Nvidia Tegra K1 Shield Tablet: A Necessary Update

I was wrong in my previous post about new Tegra K1 tablet: this new Tegra Shield tablet has a new improved DirectStylus pen called DirectStylus 2:

Today's Slashgear article describing mostly gaming prowess of this new Tegra Shield tablet made this my correction possible. A good thing to know also is the fact that the $300 tablet will be sold separately from its gaming controller. So, if you're a gamer, just cough up additional $59 and you're are completely in chocolate with these features:

-- 1920x1200 8" screen with bezels narrower than these on original Tegra Note;
-- HDMI 1.4a certified output port (certified = works as prescribed);
-- Twitch streaming for front 5 megapixel (!) camera;
-- claimed 2 times less lag than in BT (WiFi Direct);
-- Kepler:
---- 4K video handling;
---- OpenGL ES 3.1, AEP, OpenGL 4.4, DX12, Tessellation, CUDA 6.0, and power
      consumption under 2W;
---- Unreal Engine 4 graphics
-- for extra $100, you can get 4G LTE version unlocked, compatible with ATandT and
   T-Mobile 4G LTE, HSPA+, 3G, 2G, GSM, and EDGE connectivity.

Now, I'd better concentrate on DirectStylus 2 and Dabbler demo, as I don't care much about gaming.

Video sample of Dabbler functionality (sort of MS Windows 8 Fresh Paint) is yet to be seen in action, but I can suggest it won't be worse than what original Tegra Note can offer:







Narrower bezels may or may not be of help for art. Tablet can be pre-ordered from July 29. IMHO, its worth its $300.

Now, here are the first hands-ons for the new Shield Tablet with small parts of the shows dedicated to Dabbler:







 Dabbler/DirectStylus 2 demo:


One important update for DirectStylus 2 capabilities. Here you can pre-order this pen's replacement already, and its description states the sensor scan at the same 300 Hz. That is, sadly, even with denser grid the stylus touch detection precision was not improved significantly enough to make harder and sharper rubber pen tip than what was demonstrated by original DirectSylus. Otherwise, by demo videos, trace lag of DirectStylus 2 seems diminished. Or it's just me who likes it to be diminished.

Shield Tablet Cover which will be sold at $39...$45 better be equipped with a BT keyboard for this price. No keyboard, no sale, Messrs. Nvidia.

But naked SHIELD Tablet at $250 on Christmas will be very tempting, hopefully unlockable and downgradeable to Android 4.3 (= faster and working fine with SD).

Nvidia OEM partners that are supposed to manufacture/rebrand somewhat this device are keeping silence as per July 22, 2014.

There's also this Shield Portable 5" gamer tab I'm not interested in. Based on K1 Xiaomi MiPad is also of not much interest to me: no pen.



 There are consistent rumours about K1 64 bit based HTC Nexus 8 or 9 in different form factor sporting no DirectStylus and no SD card slot, the latter being a Nexus signature style. Moving over.

Or you can still wait for Erista:

http://www.slashgear.com/nvidia-tegra-k1-successor-erista-son-of-logan-with-maxwell-25322107/

That Erista was also called "Parker" in other contexts:

Whatever. When this Eristas/Parkers will be available in form of commercial devices I'd rather see among them:

1. Shield 2 10" tablet 1920x1200, just like today's Shield only please move your "Twitch" front cam from under the thumb to somewhere else; add Wacom digitizer for Shield 2 "Pro" model.

2. This Shield 2 tablet can be a base of 2-in-1 transformer type tablet/laptop, or plain Androidbook/Chromebook/(Chr)ubuntubook .

3. 8"...10" car tablet running good RTOS like QNX and supporting AR with minimal lag/latency

4. Drop "Shield Portable" as excessive.  Or make its display part detachable, put LTE into it to use it in a Nvidia Lapdock (e.g., of Motorola or ASUS PadFone style).

5. Consider Tegra/Nvidia Home concept, build an ultimate 4K/H.265 HTPC box and make sure every fridge and toaster can play Halo 6 at highest resolutions and in 10 bit colour.