, I have been working my tab for about a month. I have a GalaxyS and the Tab and since flashing the firmware to get phone support, I have left my Galaxy S in a desk drawer. I swap sim cards out if I want to carry something smaller than the Tab. None of the tablets announced have talked about voice support. I think the Vizio unit with infrared is interesting but I remember having this on a palm pilot and didnt use it much as a remote.
I don't see how any of these new units are doing anything different until Gingerbread/3.0 or whatever we are calling it is gold.
I like USB ports but what I am going to do with those? Print? I can already print on the tab. What we need is less hardware improvement and more software improvement - something that is missing from the CES announcements. You can customize a turd any way you want but if it's still a turd it's going to stink.

subvecto said:
15 and 19 inch tablets?? What are you going to do with those, literally surf on them???
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk
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Replace a laptop. Something that big without the need for the keyboard would be a perfect replacement. With Swype, BlindType and others, I don't need to bother with a full keyboard, and with a tablet, there's no need for a wireless mouse or a fidgety touch pad. Weight-wise, I'm fine with 17" laptop in a bag now, but with the battery life their getting on 10" tabs, I can see something with solid state drive of some kind being a full and complete laptop replacement not requiring me to carry around a brick or open and close it. It is the eventual replacement for the laptop, no doubt. If you really lust for a physical keyboard: Bluetooth, and it'd still be less to lug around than a current laptop bag with a brick, mouse and keyboard. I just hope it's by next year. www.kno.com is already taking pre-orders for a dual screen 14" tablet. We have the tech already to make heavy passive-screen folding laptops as ancient as rotary dialing phones.
My ideal two gadget life would be something around the size of the tab, maybe about half the trim around the screen, as phone/portable tablet, and the big one for actual work and real computing that I use my laptop for now. No phone; just those two sizes.

The only one that looked good was the xoom. And honestly I think the main thing is the software that is made for a tablet. If we could get that for our tabs then I don't see the point of going anywhere.
Just worried that we don't have the hardware to run honeycomb.
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App

fbrn said:
Just worried that we don't have the hardware to run honeycomb.
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App
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Don't worry.
Random note: there's no hard minimum processor requirement for Honeycomb. Trust me, if there were I'd know.
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Croak said:
Don't worry.
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I love how you say that with confidence.

Something just makes me uneasy about Motorola android products...not trying to put anybody down if you've got a Motorola Android device, but the quality just isn't there. At least for me it isn't. They have a cheap feel to them and lets not even get into Motoblur....awful. I dont see the Xoom being that successful
Sent from my SPH-P100 using XDA App

xoltrix2000 said:
I love how you say that with confidence.
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There's a LOT of untapped potential in the Hummingbird SoC. GPU wise, it's pretty close to a dead heat with a Tegra 250. Seriously.

I am so hoping you are right on that one. I paid full retail 15 days too early to get the 100 refund so I am not the happiest about that. However honestly I love the size more than I thought I would. It just fits perfectly so I don't know if the tablets that are being announced would be a little too big after using my galaxy tab?
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App

xoltrix2000 said:
Is it me or the tablets at the CES today were nothing but crap! All this great hardware but had some serious OS issues, or lack there of.
Even the one from Vizio was lagging/skipping frame rates soooo badly. The Adam was EXTREMELY skipping frame rates, and was had crap touch response, and can't see how feasible playing games on that thing because of the way it's designed. Only the PlayBook seems to be as smooth as a baby's bottom, but it's not Android unfortunately.
My SGT pwns them all, at the same time! hah. What are your thoughts so far?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to agree. I was hoping for a new 7" tab with dual cores and comparable resolution to the tab. 10" tablet is useless on the go and if I'm at home, what's wrong with using a laptop?
I was really disappointed by the Streak 7. I can't even believe Dell has the nerve to introduce such a ****ty product.

Kind of funny how some are in a mad rush to get something bigger while I just junked the iPad in favor of a Galaxy Tab because it's so much smaller and lighter. That it plays Flash video so well and has back and front cameras....oh, and is available on a carrier that doesn't suck at my house...is pretty much a middle finger aimed squarely at Mr Jobs. And if anyone deserves the middle finger, it's Mr Jobs.

Well samsung just announced a new galaxy tab with 1.2 ghz humming bird and 4g lte connectivity.
looks exactly the same but new insides.
Also only for verizon.
Also 5 mp camera and 1.3 mp front facing.

but will it make calls?

Ipad fanboys on the Xoom board.

First off, why the heck did you buy a Xoom in the first place, it's kinda like you were asking for trouble and then paying for it, kinda stupid.
You say that the lack of high def video support is your main beef (especially after certain people point out that the vaunted all high powerfull apple didn't have all that many tablet apps on its initial release), but your keep switching the bar for what the problem is. You now say that the problem is no native, "Hardware" support for high def, but apple doesn't have that either, even the vaunted Ipad 2 doesn't seem to come with a hardware decoder for high def, and you apperantly realize that a software decoder is on the way, one way or the other, for the Xoom, so your only beef is it's not here now.
You know what, I'm not normally one of those Linux geeks who likes to show how smart I am and disdains others trying to play with my software, but [email protected] you apple guys are some annoying perfectionist f√cks that I'd rather not have on my team, and not just perfectionist but blind to the faults in your own chosen gods.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

