Nvidia Shield Tablet: DirectStylus 2 And Other Possibilities

First real hands-on reviews of DirectStylus 2 functionality on the new Tegra Shield tablet started to show up among tons of gamers' footage. I would recommend the article at Slashgear at least, except for as usual, this dabbler on Dabble dabbles way too unconvincing:


Jokes aside, sooner or later there will be more examples of Nvidia Shield tablet use other than in gaming. I may add more "real-life" examples (as opposed to Nvidia simulations) as updates here.

Nvidia may want to capitalize on success of this new Shield launching the whole class of Tegra K1 devices in the nearest future: I would love to see 10, 12 inch tablets, two-in-ones, or even notebooks.

Google is readying its Tegra K1 based Nexus 8/9 tablet(s), however I doubt they will follow Nvidia Shield tablet reference design: rumours have it as 4:3 tablets, and so far no hint they will support DirectSylus 2 technology. You may also forget about SD card slot.

One of the first such product was unveiled today:


Hopefully, it would run a decent Ubuntu in time, but it's beside the point. Acer in this product can't care less about all that DirectStylus 2 hoopla, but it can think of decent Wacom digitizer for its more "professional" variant.

Here's a more detailed update for Acer Chromebook 13, four models of which will range in MSRPs between $279 and $379:

• 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 1366 x 768 pixel display for $280
• 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 1920 x 1080 pixel display for $300
• 4GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 1366 x 768 pixel display for $330
• 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 1920 x 1080 pixel display for $380

Nvidia is trying to say something about wonderful gaming on these Chromebooks in Chrome OS, I don't believe a word, sorry. For starters, they'd better modify their Android ROM for these laptops, render these dual-bootable, supply their WiFi Direct dongle first, then talk about gaming on  Chromebooks.

As for me, I'd be waiting for this top of the line Acer Chromebook 13 (4GB RAM, delightfully dense, 166 DPI 1920x1080 LED backlit display) lose a $100 off its price before Christmas and get a decent Ubuntu via Chrubuntu, crouton, or coreboot. Today, you can try to pre-oder it at Amazon for full $379. However, I'd prefer something de-Chromed to even start. Like Acer/ASUS/Samsung/HP Tegrabook running Tegrabuntu. And I'm not kidding: if you are a more or less of DIYer get yourself a Jetson TK1 dev board ($170...$192) and snap it to something like this Motorola Lapdock for $40...$50, and you get a toy that's much easier to tinker with:

All this stuff is available today, so there's no need to wait till September.

Then, while these Acers 13 are not out yet, a future laptops based on Nvidia 64-bit Tegra K1 "Denver" SocS might turn out to be more attractive products. That is, if you believe Nvidia claims Denver can be on level or even beat some Celerons:

In general, it might be also interesting to see a Windows RT coming back from the dead on similar Tegra K1 based laptops.