After helping reviewers believe in the future of hardcore gaming on tablets, Nvidia is now taking preorders for its high-octane Shield tablet and is hoping to ship them out as early as Oct. 1.
The Shield features a sharp 1080p display that's flanked by a pair of front-facing, dual bass speakers. The 8-inch gaming tablet is powered by the impressive Tegra K1, a mobile processor Nvidia says outperforms the chips inside competitiors Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The Shield's standout is its processor's ability to play AAA video games such as Portal and Half-Life 2. Shield owners can hook the tablet up to televisions of monitors for some big-screen gaming and the mobile device also puts to good use the speed of local networks.
With the likes of ScreenBeam Pro, the Shield tablet can wirelessly stream video games to big screens. Back in August, Nvidia and ScreenBeam Pro announced they had partnered to promote the Shield's ability to wirelessly stream content to televisions and monitors.
"Shield was created so gamers could enjoy their content where they wanted, how they wanted and ScreenBeam Pro further enables this," said Jason Paul, director of product marketing for Shield at Nvidia. "Actiontec offers a best-in-class solution for wirelessly streaming from Shield to high-definition TVs."
The Shield can stream games from PCs fitted with Nvidia GPUs, allowing desktops to handle the brunt of the processing work. The game Table also has a Twitch app that allows Shield owners to stream game play sessions to viewers on the popular live streaming site.
The Shield is offered in a 16-GB Wi-Fi only version for $299 and a 32-GB Wi-Fi and LTE variant for $399. Right now, Nvidia is fielding back orders for the Shield tablet and the gaming tablets are expected to ship out to consumers on Oct. 1.
"If you're a gamer and you use a tablet, the Nvidia Shield tablet was created specifically for you," said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia's co-founder and chief executive officer back in July. "It delivers exceptional tablet performance and unique gaming capabilities to keep even the most avid gamers deeply immersed, anywhere they play."
While Nvidia is pouring its energy into promoting its gaming tablet, its lawyers are attempting to stop the shipments of Samsung's mobile devices. Nvidia alleges that Samsung and several chipmakers infringed on seven of its patents and is seeking a court order to halt movement of the mobile devices in question.
"Our patented GPU inventions provide significant value to mobile devices," stated Nvidia in a press release. "Samsung and Qualcomm have chosen to use these in their products without a license from us. We are asking the courts to determine infringement of Nvidia's GPU patents by all graphics architectures used in Samsung's mobile products and to establish their licensing value."