Many people like myself picked up an iPad when it was apparent that Android had nothing to compete with it. I bought mine over the summer expecting Android to release something, anything, that could compete with it during the fall, at which time I would sell the ipad and pick up the Android tablet. During that period of waiting, I picked up a Galaxy S phone, specifically the Epic4g. I later found out that Galaxy S phones were nearly identical to the iPad hardware wise. I am continually blown away by how awesome this phone is and its capabilities. I am not an iPad fanboy. I think the hardware is amazing, but iOS is annoying and far too simple. So that is where I am coming from:
The FACT that the Xoom is incapable of playing high profile [email protected] or higher is ridiculous given its specs and who the manufacturer of the SoC is. I'm sorry. The iPad running XBMC and my Galaxy S phone natively can play files that the Xoom cannot, and that is kinda pathetic, as neither of those devices are dual cores and both are running years old GPU tech. Maybe sometime in the future the Xoom will be able to software decode these videos by maxing out both cores of the CPU, but that is both not ideal and unlikely and will destroy battery life compared to hardware decoding which uses the GPU.
And yes, the iPad hardware decodes these videos using XBMC the same way that my phone hardware decodes natively. Natively they limit the capability of the ipad to pimp their iTunes garbage, but the capability was there in the hardware for ingenious people to take advantage of. The iPad had Air Video also, which mitigated much of its unjailbroken shortcomings until XBMC was ported. No such capability exists for the xoom according to the very people who brought the port of XBMC to the iPad.
As for the rest of your post where you go on about "teams" and other nonsense, what are you talking about. People can appreciate both platforms and both devices.
tl;dr: Part of the reason some of us were/are upset at this glaring shortcoming is that we have been waiting forever for an Android tablet to come swoop us off our feet and for months now Nvidia has been pimping its SoC as the bringer of all things HD and graphically sexy. Then we come to find out that oh yea, it only plays this VERY VERY specific kind of HD that no one uses and that is surpassed by last years PHONE technology. Its not the end of the world, but its personally what I use my iPad for most.

I have both so its easy to compare one to the other. With that said, looking forward to Xoom updates to bring feature parity. Hopefully something can be done with the craptastic video playback support.

No offense, but I enjoy snuggling up with my gf in front of my regular LCD TV to watch my movies. Why go through all that trouble of jailbreaking when another update will force you to revert? And why go through all that trouble to play a movie on a tablet when I can I play it back perfectly on my hdpc? I have more than a ½ TB of movies and how many movies are on my tablet....just three. Why? Just to show it off to others. In the end each is their own. But I didn't purchase my tablet to just play movies or music. I purchased it for productivity simply. Not saying ipad can't be that, but I prefer to free myself from iTunes. It's a bastard and no hack or mod will make any apple product work my way.

muyoso said:
Many people like myself picked up an iPad when it was apparent that Android had nothing to compete with it. I bought mine over the summer expecting Android to release something, anything, that could compete with it during the fall, at which time I would sell the ipad and pick up the Android tablet. During that period of waiting, I picked up a Galaxy S phone, specifically the Epic4g. I later found out that Galaxy S phones were nearly identical to the iPad hardware wise. I am continually blown away by how awesome this phone is and its capabilities. I am not an iPad fanboy. I think the hardware is amazing, but iOS is annoying and far too simple. So that is where I am coming from:
The FACT that the Xoom is incapable of playing high profile [email protected] or higher is ridiculous given its specs and who the manufacturer of the SoC is. I'm sorry. The iPad running XBMC and my Galaxy S phone natively can play files that the Xoom cannot, and that is kinda pathetic, as neither of those devices are dual cores and both are running years old GPU tech. Maybe sometime in the future the Xoom will be able to software decode these videos by maxing out both cores of the CPU, but that is both not ideal and unlikely and will destroy battery life compared to hardware decoding which uses the GPU.
And yes, the iPad hardware decodes these videos using XBMC the same way that my phone hardware decodes natively. Natively they limit the capability of the ipad to pimp their iTunes garbage, but the capability was there in the hardware for ingenious people to take advantage of. The iPad had Air Video also, which mitigated much of its unjailbroken shortcomings until XBMC was ported. No such capability exists for the xoom according to the very people who brought the port of XBMC to the iPad.
As for the rest of your post where you go on about "teams" and other nonsense, what are you talking about. People can appreciate both platforms and both devices.
tl;dr: Part of the reason some of us were/are upset at this glaring shortcoming is that we have been waiting forever for an Android tablet to come swoop us off our feet and for months now Nvidia has been pimping its SoC as the bringer of all things HD and graphically sexy. Then we come to find out that oh yea, it only plays this VERY VERY specific kind of HD that no one uses and that is surpassed by last years PHONE technology. Its not the end of the world, but its personally what I use my iPad for most.
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Thank you for being reasonable, even if I was coming off as some what of a d/ck. We actually do not fully know yet if the Xoom's hi def restrictions are totally related to hardware yet, some on the notion ink board have hinted that it is merely a problem with the OS and that the hardware can handle it, this actually makes sense when you think about it, after all nvidia is first and formost a graphics oriented company. So we could see an OS fix and have a hardware native solution.
Whatever the problem might be, the issue I generally have is that the apple fan boys are quick to dismiss the overall capability of the system in favor of a system that is fully developed, you can't compare nor compete with a system that is fully developed to it's ultimate potential with a system that is just beginning to feel itself out into what it can become. You might love the finished product of the Ipad, but at the same time understand that it has limits that the Xoom doesn't.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

If the Adam has a Tegra 2 and can play high quality videos, the XOOM is absolutely capable of it. Right?

I bought an iPad2 tonight to have both

arrtoodeetoo said:
If the Adam has a Tegra 2 and can play high quality videos, the XOOM is absolutely capable of it. Right?
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Yes, exactly, the problem seems to be OS related, so fixable.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

cwizardtx said:
I bought an iPad2 tonight to have both
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That's the best of both worlds. Enjoy!!!

muyoso said:
tl;dr: Part of the reason some of us were/are upset at this glaring shortcoming is that we have been waiting forever for an Android tablet to come swoop us off our feet and for months now Nvidia has been pimping its SoC as the bringer of all things HD and graphically sexy. Then we come to find out that oh yea, it only plays this VERY VERY specific kind of HD that no one uses and that is surpassed by last years PHONE technology. Its not the end of the world, but its personally what I use my iPad for most.
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+1 on that one sir. you have no idea how long i was following the tegra 2 story last year. it is disappointing that there's a ton of codec issues on the xoom. I'm quite sure this is a software, not hardware issue.
However, Google/Motorola needs to be aware of this asap. The louder the noise, the more they will do something about it.

