[GTALUG] NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet K1

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Michael Galea via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| Does anyone own an NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet K1 and can they recommend it?  I am
| looking for a recommendation of this tablet for the purpose of web and email.
| I have heard that it being a gaming tablet with four cores at 2.2 Ghz, it
| should be overkill for the intended use.  But that is just what I want.
| If anyone knows of a better android based tablet, please let me know.

There are Android tablets for all tastes and needs.  You have to
figure out what matters to you.  That's not actually easy.  I found
out by living with a few tablets for some time.

The rest of this is about my impressions.  Others may feel differently.

I imagine that I would find it intolerable to use a tablet without a
keyboard for routine email.

I do find tablet keyboards not very good:  if you want a keyboard on a
portable device, it is hard to beat the clamshell laptop form-factor.
Even tablets that imitate the clamshell get it wrong: either a fixed
angle or too much of the weight behind the screen (balance problems).

For web browsing, I find a tablet very nice.  I can lounge in a way
that you cannot do with a clamshell.  For browsing, I love my Nexus 10
(light, high-res screen, longish battery life, no fan noise).

I have two convertible laptops that can fold up to be like a tablet.
I never use that feature.  Why?

- conventional Linux distros (I use Fedora) don't handle tablet
  gestures usefully.

- when folded up, these things still have fans

- they still weigh the same, much more than a tablet

- on one (Yoga 2 Pro), the keyboard remains exposed on the underside.
  That just feels weird.  And Linux leaves it enabled (last I
  checked).

- battery life is much shorter than a tablet

Large tablets are nice to use.  Small ones are nicer to carry.  I
never take my 10" tablet out of the house.  My Android phone does most
tabletty things when I'm out and about.  If I need somthing better, I
take a notebook computer.  There doesn't seem to be a sufficient niche
for something between the phone and a notebook when on the road.

I have a few smaller tablets that I don't use.  Some run Windows.  I
intended to put Linux on those but that's probably silly.

Tablets have limited lifetimes.  The manufacturers soon get tired of
releasing updated firmware.  You can decide how much that matters.  I
have an original iPad and never turn it on because it has been
unsupportd for so long.  The Nexus 10 has been unsupported for Andoid
6, but it is still fine for now.  You can get a Kobo Arc 10HD tablet
with great specs for about $100 but its firmware is uncomfortably old
(there is a CyanogenMod for it but not well debugged).

====

Cheap Windows tablets often have resource limitations that are
unreasonable.  1G of RAM is too little.  16G of eMMC is too little;
even 32G is tight but anything more bumps the licensing cost a lot.
1280x800 resolution is not great these days.  To top that off, Windows
isn't that useful as a tablet OS (but it is better than a conventional
Linux distro).

(I have a tablet with 64-bit Windows.  It can run the
Ubuntu-under-Windows thing that Microsoft has released.  32-bit
Windows (used in many tablets even though the processors can run
64-bit code) cannot do that.  But so far I hardly ever use that
tablet.)

Tablet screens are typically better than notebook screens until you
pay a lot for the notebook.  I find this annoying and unreasonable.
IPS is almost universal in tablets and rare in inexpensive notebooks.
Way too many notebooks are only 1366x768.  The Nexus 10 and Kobo Arc
10HD have 2560x1600 pixels -- roughly four times as many.  The Nexus 7
and Kobo Arc 7HD have 1920x1200.

I don't do gaming.  It seems that a lot of games are now targetted at
phones and tablets.  The nVidia Shield is probably the best gaming
tablet but I am not a good source for this.  nVidia has a Toronto
office that was once Transgaming and it concentrates on porting games
to the Shield.  (Transgaming started out porting games to Linux, then
MacOS; no longer.)  But then perhaps I'm confusing the Shield tablet
with the Shield Set Top Box.  I don't know the relationship and am not
about to research it.
  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHIELD_Android_TV>
  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_Tablet>

The Shield Tablet is perhaps reaching the end of life.
  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_Tablet>

	In August 2016, Nvidia announced it had cancelled plans to release a
	hardware upgrade to its Shield Tablet product line - a speculated
	reason for the cancellation was product conflict with the Nintendo
	Switch, which uses similar technology.[4]