According to previous rumours, NVIDIA is apparently planning to release a follow up to its Shield Portable handheld gaming machine that the company first introduced to the world at CES 2013. Instead of adopting the gamepad design that made Shield Portable known throughout the world, the new product will come in the form of a tablet.
Well, looks like the rumours is true after as the company has officially unveiled the brand new NVIDIA Shield Tablet last night.
As rumoured, the new NVIDIA Shield Tablet is indeed powered by the new NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor which features a 2.2GHz ARM Cortex A15 quad-core CPU and a separate CPU for low-intensity usages. There is also a 192-core GPU within the processor which was adapted from NVIDIA’s Kepler GPU architecture that the company uses for its PC graphics card.
Built with an 8-inch 1920×1200 IPS display, it is also equipped with 2GB of RAM alongside the option of either 16GB or 32GB for its internal storage. However, the 16GB model is a Wi-Fi only model and does not come with LTE or any other cellular connectivity as per the tablet’s 32GB variant. Shall one require more storage space, the tablet does come with a microSD card slot that supports cards with capacity of up to 128GB.
Naturally, one can spot plenty of NVIDIA’s proprietary technology within the new Shield Tablet. This include GameStream that allows games to be streamed from PC with NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics card onto the tablet. Users also have the ability to broadcast their gameplay to Twitch directly from the tablet or even record the gameplay itself through NVIDIA ShadowPlay feature.
NVIDIA has even include a stylus for the tablet that apparently has a pen-to-pixels latency of 40 milliseconds; made possible by the tablet’s proprietary GPU-accelerated technology called DirectStylus 2. Not enough with that, the tablet also comes with a pair of front-facing stereo speakers that features dual-bass reflex port and enhanced by NVIDIA PureAudio technology. At the same time, NVIDIA has also equipped 5-megapixels cameras on both the front and rear side of the Shield Tablet.
Alongside the new tablet, NVIDIA has also introduced the optional Shield Wireless Controller. With a shape that resembles the original Shield Portable, NVIDIA has choose to equip the controller with Wi-Fi Direct protocol instead of using the usual radio or Bluetooth connectivity. Built with microphone and audio jack primarily for in-game chat, the controller can be used with the original Shield Portable as well through an OTA update that NVIDIA will deliver on 29 July.
In terms of pricing, the 16GB variant of NVIDIA Shield Tablet carries a price tag of USD 299 (RM 948) while the 32GB model goes for USD 399 (RM 1268). As for the NVIDIA Shield Wireless Controller, it is priced at USD 59.99 (RM 191). As expected, both devices will be released in North America first at the end of this month before hitting Europe in mid-August with other markets to be announced later this year.
To learn more about them, check out this detailed explanation over at NVIDIA’s official website or NVIDIA Shield’s product site.
