[GTALUG] NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet K1

[Michael Galea]

On 01/22/17 11:26, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> | 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]
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I enjoy using our Kobo ARC even without a keyboard. My beefs are that I 
want a bigger display and snappier web page rendering.  Also my wife and 
I both use the beast, and account switching gets to be a pain.

Our prime applications under Android are web browsing, email from our 
domains imap and mpdroid (for running our pi-based mpd server that pumps 
hdmi to the media center).

email: My wife has much better ways to draft and view more complex 
emails on a slow to boot computer, but she uses the Kobo to say yes to 
acting gigs (as an extra). When a casting call goes out via email, the 
first responders usually get the job.  So she likes the Kobo's sub-30 
second trip into the mail app, where she can seize the prize.

I real question is, will web pages render faster on a faster tablet?  If 
most of the time to render a page is fetching the page and not tab 
creation + rendering, then I would probably go for a bigger android tablet.

PS: I wish Canada Computers would take one out of the box for me to try 
but they don't display that unit, just stock it.



-- 
Michael Galea