and Tablets

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Thad
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Re: and Tablets

Postby Thad » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:41 pm

Also: Brent, did you get a chance to draw any conclusions about the controller?

I'm still debating whether to retire my Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2 in favor of something with a better D-pad. PS3 controller seems to be the best choice at this point but I'm open to suggestions.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby IGNORE ME » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:40 pm

No controller or stylus on display, unfortunately. Those are big deals but I don't really expect them to remain locked to nVidia forever.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby IGNORE ME » Sat Aug 16, 2014 5:16 pm

Today's Amazon free app is interesting. Supposedly it's a quick and dirty way to fire up your Android device as a file, web, media, chat or one of another half-gross kinds of server. I'm sure as heck not putting it on my phone but in theory you could pick up some throwaway Android device, stick this on it, and have a low-power server machine for your home (which is pretty much what I'm doing with my Raspberry Pi these days).

I actually do have an old Epic 4G that I might mess around with for fun, but this'd probably choke on the Android 2.whatever I've got lingering on there.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby IGNORE ME » Sat Aug 23, 2014 1:59 am

Timing is everything. I decided that trying to browse on a tiny dual-core smartphone all week in Seattle sounded like an awful time, so I resolved to get myself a real tablet to replace the (unwieldy huge) one I just gave away. I ended up stuck in a lost cost fallacy loop; I needed a tablet this month but couldn't stand the idea of buying something that's going to be last year's model, guaranteed, by the end of October. So while I'd probably honestly be happier with a Nexus 7 or an iPad Air, I'm typing this on the damned Shield Tablet after all.

You may or may not be happy to find out that my initial impressions of the thing from testing the store demo were way ioff. You see, I was right about the demo tablet being pretty much off the shelf in terms of settings, but what I didn't realize is, this thing being manufactured by a graphics card maker and all, it has a lot of nonstandard optimization and performance settings buried deep down in the system menu. And like most performance settings, the default values kind of suck. There's one feature turned on by default that attempts to correct the displays shortcomings by using software color management to get closer to sRGB spec, but that works like most attempts to correct hardware shortcomings via software do, and since Android doesn't really have a system-level concept of color profiling it kills the performance. Turning that crap off makes the screen much clearer and easier to read text on, even if the white balance is excessively cool (which most non-AV nerds tend to prefer so whatever).

There are also a bunch of battery saving and optimization options which, really, you got the wrong danged tablet if you're worried about power consumption.

I don't have a controller yet because I had to order it from a different store, but the other stuff I've played with is nice. The fake-pressure-sensitive stylus works where supported, but unfortunately the preinstalled drawing apps are mostly junk. There's a lot of apps on here that are kind of bloaty, but they don't jump up in your face unless you go and run then, so whatever again. One of the biggest pleasant surprises is that it comes loaded with both Chrome and Browser, the old less-terrible mobile fork of Chrome. I didn't even know that Browser existed any more, but here I am briefing on it.

The thing does get a little warm (although I am running the thing at max CPU) and 8 inches is a little much for one handed browsing IMO. In retrospect the Nexus 7 might still be the reigning device in its size class for a while to come, but it doesn't matter that much. There's a lot of cool unique stuff this device can do and it's only a matter of time before we find out what it will do.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby IGNORE ME » Sat Aug 23, 2014 2:24 am

SwiftKey still basically a requirement for typing on Android, news at 11.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby Thad » Sat Aug 23, 2014 10:07 pm

Brentai wrote:I didn't even know that Browser existed any more, but here I am briefing on it.


Seems to still come stock on a lot of devices; it's on my Tab S too.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby beatbandito » Thu Dec 25, 2014 12:35 pm

Now that I have a non-extraneous Surface Pro 2 I've been looking into gaming possibilities.

Does anyone have experience outside of the Dual Shock 4 with good connectivity? I couldn't even get the weird Win 8 admin permissions to allow me to install drivers for a DS3 so I'm a little weary before committing based on secondary sources.
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Re: and Tablets

Postby sei » Thu Jan 01, 2015 8:32 pm

My best bet for the DS3 was Scarlet Crush Production's Xinput Wrapper for DS3 (and now DS4). I haven't tried it with the DS4 yet.

If you can't wotk out the admin rights, you're probably going fucked, because you need often need that to install drivers.
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Re: and Tablets

Postby Grath » Thu Jan 01, 2015 9:15 pm

Since my Nexus 7 (Gen1) bricked itself, I'm potentially in the market for a tablet. I'm strongly considering an nVidia Shield because I've got a pile of nVidia graphics cards in my computer (so I can play full-blown games without getting out of bed, if the wifi cooperates enough to do that - apartment complex + each apartment has their own wifi = holy fuck congestion) plus Hearthstone should hopefully run fairly decent on the Shield. Anyone have suggestions for other options? It has to be something that has some form of advantage over my Galaxy S5 in some way - Shield Tablet seems to offer the most unique features (streaming PC games + controller + mappings for converting touchscreen-only games to controller)

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Re: and Tablets

Postby Mothra » Wed Jan 07, 2015 6:00 pm

Anyone use Windows 8 on a tablet yet? Considering getting it for my EP121 slate.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby IGNORE ME » Wed Jan 07, 2015 9:06 pm

I put the preview version on my Slate and performance was terrible, not sure what changed since then.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby Mothra » Wed Jan 07, 2015 10:21 pm

Yeah, that was my main worry - that it would slow everything down.

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Re: and Tablets

Postby IGNORE ME » Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:45 pm

Apparently my OG nVidia Shield needed a recall on account of exploding batteries. I seem to be half a year late to the party, but they've still got the claim page up. Oddly enough, they don't bother asking for the old tablets back; they just make you click a box that says you understand that they're going to remotely brick the thing once you turn on your replacement, and then I guess enjoy your explosive brick. People are saying they can't do jack if you root the thing first, though, so... I'm not sure whether this is "Yay! Free tablet!" or "Yay! Free fire hazard!".

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