richardjr said:
Yes, exactly, the problem seems to be OS related, so fixable.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App
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Except that the Notion Ink is similarly incapable of high profile [email protected] or higher video playback. Its a Tegra 2 issue.

cwizardtx said:
I bought an iPad2 tonight to have both
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win!
i like apple's hardware just fine (my work machine is a macbook pro, which boot into xp) and i still have a 7 year old 64gb iPod and it still works somehow. what i don't like is apple OSes and walled gardens and devices that i can't do what I want with. i like to feel like i own a device. and i guess i might have to admit i'm a bit of a fanboy. i'm pretty bought in to the whole google ecosystem. I've even got a Cr-48 my xoom is sitting on top of.
but the positive side of this iOS vs Android thing is that we're getting some kickass products from the battle. without the fierce competition (in the wake of Apple changing the smartphone market with the first iPhone) we'd all still be stuck on palm/webOS, blackberry or winbloze mobile.

muyoso said:
Except that the Notion Ink is similarly incapable of high profile [email protected] or higher video playback. Its a Tegra 2 issue.
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OK, well I have asked my brother whom is a programer for Motorola what the actual hardware support is and I have posted on the nvidia developer site to explain what the capabilities are hopefully I will get a reply.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

muyoso said:
Except that the Notion Ink is similarly incapable of high profile [email protected] or higher video playback. Its a Tegra 2 issue.
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Can the Ipad or Ipad 2 support [email protected] or higher video, and I mean native hardware, not software, and is the tegra 2 not capable with a software correction while the Ipad or Ipad 2 is, in other words is one device especially deficient as apposed to the other?
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

Well... I am for one have switched to the other side - and LOVING IT!
Dont get me wrong - once the Android platform is a little more mature - I will be back! Until then good luck and enjoy waiting for fixes, games, apps and the 2nd generation around the corner.
(You may ask why did I give up my Android - well it was ViewSonic with a TERRIBLE screen. I also found the applications to be very substandard (games, etc.). I am one of those Linux/Java geeks who LOVE recompiling kernels, developing fixes/apps, etc. but for now.. I just wanted something that I would be productive with.
Anyway... I write this for google and other android manufactorers to see... I will be back.. I promise but I will NOT spend $800 on a beta platform ($400 would have taken me)!
I think I chose wisely
READ:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4215/apple-ipad-2-benchmarked-dualcore-cortex-a9-powervr-sgx-543mp2

I have an ipad, pretty much since day 1. How could you not be a fan? It is a market defining device like the ipod. MS has been talking tablets for 10 years and hasn't been able to pull it off. I don't use mine for movies or music and I still like it. For my uses, the Xoom is a better fit as it has a real file system, sd memory, usb hosting, Motorola seems to have warmed to rooting, etc. but my ipad (which I won't be upgrading) is still an excellent device. Android needs a media manager, hopefully a unified Android platform, to compete with ipad for most people. Maybe that will be Google Music?
Thank you Apple for raising the bar. If it wasn't for the iphone we'd be stuck with WM5.0 or a RIM still doing text only emails. As long as Google and Apple are chasing each other devices and innovation will be better and better and we have choices.

richardjr said:
Can the Ipad or Ipad 2 support [email protected] or higher video, and I mean native hardware, not software, and is the tegra 2 not capable with a software correction while the Ipad or Ipad 2 is, in other words is one device especially deficient as apposed to the other?
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App
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The iPad supports nothing out of the box for obvious reasons. Its a closed ecosystem. The hardware is willing but iOS is unwilling. Installing XBMC however allows my iPad to play up to high profile [email protected] 720p videos before it begins to show signs of stuttering. Everything I have read including a direct quote from the dev behind the XBMC release for iOS who bought a Tegra 2 developer kit to begin the porting to the Tegra 2 platform is that Nvidia's Soc is incapable at a hardware level of high profile video @ L4.1 or higher. That is, with perfect drivers and codecs, that is the maximum it can achieve. The iPad2 will be able to do a lot more than the original iPad most likely. I wouldn't be surprised if it was capable of 1080p high profile @L5.1.

stanglx said:
Well... I am for one have switched to the other side - and LOVING IT!
Dont get me wrong - once the Android platform is a little more mature - I will be back! Until then good luck and enjoy waiting for fixes, games, apps and the 2nd generation around the corner.
(You may ask why did I give up my Android - well it was ViewSonic with a TERRIBLE screen. I also found the applications to be very substandard (games, etc.). I am one of those Linux/Java geeks who LOVE recompiling kernels, developing fixes/apps, etc. but for now.. I just wanted something that I would be productive with.
Anyway... I write this for google and other android manufactorers to see... I will be back.. I promise but I will NOT spend $800 on a beta platform ($400 would have taken me)!
I think I chose wisely
READ:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4215/apple-ipad-2-benchmarked-dualcore-cortex-a9-powervr-sgx-543mp2
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SERIOUSLY! I returned my Xoom to Costco on thursday and got my ipad 2 yesterday and I'm extremely glad i did ($400 bucks in my pocket :]). I dont care how "closed" it is, the iPad handles media beautifully. The xoom couldn't even handle the large pdfs i threw at it, zooming and page turning was a stuttering mess (i know its a software issue but still!) while the iPad zips through the pages with such ease. This goes for movies as well, xoom=stutter or forceclose while ipad = smooth. And the apps, wow, they are amazing. Garageband on a tablet is so ridiculously awesome. And now there is a flash player for ipad! The iswifter app for ios played every damn flash video and game i through at it.
While the cameras on the xoom are better, the ipads cameras are plenty sufficient for what most people are going to use them for. Video chat and photbooth lol. For all other stuff i have my Epic 4g which takes beautiful pictures Speaking of epic 4g, i can finally use wireless tether now because the ipad supports BOTH infrastructure and adhoc. I know the Wireless tether 3.0 supports infrastructure but it caused my phone to reboot way too much.
For all you people saying the ipad 2 sucks and what not, please do read the anandtech review of it.
I still do hope xoom does well though. If it doesn't, developers won't move their apps from the appstore to the market place. Hopefully by the time the Galaxy Tab 10.1 comes out, honeycomb will be a little more mature. I Can't wait to see whats in store for android at google io this year (got my student ticket )

Congrats. Go post it on an apple board where someone cares. This is xoom board. it's a xoom dev board even.

