[ad#ad-1]The Nvidia Shield is meant to herald a new era in handheld gaming as well as Android gaming in general. Designed to feel like a console controller with a flip down screen. Nvidia has created something interesting here with its 5-inch 720p retina like touchscreen; which was first demoed at CES 2013. Its got two built-in speakers, Wireless-N connectivity, HDMI output, a microUSB port, a microSD card slot, 16GB of internal storage and 2 GB of RAM. Running Android 4.2 and powered by the company’s Tegra 4 quad-core processor. The interesting thing about the device is its price, which is set at $349; so the question has to be asked. Is it worth the purchase?
Before answering that, lets delve more into the Shield, as mentioned earlier this is a fully powered android device that is built strictly for gaming. The controller setup works fine and is compatible with a host of games but sadly not all. That is where some issues arise, for instance i couldn’t get Modern Combat 4 to work with the Shield and even my favorite Robot Attack Unicorn 2. I was forced to use the touchscreen in an uncomfortable angle for gameplay. Now don’t get me wrong, the games that are formatted to work with the Shield are fantastic and work well, but a lot don’t and that is a problem. Which leads me to the biggest obstacle for the Shield, its Price. At $349, it falls in at a price range for a home console rather than a handheld system. Plus because you really can’t use the Shield as a smartphone and is slightly passable for a tablet without any LTE connection. What you have is a very expensive toy. So this brings me back to the initial question of this review. Is the Nvidia Shield Worth the Purchase? the answer is no, and not because its a bad system. But because for its price a Galaxy S4 can do what it does and more and you still have enough money for a Nintendo 3DS.
