Like a boxing champion approaching retirement, should the SHIELD Portable fight a few more rounds or be retired gracefully?
Is the NVIDIA SHIELD Portable still worth your hard-earned money or is the SHIELD Tablet or Console a better use of it?
Form Factor
The SHIELD Portable is essentially a chunky console controller on steroids. It has everything you would expect from a console controller except that it weighs getting on for double, 579g vs. 300g for an Xbox 360 Wired Controller. Considering that you have to hold this device to use it effectively due to the controller layout, this weight does tend to become very noticeable, very quickly.
The Portable is aesthetically interesting and, to me, pleasing. Its vivid green, black and silver is very much trademark NVIDIA. The buttons, joysticks and D-pad are all well-placed and responsive, although they aren’t super-gamer grade. The device also features some additional buttons to control the Android aspect of the device – a back button, a home button, a play button and an audio button. In the middle of all of these is the glowing NVIDIA button (the glow can be reduced or disabled). The function of these buttons depends on which firmware the device is running.
The ports at the back (mini-HDMI, micro-USB, micro-SD and 3.5mm) are nicely placed although the headphone jack can be fiddly to find. There is also a plate magnetically held on the top of the device which can be changed out for other available colours and patterns but I see little appeal to this personally.
The screen is a 5″ 720p touchscreen display and is bright, clear and features IPS technology for superb viewing angles. The screen is fixed on to a 180 degree hinge which allows an excellent range of movement and means a comfortable viewing position is always easy to find.
Finally, the speakers are front-facing and provide quite incredible quality for their size. The bass is particularly good due to the heavy body of the product.
Console Mode
The Portable offers several unique features, the first of these is Console Mode. The device can be hooked up to a TV or monitor via HDMI and can be used in Mirror Mode at 720p or in Console Mode in 1080p. I recommend the latter. The quality is incredible and the device remains responsive.
Whilst it is almost impossible to use the device itself while in Console Mode, it works well for TV or Movie Streaming. If you want to game then NVIDIA will sell you a wireless controller. These work very well indeed; and feature touchpads, microphones and their own 3.5mm jacks for audio.
If you plan on using the SHIELD Portable as a Console that you can take with you, I strongly recommend getting a couple of these controllers.
GRID Streaming + GameStreaming
Another unique feature is NVIDIA’s GRID Streaming. Using NVIDIA’s servers the user can stream games they don’t even own over their internet connection to their device. There are some caveats to this: you need a fast and stable internet connection and the library is limited for the moment.
However, if you own a recent NVIDIA graphics card in your PC you can also stream your PC games to the SHIELD at home and when you’re out and about. This is pretty awesome and works much better than it did on launch.
With both GRID and GameStreaming I found there was some input lag (but nothing terribly major). However, there are some occasions when the connection drops out for a split second and it can ruin your game.
The SHIELD Portable has a MIMO 2.4GHz + 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi solution onboard. Both NVIDIA and I highly recommend you have a router that supports 802.11n and 5GHz – although you may have some success outside of these requirements.
Performance
Featuring a Tegra 4 quad-core NVIDIA chip clocked at 1.9GHz with 2GB of RAM; the SHIELD Portable remains one of the most powerful Android devices on the market, but it’s getting on a bit now. Compared to its brethen, the SHIELD Tablet and Console, it looks weak. This device can still play Portal and Half-Life 2 without an issue in 1080p at 60fps and any game on the Google Play Store. Performance is also more than good enough for media playback and GRID and GameStreaming. It also houses an accelerometer, gyroscope and GPS.
Where the Portable struggles is with future-proofing. The device remains a powerhouse today but it’s very much a Roger Federer, amazing but I can imagine the day it becomes obsolete is sadly fast approaching.
Battery Life
Battery Life is excellent with a massive 7350mAh battery. This beast will go for at least 3 days of heavy usage before a charge will be required. The standby time is also phenomenal. This is a definite benefit to somewhat counter the weight of the device.
Experience
NVIDIA has chosen to run very close to stock Android 5.1 and if that floats your boat then you will enjoy using the SHIELD Portable. The SHIELD Portable does come with some NVIDIA apps bundled: SHIELD Hub, SHIELD Wireless Controllers and SHIELD Console. The SHIELD Hub provides a place to access GRID and GameStreaming, as well as selected apps from the Google Play store specially suited to the SHIELD.
An area where the SHIELD Portable shines is with emulators. While the experience is far from perfect it is pretty neat to be able to play Super Smash Bros. or Zelda on the go with an N64 emulator. There are myriad emulators available – I use PS1, N64 and GBA emulators.
Obviously with the Google Play Store you have access to content providers such as Netflix, Spotify, YouTube etc. and these can also be used in Console Mode.
Conclusion
To conclude, the SHIELD Portable was a fantastic and crazy device on its launch back in July 2013. Two and a bit years later it is still just clinging on, having received Android Lollipop recently. It is an interesting product with no peers against which to compare it. There are plenty of tablets and plenty of TV console-like products but nothing quite like the SHIELD Portable.
Its unique form factor is both its biggest downfall and selling point. I have never taken the Portable out with me, and that’s a big failing for a device called the SHIELD Portable. That said, it does so many things so well still that it’s hard not to recommend the device based on its excellent battery life, innovative design and unique NVIDIA features.
NVIDIA is currently selling the Portable for $199 and I think that’s a very fair price for the product. They are increasingly hard to find but if you can still get your hands on one for a good price, and if you prefer its form factor over a tablet, then I recommend buying the SHIELD Portable – a unique and innovative device in its twilight years.