Did anyone read the anandtech review of the PowerVR SGX543MP2 that they just posted? Holy testicles, it demolishes the Tegra 2 GPU.

Coming from G-Tablet

I'm having to return my gtablet because there is an issue with the sound and the battery. I bought it from someone on ebay so I can't get a replacement. I have to say apart from the sound going out for no reason whatsoever the gtablet was amazing. So fast and responsive. I played with the xoom today which I preordered from amazon. And I really love honeycomb's interface and that the buttons are on the screen but I can't say I'm at all impressed with the performance. I used the browser and it was so slow and laggy and wouldn't respond to my touches half the time. And I made sure to use the task manager to kill all other apps. Also the flash video performance was sub par compared to the gtablet.
Then I downloaded speedx 3d free and it ran no better that it does on my nexus one. Whereas on my gtablet it runs so buttery smooth at 60 fps. The xoom that I was playing with at best buy was on the newest update. I hope these r just software issues with honeycomb that get ironed out soon but I don't feel to confident for some reason. Something tells me I'm not going to see the kind of raw performance like I did with the gtablet, as nice as honeycomb is.

Where you running a custom rom on your G-tablet? That would explain its stability and speed.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App

Gtab runs froyo and a lower resolution. But has same processor. That explains the performance difference. HC is still new and is not optimized fully yet. At this point you're a early adopter and will deal with bugs and performance issues.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

ksc6000 said:
I'm having to return my gtablet because there is an issue with the sound and the battery. I bought it from someone on ebay so I can't get a replacement. I have to say apart from the sound going out for no reason whatsoever the gtablet was amazing. So fast and responsive. I played with the xoom today which I preordered from amazon. And I really love honeycomb's interface and that the buttons are on the screen but I can't say I'm at all impressed with the performance. I used the browser and it was so slow and laggy and wouldn't respond to my touches half the time. And I made sure to use the task manager to kill all other apps. Also the flash video performance was sub par compared to the gtablet.
Then I downloaded speedx 3d free and it ran no better that it does on my nexus one. Whereas on my gtablet it runs so buttery smooth at 60 fps. The xoom that I was playing with at best buy was on the newest update. I hope these r just software issues with honeycomb that get ironed out soon but I don't feel to confident for some reason. Something tells me I'm not going to see the kind of raw performance like I did with the gtablet, as nice as honeycomb is.
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What was your opinion on the screen difference? 2.2 on a Tegra2 is like running XP on an i5.
If it's any consolation I have no problems with lag in general and SpeedX runs super. I only get a momentary delay here and there in certain apps, not worth complaining about.

I just got my Xoom on Friday and I am Very, Very impressed with the Speed and Smoothness of the device. I use Dolphin HD as my Browser and it runs just fine. No lag and pages load rather quickly (even while Wirelessly Tethered to my Rooted HTC EVO). I returned the iPad 2 I had and exchanged for the Xoom and have Zero regrets. While the iPad 2 is nice, to me it's just a blown up iPod Touch (I have a 32gb iPod Touch 3rd Gen) so I would know. The Xoom is an Amazing Tablet. I put 3 Blu-Ray movies on my Xoom already (Toy Story 3, MegaMind and Kung-Fu Panda) so the kids can watch movies while we are out and about. As far as Apps go, I have found plenty of Apps for the Xoom and they all look fine to me.

ghodzilla5150 said:
I just got my Xoom on Friday and I am Very, Very impressed with the Speed and Smoothness of the device. I use Dolphin HD as my Browser and it runs just fine. No lag and pages load rather quickly (even while Wirelessly Tethered to my Rooted HTC EVO). I returned the iPad 2 I had and exchanged for the Xoom and have Zero regrets. While the iPad 2 is nice, to me it's just a blown up iPod Touch (I have a 32gb iPod Touch 3rd Gen) so I would know. The Xoom is an Amazing Tablet. I put 3 Blu-Ray movies on my Xoom already (Toy Story 3, MegaMind and Kung-Fu Panda) so the kids can watch movies while we are out and about. As far as Apps go, I have found plenty of Apps for the Xoom and they all look fine to me.
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Returned it? You should have sold it -- could have easily made a hundred bucks on it, or more.
ksc6000 said:
I'm having to return my gtablet because there is an issue with the sound and the battery. I bought it from someone on ebay so I can't get a replacement. I have to say apart from the sound going out for no reason whatsoever the gtablet was amazing. So fast and responsive. I played with the xoom today which I preordered from amazon. And I really love honeycomb's interface and that the buttons are on the screen but I can't say I'm at all impressed with the performance. I used the browser and it was so slow and laggy and wouldn't respond to my touches half the time. And I made sure to use the task manager to kill all other apps. Also the flash video performance was sub par compared to the gtablet.
Then I downloaded speedx 3d free and it ran no better that it does on my nexus one. Whereas on my gtablet it runs so buttery smooth at 60 fps. The xoom that I was playing with at best buy was on the newest update. I hope these r just software issues with honeycomb that get ironed out soon but I don't feel to confident for some reason. Something tells me I'm not going to see the kind of raw performance like I did with the gtablet, as nice as honeycomb is.
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I've seen the same thing - not just in Quadrant / Nenamark but just with the naked eye. My guess is that it's either the higher resolution of the Xoom screen, or perhaps the HC Nvidia drivers are not that mature yet. Either way, the GTablet (and the Adam) seems speedier, overall.
The Xoom TFT screen is definitely better than the GTAB, however.

roebeet said:
I've seen the same thing - not just in Quadrant / Nenamark but just with the naked eye. My guess is that it's either the higher resolution of the Xoom screen, or perhaps the HC Nvidia drivers are not that mature yet. Either way, the GTablet (and the Adam) seems speedier, overall.
The Xoom TFT screen is definitely better than the GTAB, however.
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So let me ask a semi-evil question. You have enough money to buy either a WiFi Xoom or another G-TAB. Which would you get?
Add one more condition, whatever I get I will be "handing down" to someone in November as I plan to get a KalEl tablet when those come out about then (KalEl being the quad-core Tegra that nVidia has begun demoing)?
Thanks in advance!

