A Review of the First Generation Nvidia Shield Portable Game Console
The Nvidia Shield 2 was recently launched but I still love the original First Generation Nvidia Shield portable game console that came in the clam shell form factor. Sure, it looks a bit bulky when we look at portability when compared to slimmer competitive products like the all famous Nintendo 3DS XL (by the way, Nintendo recently released a newer version of its portable game unit called “The New Nintendo 3DS XL”) or Sony’s powerful little PS Vita but the fact that the first generation Nvidia Shield was pretty much a true game controller (similar to that of an XBOX 360 game controller) attached to a gorgeous 5 inch flatscreen makes the first generation Nvidia one of my all-time favorite portable game consoles.
Let’s take a closer look at this nice piece of ingenuity…
When the game console is in the closed position you can rest assured that you do not have to worry about scratching the screen. Another cool feature is that the top of the device has an interchangeable armor cover so you can easily replace the stock silver one with a customized cover that would be aligned to your personality. These covers are attached by magnets which is cool so you can easily replace the covers as many times as you like and never worry about breaking any plastic tabs.
When you open the device the first you you will notice – especially if you are avid gamer – is the XBOX 360 looking controller. The controls generally look and feel great. A lot of work went into the aesthetics and ergonomics, I must say. The unit feels quite solid when held and the back of the controller has a rubberised feel to it as well so long periods of gameplay will not feel uncomfortable.
The d-pad on the left feels nice and springy and is on par with what you would find on a high end controller.
The A,B,X,Y buttons on the right hand side also feel nice and firm – springy as well – and can handle many hours of button mashing when playing your favorite first person shooter game.
The center of the console also has illuminated green buttons that provide additional functionality like volume control, multimedia control like start, pause and stop, a back button, home button as well as the on/off key. In a dark room these keys light up so you can still see what you are doing if you wanted to play your favorite Android game in the middle of a blackout.
Hooray, there are two, yes, two analogue controls that also can serve as buttons when pressed to provide additional functionality within gameplay.
The back of the device has two shoulder buttons on each side. What I like about the lower shoulder buttons is the fact that they feel like triggers – perfect for shooting games!
As far as ports and slots are concerned there is an expansion slot of a microSD card – I believe that the maximum cards allowed are 32GB ones at the moment. There is also a mini HDMI port for connectivity to a television so that you can take a break from looking at the 5 inch screen on the Nvidia console and play your games on the big 60 inch television in the living room – after pleading with the wife or girlfriend for access to the TV of course!
There is also a mini USB port and your standard 3.5mm audio jack as well.
There is an online game store called the NVIDIA SHIELD Hub that offers more than two hundred SHIELD-optimized games, including Half-Life 2 and Portal. There are also, of course, emulators available as well so you can play your favorite retro games on the go.
The general device specifications are as follows:
Processor – Nvidia Tegra 4 quad-core chip with 2GB RAM packed inside.
Display – A 5 inch screen (diagonal) at 1280×720 pixels
Audio – Nice looking pair of front facing speakers with a microphone built in.
Built in Storage – 16GB
Wireless Capability – 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS
The Nvidia Shield Portable is also 4K Ultra-HD ready so those of you who have the bucks to plunk down on a 4K Ultra-HD 70 inch television set then this device is ideal for you!
There is also a gamepad mapper for those games that are not Shield compatible and there is also a feature where you can connect via a wireless connection to external screens that support that connection feature as well so no messy wires.
I believe that at the time that I wrote this blog post the Nvidia Shield Portable is hard to find now seeing that the tablet version is now on sale. There are units out there for sale but you will be lucky is you can find one at the original MSRP price of $199, but if you do, then good for you!
The new Nvidia Shield 2 Tablet Game System is currently available today.
The new Shield (usually dubbed as the “Shield 2 Tablet”) come in a new form factor of a 7-inch tablet and a separate XBox 360-looking controller, a big difference to the clamshell model of the first generation design. You can get yours by following the link in the below banner:
Checkout my video review:
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