Nvidia Launches Handheld Gaming Device

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled two brand new products at the consumer electronics show on January 7^th. The first is Tegra 4, a CPU for tablets and smartphones that will revolutionize the industry. The second is the Shield.

The Tegra 4 is pretty much a quad-core system on a chipset, it can stream high definitions videos to 4K resolution TVs, and is expected to be used in smart phones, smart TVs, stream boxes, and is the primary basis for Nvidia’s first standalone gaming console.

The Shield is a handheld console, with 14 hours of battery life, a controller that rivals any gaming console, a 5-inch 720p retina display screen, and the ability to stream HD video to HD TVs.

We know that by now your nerd senses are tingling. While most of us are not at all interested in Tegra 4 technology, and are wondering if there ever were Tegras 1, 2 or 3; we would love to get our hands on the Shield.

The handheld console will most definitely be the hottest selling gizmo out there, and will not be outdated, or out performed any time soon. Its android build allows it to be updated consistently, so you can expect some sleek new improvements in the future as well.

Although you may not have heard about Tegra, it is a commonly used Nvidia product in smartphones (Google’s Nexus 7, HTC’s One X), tablets (Microsoft’s Surface tablet), and the Sony PSP handheld gaming device. All the devices we have just mentioned used previous versions of Tegra (mostly Tegra 3) so one can only imagine how Tegra 4 based devices will function.

Tegra 4 has 72 GPU cores, 4G LTE Modem Processors, and 4A15 CPU cores.

You can play your favorite video games on it, and use its 5 inch retina display when you are away from your TV/monitor, and can stream your HD video to the large screen. So when you take bathroom breaks during your marathon gaming sessions, you do not have to put the game on pause; we could go into further details here but we know you get the gist.

While Tegra 4 and the Shield are an awesome development for gamers; this technology will revolutionize the smartphone industry as well. Capturing videos and photos will become an entirely different experience through smart phones, and many professional photographers will utilize this technology to its fullest.

With the launch of Shield, Nvidia starts its journey in an entirely new direction. We all know the company is not known for its standalone consumer products, but they sure have picked the right product to enter this market.

If Nvidia starts its own line of smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and so on, they will be another major player in the market. For now it seems that the company would wait and see how the Shield is received in the market, and then they might venture into a new line of products.

[Images via readwrite & tested]