EwanG said:
So let me ask a semi-evil question. You have enough money to buy either a WiFi Xoom or another G-TAB. Which would you get?
Add one more condition, whatever I get I will be "handing down" to someone in November as I plan to get a KalEl tablet when those come out about then (KalEl being the quad-core Tegra that nVidia has begun demoing)?
Thanks in advance!
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Other than multi-tasking will the Quad core run any better than the Duo?
I have read that there is little difference between the i5 and i7 except for apps that specifically talk to the extra cores!

EwanG said:
So let me ask a semi-evil question. You have enough money to buy either a WiFi Xoom or another G-TAB. Which would you get?
Add one more condition, whatever I get I will be "handing down" to someone in November as I plan to get a KalEl tablet when those come out about then (KalEl being the quad-core Tegra that nVidia has begun demoing)?
Thanks in advance!
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Click to collapse
If those were the only two options, then a Xoom hands down. It's got a lot of problems (ie. missing microSD support, speed lag at the moment etc.) but it has a MUCH better screen and that is absolutely critical to me.
The reason why I write "the only options" is that I might consider a Tegra 2 IPS device, when they get released. Whenever that happens (maybe in a month?). As for KalEl, that's in the late summer / fall so it's really not on the radar, yet.
I think the Xoom Wifi $600 (or less?) option should be a decent product, especially once they shake out the bugs in Honeycomb.

rjoudrey said:
Other than multi-tasking will the Quad core run any better than the Duo?
I have read that there is little difference between the i5 and i7 except for apps that specifically talk to the extra cores!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I Think the Quad is supposed to be 5x Faster than the Dual. and that the GPU has 16 cores or somin. The Newer Tegra Nvidia chips Blow away the last.

You should have really not use task manager and kill apps. Because most of them will restart after being killed. So all the apps start at once will cause the gpu generates lots of power and the os may get unresponsive and laggy. So get rid of that damn task manager.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App

X 2. Im running your tnt lite rom on my gtab and it seems to run a lot quicker overall v. My xoom. Too bad you cant improve the atrocious viewing angles on the gtab tho
roebeet said:
Returned it? You should have sold it -- could have easily made a hundred bucks on it, or more.
I've seen the same thing - not just in Quadrant / Nenamark but just with the naked eye. My guess is that it's either the higher resolution of the Xoom screen, or perhaps the HC Nvidia drivers are not that mature yet. Either way, the GTablet (and the Adam) seems speedier, overall.
The Xoom TFT screen is definitely better than the GTAB, however.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

rjoudrey said:
Other than multi-tasking will the Quad core run any better than the Duo?
I have read that there is little difference between the i5 and i7 except for apps that specifically talk to the extra cores!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Java programs will immediately take advantage of all 4 cores since Java is naturally multithreaded.

Until these benchmarking apps are updated to take advantage of OpenGL 2.0 you're not going to see high scores on any Honeycomb tablet.

Well, I had considered the iPad 2, but I am trying to get away from supporting iOS at home. Particularly as ugly as the upgrade for the original iPad to the latest update went.
I would like to get something now since I believe the Tegra 2 IPS tablets you're referring to are likely to be more of a July timeframe, and will likely be quickly passed over by the KalEl chips.
For the person asking if the additional cores will make much difference - the current Tegra 2 is most comparable to an Intel Atom. And the programs and video performance on these tablets pretty much match that.
The KalEl is supposed to actually exceed Core 2 Duo speeds and capabilities. So in that sense we are talking about going from essentially a netbook to essentially a notebook in terms of performance. Heck that is why there are rumors of an iPad 3 in that same timeframe. Because once that generation of chips come out it is going to be a very open question whether you need anything more than a tablet and a bluetooth keyboard for anything that requires less than a true desktop experience.
My .02 worth of course

how much do you think these newer tablets will cost? same 600 dollar price range? I'd probably want to sell my wifi xoom and then buy a newer model rather than wait that long.

patass said:
how much do you think these newer tablets will cost? same 600 dollar price range? I'd probably want to sell my wifi xoom and then buy a newer model rather than wait that long.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're talking the KalEl equipped tablets, I presume they will be in about the same range, with the current tablets discounted a little similar to what Apple did with the first generation iPads. That said, I expect there to be just limited availability over the holiday season with probably only one or two manufacturers shipping by Thanksgiving.
Of course there are already some component shortages due to the Japanese earthquake. One area where Apple has an advantage since they have pre-ourchased a lot of their supplies. So while they may get them later than planned, they usually are assured of getting them first, and at a fixed cost.
FWIW...

Always take your experience with a display model with a grain of salt. Unlike the fresh G tab that you unboxed yourself and handled/tweaked with care, the display Xoom has gone through hours upon hours of goobers and children wailing away at it, changing default settings, etc.

Elysian893 said:
Java programs will immediately take advantage of all 4 cores since Java is naturally multithreaded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to have to disagree with you. Some parts of Dalvik (android's version of java), like the garbage collector, will take advantage of multiple cores. Android as an OS uses tons of threads, and will get snappier with more cores... but Android was written to explicitly use multiple threads.
What I'm saying is that apps won't use multiple cores unless the programmer DESIGNS them that way.

Nvidia Shield Epic Win? Or Epic Fail

Well this is a new idea (somewhat) so I wanna hear what you guys think about this is it going to win? Or fail
S4 INFO

TingTingin said:
Well this is a new idea (somewhat) so I wanna hear what you guys think about this is it going to win? Or fail
S4 INFO
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Refer to that thread to discuss it.... keep offtopic out of here or..
i will report you!
Edit: Reported!

