This could possibly the biggest news to come from CES 2013 on the eve of the show. Nvidia has just announced Project Shield, a portable gaming device that runs on pure Android. Project Shield runs on Nvidia’s latest Tegra 4 processor, which the company claims is the fastest mobile quad-core processor running on ARM A15 architecture and 72 GPU cores. The device has a ‘shield’ button that toggles between the Android UI and Tegra Zone for getting games. Windows PC users can also stream games from a PC powered by NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs, accessing titles on its STEAM game library from anywhere in the home.
Shield features console-grade controllers with buttons as well as physical joysticks. It also has a 5-inch 720p display with a pixel density of 294ppi that enables it to act as a stand-alone console when it is not hooked on to a television. It sports a 38WHr battery, which Nvidia claims should provide enough juice for up to 10 hours of gaming or 24 hours of video playback. It has standard connectivity options. It can also do video out in 4K resolution, making it the first mobile device to do so.
The Shield runs on pure Android Jelly Bean, which should make it easy to get regular updates. While one is not gaming on it, one can use it as any Android device and get apps from Google Play store. For connectivity it has dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11n for faster speeds.
Nvidia imagines the Shield to do to gaming what the iPod did to music. However, without any pricing or launch date it is difficult to visualize that happening. Nevertheless, it is one of the most surprising announcements at this year’s CES and the show is yet to officially kick off.
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