HiGame

Earlier this year, Nvidia recalled its Shield Tablet over problems with the lithium-ion battery. The company has put the tablet back on sale and given the base model a whopping price cut, from $299 to $199 for the 16GB flavor. At that price, the Shield Tablet is a steal, considering its overall performance, build quality, and features. Even better, this new version seems to fix the nagging touch-screen issues that were widely reported on Shield 1.0.

While I didn’t review the first Shield Tablet for ExtremeTech, I do own one, and the touch screen has always been a little dodgy. It works perfectly in the desktop or in-browser, but often had trouble picking up multi-touches in the one Android game I play on a regular basis — Castle Clash. This was an issue unique to the Shield — the game ran perfectly well on multiple Android smartphones and devices. The issue would typically resolve itself after I attempted a multi-touch zoom-in / zoom-out several times, but reoccurred each time a new area of the game was loaded. While it didn’t prevent play, it was annoying. Factory resets, new OTA updates, and reinstalling the game never had much impact on the issue.



The replacement Shield I received in the mail doesn’t have this problem and I’m hoping that means Nvidia quietly corrected whatever caused it in the first place. It appears, however, that there are at least two subtly different SKUs shipping out to market. The replacement tablet I received is externally identical to the original device in every particular, but over at Ars Technica UK, Mark Walton reports that his replacement tablet lacks a stylus garage and has a slightly different case and branding.

more...