Published in AI

Nvidia starts shipping Shield Tablet

by on31 July 2014



$299 WiFi version, 32GB LTE comes later

Nvidia has started shipping the all new Shield Tablet to consumers in North America and parts of Europe.

Although the Shield Tablet sounds a bit some sort of oral contraceptive, it is in fact Nvidia's third own-brand Tegra device so far and it is an impressive piece of kit. Unlike the Tegra Note 7, the Shield boasts a high-resolution 1920x1200 screen. It also comes with more RAM and a much more powerful processor than its predecessor, yet it retains the stylus which made the original Note stand out.

The Shield also stands out in terms of performance, as it boasts a quad-core 32-bit Tegra K1 SoC with 192 Kepler graphics cores. It is more than capable of handling any Android game out there, but Nvidia is really going after the PC streaming market. The Tegra Note could not support Gamestream due to technical limitations on the WiFi front.

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The starting price for the Shield Tablet is $299. That's the entry level 16GB version with WiFi connectivity. The 32GB LTE version is coming later, priced at $399. The tablet can be ordered directly from Nvidia or from any of a range of retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, GameStop, Micro Center, Newegg and Tiger Direct in the US, and at Canada Computers, Memory Express, NCIX and ThinkGeek in Canada.

Although the LTE version is not available yet, Nvidia is selling a range of accessories, ranging from the $19.99 DirectStylus 2 to the $59.99 Shield Wireless Controller.

Some of the accessories don't come cheap, as the Shield Tablet Cover is priced at $39.99, but that's just the way the world works. Nvidia isn't shipping millions of tablets, hence there is not much demand for accessories and manufacturing smaller series tends to cost a lot more.

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