If you’ve been keeping score of the device manufacturers that have been rallying behind the newly minted Android 5.0 Lollipop, you may have noticed that, along with some Korean brands, NVIDIA wasn’t on the early bird list. Worry not if you’re a fan, as the graphics chip maker was apparently just a bit late to the party. So yes, NVIDIA is promising that the latest Android version “and more” will be coming to the multi-talented SHIELD Tablet. As for its other mobile devices, however, we can only speculate.
NVIDIA has been a very good Android citizen, giving users something close to a Nexus experience in terms of not heavily modifying the user interface to pushing out updates in a timely manner. NVIDIA has been very faithful in doling out regular updates, including Android ones, ever since the first SHIELD, now called SHIELD Portable, to the non-SHIELD Tegra Note 7, to the amalgamation of the two lines in the SHIELD Tablet. So it isn’t exactly surprising that the latter would also get Android 5.0, but an official confirmation doesn’t hurt to calm our worries. Plus, the fact that it teases something “more” to come is also enough to keep fans on their toes.
Curiously, NVIDIA makes no mention of the original SHIELD Portable, which seems to be causing a bit of worry to some. Experience would tell us that older models, especially first generation ones, are likely to bite dust sooner or later. The situation might not be too bleak if you consider NVIDIA’s past behavior plus the fact that both the Portable and the Tablet live on the same Tegra K1 platform. Still, this one definitely merits an official acknowledgment.
But perhaps more worrying is the fate of the NVIDIA Tegra Note 7. Unlike the SHIELDs, which NVIDIA sells by itself, the Tegra Note is more of a reference platform that others like EVGA and Advent Vega take and sell as their own, which a checkpoint in rolling out updates. And though NVIDIA itself is still the one that takes care of those updates, these devices have been noted to receive them slower than compared to the SHIELDs. Those are enough reasons for early adopters of these tablets to be anxious, and hopefully NVIDIA will come out with some reassurance, if not bad news, really soon just to give them some closure.
SOURCE: @NVIDIA
The Shield portable is not a Tegra K1 device. It has a Tegra 4.
Correct Chris it is a tegra 4 device
Lol.. I know I am correct.. the article is wrong 🙂 But they must not care.
I think they intend to tell that they are both manufactured by envidia and not a third party la evga!
*nvidia
Hmm I dont think they’ll abandon the Shield Portable yet but I could see them abandoning the Tegra Note 7!