It's hard to say at this point.
The offer is good in my opinion. If they deliver it could be an awesome piece of tech.
Now some things have to done well in order for it to succed.
First they have to avoid having a flawed product. Nvidia is relatively new in hardware making and a lot of thing could go wrong in the process which could cripple the product.
Then they have to price it correctly. It's a difficult thing to price. Android games alone aren't good enough to charge a premium for it and the other streaming aspect can't be done by itself and need another already expensive piece of tech nearby. And as a tablet, media consumption device the form factor isn't really good. Overall it's not an ultimate device for any kind of use but it does alot of thing nicely and have some unique feature.
For me they can't price it above 400$ and should be somewhere between 300 and 350.
Then they have to delivers the product and make it available everywhere cause the first rule to a succesfull product is to make it reach the buyer !
And finally they have to ramp up the THD games on Android to deliver the much needed content and drive sells. If they could get some big design win from other OEM for Tegra 4 it would help tremendiously in this area.
Anyway that's my 2 cents. I'm probably gonna buy it if priced right and available soon. I want a T4 device and if the Shield is the first one by a long shot I'll surely go for it.

I don't think any product can be "epic" at this point. The Shield brings very strong points and will be successful. I'd expect it to be about as popular as the Nexus 7 if NVidia can get a Walmart contract and the price right.

If it became as successful as the Nexus 7 i would be seriously shocked and that is coming from a guy who wants the Project Shield to be a success.
I think the Nexus 7 hits far more every day use abilities then this will. I cannot see browsing the web or streaming video to much on it and honestly anything touch related will be cumbersome because of the huge controller below the screen.
Obviously price point will dictate alot of this but this is Nvidia after all and we have be realistic it will not be cheap even if it should be.
I do not know how many Nexus 7's were sold but im sure it was in the many millions and ill be surprised if Nvidia sells more then a couple of those in its entire lifetime.

They will sell if the price is wright.

Great article on why the SHIELD can very well be the ground breaking device it claims to be.
http://www.gadgetreview.com/2013/02...-want-it-and-everything-you-need-to-know.html

It has tons of potential, but mainstream adoption will depend 100% on how well Nvidia can advertise and explain to the consumers.
1) This is very hard sell to the mainstream consumer. It is slightly confusing to the untrained person (PC games on a handheld?!), and will take some brilliant marketing to get the message out there. It will be especially hard for Nvidia since they are very new to hardware and have never released an in-house device before.
2) Pricing will be an issue. Nvidia will almost certainly have to sell this at a slight loss/break even and hope to make up some sales in the Tegra store/other places (i'll be upgrading my 560Ti to a 660Ti+ or 7xx for this). I imagine they won't be initially making a ton of these which means the components won't be super cheap. I hope they take a play out of google's book and sell it for as cheap as they can afford to. If they try to sell it at $600, it will sell to a few diehards but never see mainstream adoption.
3) I am personally beyond excited for one! It is everything I need and want, especially with Steam big picture mode. One of the reasons I refuse to buy anything more than casual games on Android is because on-screen controls that try to emulate controllers are TERRIBLE. Android devices are finally getting the power needed to attract AAA developers, and with this the control is finally there as well.
4) Again, my main concern is on marketing/educating the consumer. It seems a ton of companies struggle with that these days.

I hope it'll fail. PS Vita is way better solution if You like gaming in motion.

This is one of those things that could sell and it couldn't its really to early to tell i hope it sells...

I think it's a good idea for Nvidia, there are a lot of awesome games in the Play Store.

I could definitely see this being an epic win, and I hope it does, but I think that all hinges on price and marketing, unfortunately thus far they seem to be marketing it in a way that won't help it, specifically the steam streaming, is it cool? yup. Is it useful? not really, it requires pretty specific hardware to even use so most people won't be able to use, and it requires you to be on the same wifi as the computer streaming, at which point there's not much point playing on the tiny shield screen vs your computer monitor.
What they really need to do is price and market as a competitor to the 3DS and PSvita, that's where it could win, they just need to price it competitively, to those, which means really trying to stick to the $250 range and they need to push for develop support for real console quality games and not rely on "mobile" games. If they push it that way and can get the dev support I see absolutely no reason to get 3DS or Vita as it really is superior, the control is better and more comfortable, great screen, hardware wise the processor and graphics are superior to the Vita as it's based on last gen android hardware (quad core cortex-A9 & PowerVR SGX543MP4+), there will likely be yearly refreshes of Shield with faster and faster hardware supporting more graphically intense games and it's a standard open platform, meaning all your old games come with you, 100% backwards compatibility, which is awesome.

shiltz said:
I could definitely see this being an epic win, and I hope it does, but I think that all hinges on price and marketing, unfortunately thus far they seem to be marketing it in a way that won't help it, specifically the steam streaming, is it cool? yup. Is it useful? not really, it requires pretty specific hardware to even use so most people won't be able to use, and it requires you to be on the same wifi as the computer streaming, at which point there's not much point playing on the tiny shield screen vs your computer monitor.
What they really need to do is price and market as a competitor to the 3DS and PSvita, that's where it could win, they just need to price it competitively, to those, which means really trying to stick to the $250 range and they need to push for develop support for real console quality games and not rely on "mobile" games. If they push it that way and can get the dev support I see absolutely no reason to get 3DS or Vita as it really is superior, the control is better and more comfortable, great screen, hardware wise the processor and graphics are superior to the Vita as it's based on last gen android hardware (quad core cortex-A9 & PowerVR SGX543MP4+), there will likely be yearly refreshes of Shield with faster and faster hardware supporting more graphically intense games and it's a standard open platform, meaning all your old games come with you, 100% backwards compatibility, which is awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nvidia has stated in interviews that they are going to be selling it "for profit." which makes me slightly concerned that it would be exorbitantly more expensive than the Vita/3DS. They might be able to make up for it by 1) producing the silicon themselves 2) the use of a 720p screen rather than 1080p.
However, I fear they will have a hard time bringing it down to the $250 range, even though it really needs to be there in order to sell.

dcchambers said:
Nvidia has stated in interviews that they are going to be selling it "for profit." which makes me slightly concerned that it would be exorbitantly more expensive than the Vita/3DS. They might be able to make up for it by 1) producing the silicon themselves 2) the use of a 720p screen rather than 1080p.
However, I fear they will have a hard time bringing it down to the $250 range, even though it really needs to be there in order to sell.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I could still see $250 being a doable price point, take the Nexus 7 for example, 7" 1280x800 display, current gen (at the time) tegra 3 processor and 16gb of storage for $199, $249 for 32gb, and supposedly being updated to a Snapdragon 600/800 & 1080p at display at the same price points, so $250 wifi/$300 4G seems reasonable for a smaller screen with say 16gb of internal storage and the integrated controller. But yeah, I guess we'll see, but I do think over those prices and it will struggle to get any sort of market acceptance, if they could manage a $199 price point for a wifi only model I bet they would sell really well.
Though I will say though that I think they should have went with a slightly larger screen, something in the 6" range would have been awesome.

shiltz said:
Well I could still see $250 being a doable price point, take the Nexus 7 for example, 7" 1280x800 display, current gen (at the time) tegra 3 processor and 16gb of storage for $199, $249 for 32gb, and supposedly being updated to a Snapdragon 600/800 & 1080p at display at the same price points, so $250 wifi/$300 4G seems reasonable for a smaller screen with say 16gb of internal storage and the integrated controller. But yeah, I guess we'll see, but I do think over those prices and it will struggle to get any sort of market acceptance, if they could manage a $199 price point for a wifi only model I bet they would sell really well.
Though I will say though that I think they should have went with a slightly larger screen, something in the 6" range would have been awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a good point, although Google and Asus sold it at a very minimal profit, pretty much at-cost, at least initially until component prices came down a bit... Hopefully Nvidia can do the same, and this thing might stand a chance!

interesting concept, but the design..hm

For people with the S4, it seems better value just to get a Moga style controller and use that. Display is better on the S4 and hdmi out works great.
As a dedicated gamer, I am tempted. I wonder if Nvidia will have apps 2sd as an option? At least there is about 8gb more on this than the Ouya.

rushless said:
For people with the S4, it seems better value just to get a Moga style controller and use that. Display is better on the S4 and hdmi out works great.
As a dedicated gamer, I am tempted. I wonder if Nvidia will have apps 2sd as an option? At least there is about 8gb more on this than the Ouya.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well right now if your are interested in the shield for android games only then yes buying a wireless controller would be better. If you are going to use the pc streaming then I think buying the shield would be better. I have yet to see an app for android that does a good job streaming pc games to android.
shiltz said:
Well I could still see $250 being a doable price point, take the Nexus 7 for example, 7" 1280x800 display, current gen (at the time) tegra 3 processor and 16gb of storage for $199, $249 for 32gb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't forget that the prices you list there are current prices and not the prices from launch, when 8Gb was $199, and 16Gb was $249

Is the Shield Tablet still worth buying?

I've been considering new tablets, and honestly the Shield Tablet has the features I want and I'm able to get one for $250, which seems reasonable. But I'm just wondering if it's still worth it as the it is a year old. How does it compare to newer devices?

If you're primarily going to be using it for gaming, there isn't a better tablet out there. The tablet is a steal for $250. The latest official update really makes the tablet shine and the custom rom called "Blisspop" even makes the device that much better in terms of performance. You won't regret getting one.

Well at the moment there are not many tablets that are faster (maybe even no faster) than this tablet.
Antutu scores are one of the highest even compared with the latest phones.
So speedwise it is still top notch and tablets that maybe come close you have to pay double the price for compared to a shield.
The 32Gb with Lte is unbeaten for that price.

I bought the 32GB LTE version in July, because an LTE tablet anywhere close to the Shield in terms of specs/screen etc. would have been ~$150 more.
Despite the battery recall issue, I'm satisfied with it. My (original) unit has been working perfectly and is very smooth with Lillipop 5.1 (the 3.1 OTA).
I should be receiving my replacement tomorrow, according to UPS. Presuming it doesn't have a defect, I'm looking forward to settling in. I never bothered to settle in on the old tablet (automatic actions, power saving stuff, that kind of thing) since I found out about the recall shortly after buying it, and didn't bother to fine tune it.
I recommend the tablet as an LTE device in the US, though if I didn't need the LTE connectivity probably there might be better values in wifi only (I'm not a gamer, so other tablets could meet my needs... but there are relatively few 8" LTE tablets without permanently locked bootloaders here).
Marc

The problem of the tablet is really the processor that is getting old pretty quick (don't know exactly it's true performance), but nowadays everything coming out is already being 8 cores at 2 ghz or more.
Keep Cool

But they are often not faster. Gpu of the shield is very fast maybe the fastest around at the moment. The SOC is still one of the fastest around and it is just on the market for 1 year so not that old.
Sent from my HTC One M9

Where can you even buy one of these? In Canada every single place is sold out and saying they won't stock them again. The used market can't find for under $500 either.

M3drvr said:
Where can you even buy one of these? In Canada every single place is sold out and saying they won't stock them again. The used market can't find for under $500 either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Checkout swappa.com

nbollinger said:
Checkout swappa.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is nothing there for it.

M3drvr said:
There is nothing there for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://swappa.com/buy/nvidia-shield-tablet-wifi
its the non-lte, 16 gb version

nbollinger said:
https://swappa.com/buy/nvidia-shield-tablet-wifi
its the non-lte, 16 gb version
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And there are no listings.... Useless.

M3drvr said:
And there are no listings.... Useless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its something on your end then

nbollinger said:
Its something on your end then
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. It's just that there are none...

There seem to be two of them for sale at that link when I go to it. One for $290, one for $320, both advertised as new (resale). Probably you're just filtering by Canadian sellers, based on your picture. Lots of folks in US won't ship outside the US, so no big deal that they aren't showing up for you.
Best of luck finding one!

Frankenscript said:
There seem to be two of them for sale at that link when I go to it. One for $290, one for $320, both advertised as new (resale). Probably you're just filtering by Canadian sellers, based on your picture. Lots of folks in US won't ship outside the US, so no big deal that they aren't showing up for you.
Best of luck finding one!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah my question was basically how to get one to Canada that's under $500. Impossible! Cheapest I've found is on eBay shipped for $530 for 16gb model no accessories.

Snah001 said:
But they are often not faster. Gpu of the shield is very fast maybe the fastest around at the moment. The SOC is still one of the fastest around and it is just on the market for 1 year so not that old.
Sent from my HTC One M9
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing is that there aren't much AAA games to play in the shield, it's a good device more for the extra nvidia stuff.
I'm waiting for Borderlands 2 for a damn long time, but it never comes, and I don't even know if it runs on the device with good performance or if it's just for the Shield TV.
More impressive are some cheap windows tablets that for around 350€ can even run Battlefield 3 on low to mid.
Now with DX12 and tons of compatibility tablets might go more for windows again.
In fact I'm not liking much android, not a single game like the good old C&C Red alert 2, boot takes almost 2 times longer than my wind 10 PC, some websites stop working, multitasking is a joke since we can't even play a youtube music while doing anything else...
ps: Also in most performance tests we see other tablets ahead of Shield, so I don't think anything is actually that much optimized for it, not even most tegra games.
Keep Cool

My Shield Tablet LTE topped my Nexus 9's scores on Antutu plus the Shield gaming is great to have. Let's not forget about the SD slot and the mini HDMI port on top either. This tablet still destroys everything else (even most phones) a year later. I really mine because it has a stylus and no dumb Samsung home button like their Tablet S/S2 does. Its hard to find a good tablet these days yet the Shield holds its ground and doesn't seem to lose any performance over time. I like playing Half Life 2 on it or DOOM 3 especially when I travel. Its nice to have a tablet which can play nice games too even though that's not its primary purpose for me.
---------- Post added at 23:39 ---------- Previous post was at 23:32 ----------
guily6669 said:
The thing is that there aren't much AAA games to play in the shield, it's a good device more for the extra nvidia stuff.
I'm waiting for Borderlands 2 for a damn long time, but it never comes, and I don't even know if it runs on the device with good performance or if it's just for the Shield TV.
More impressive are some cheap windows tablets that for around 350â?¬ can even run Battlefield 3 on low to mid.
Now with DX12 and tons of compatibility tablets might go more for windows again.
In fact I'm not liking much android, not a single game like the good old C&C Red alert 2, boot takes almost 2 times longer than my wind 10 PC, some websites stop working, multitasking is a joke since we can't even play a youtube music while doing anything else...
ps: Also in most performance tests we see other tablets ahead of Shield, so I don't think anything is actually that much optimized for it, not even most tegra games.
Keep Cool
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those cheap windows tablets also use Intel chips in most cases plus Windows an as OS handles things differently than Android does. I agree that there aren't many great games but the ones they do have are fun in my opinion. I have the Shield TV as well and I play all kinds of games including emulators without any issues. My i7 Samsung Ultra book probably can't handle some of the games the Shield can then again I haven't tried. I'm not a big PC gamer but I do know the GPU isn't that great in most Windows tablets/ultrabooks. Android M fixes a lot of the productivity issues and adds multi window and I'm sure Nvidia is working on it now anyway. They tend to lush updates out promptly in most cases unless there's a big issue.
I haven't seen another tablet have better gaming performance than he Shield or Nexus 9 since hwy share a GPU yet use different CPU's. My Nexus 6's SD805 doesn't come close to he 3D score that the tablet does but on Marshmallow it does get a nice ~1500 pt boost likely from the optimization in it. I can imagine the same will occur in the Shield Tablet but we won't know until Nvidia releases it.
I'm not saying the Shield is the best fit everyone but it is a great tablet if you are in the market for a LTE enabled 8in tablet thats fast, runs near stock Android and has nice games for it.

Most of those BEST Nvidia Shield games coming soon are old and I finished them already. (RES5, Half Life, Borderlands, Doom...).
The thing is, you get a good device, but you will probably end playing most games that your phone already can play maxed out.
Other thing is Nvidia blahblahblah says it's more powerful than a X360 GPU, but then most games have a little lag and nothing, but really nothing made to the android yet comes close to most X360\PS3 gameplay\physics (they just look good, but plays like crap).
Then it's my 4th Nvidia shield all are defective and the last one needs to go to RMA again.
I never had an android device, so I wanted to try it, with my experience is just a god damn bugged SO worst than windows.
Also I got sad with the strategy games and how nothing on the android thousand of games even come close to Command and Conquer Red Alert II from like 2000
My opinion:
GOOD:
- hardware Performance;
- Sound;
- has it's own wireless gamepad;
- Nvidia software + remote pc play (button mapping already in the tablet, no need to root 4 that);
- More games than other android devices;
BAD:
- Android is not really optimized;
- Not much AAA games:
- Nothing like C&C, age of empires, Skyrim........ (most games are very cheap copies of good games, but look like a 2003 game);
- In the real world, performance is not as big as nvidia make you think (best phones now probably have better performance, like Samsung S6 which is a lot more little and doesn't come close to having more than a hundred cores like this nvidia);
- Screen quality is not that awesome, it is a High resolution LCD, but nothing special besides that. It doesn't get any close to samsung phone's\tablet amoled screens;
- Battery doesn't last much either;
I actually think that something like that made for DX12 and wind 10 would probably get almost twice the performance than on the actual android OS. At least I saw some people playing BF3 on dell cheap 1 year old tablets that cost basically the same as this nvidia shield. Nowadays with DX12 and Wind 10 soon may be a new era for tablets (it seems windows based hardware have more performance per price than android devices). At least I never seen any 300€ android tablet playing anything close to a BF3 which is years ahead in gameplay + physics than any android game I ever seen\played until now.
ps: If it was today I would buy a ~350€ DELL wind tablet that can even play BF3 (guess what? No need to Root for anything as you own everything already and can update\mod everything).
Keep Cool