Mobile: Notebooks, Tablets, Phones

NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet and SHIELD Controller

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When I reviewed the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet, it was the first tablet in the US to use the Tegra K1 SoC that helped it easily become one of the fastest tablets we've ever benched and definitely the fastest tablet we've tested for games. You're looking at an 8-in 1080p tablet with a stylus, available in both WiFi-only and LTE options. The controller allows you to use the tablet as a gaming device for Android titles, as well as streamed PC games either from your own GeForce-powered gaming rig or from the cloud and NVIDIA's GRID service. It definitely isn't cheap, especially with the controller and cover cost added in, but the SHIELD Tablet is a device with a lot really interesting, though somewhat niche, use cases.

 

Motorola Moto G (2nd Edition)

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At just $179 for an unlocked Android smartphone, the 2nd edition of the Moto G is a heck of a bargain. Even more so as it's also the least expensive of Google’s “Pure Android” devices by a considerable margin. The screen is a surprisingly good 5" 1280×720 IPS panel covered with Gorilla Glass 3. Under the hood the Moto G sounds a little less impressive, as it’s powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor with just 1GB of RAM. The base 8GB storage is barely adequate these days (16GB also available), but the Moto G can easily be expanded via microSD card. In spite of the modest specs the phone is fairly zippy and has excellent battery life, in part because this phone does not support LTE, which is its biggest drawback. If you can live with the slower data speeds when not on Wi-Fi this is a compelling option, and it’s also a refreshing departure from the Samsung TouchWiz/LG Optimus/HTC Sense UI treatment usually found covering the stock Android OS.

 

Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro Core M Notebook

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The Yoga 3 Pro is an iteration of Lenovo's very popular 2-in-1 convertible notebook that can fold into all kinds of interesting shapes. This time around though the Yoga 3 Pro is powered by the brand new Intel Core M processor, based on the Broadwell-Y architecture. This gives the laptop nearly the same performance as the Core i5-4200U used in other Ultrabooks but allowed Lenovo to make the machine thinner, lighter and to extend the battery life. The 13.3-in screen has a 3200×1800 resolution, it includes 8GB of DDR3 memory and even has a 256GB SSD for storage. We are still waiting for the other Core M products to find their way to our offices for testing, but for today, the Yoga 3 Pro is an impressively sleek piece of hardware.

 

Motorola Moto 360 Android Wear Watch

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The Android Wear initiative from Google has produced a handful of smart watches that are more useable and more stylish than the first iterations from Samsung. As a user of the Pebble, the original Galaxy Gear, the Galaxy Gear Live and now the Moto 360 from Motorola, I am confident that the 360 is the best of the bunch. It doesn't use as fast of an SoC as the Gear Live (and you can tell in animations side by side) but with the improved firmware that increases battery life in live with other smart watches, the Moto 360 has the advantage of style. With the round face it looks much more like a traditional watch and gets fewer sideways glances…until you start swiping and tapping on it, talking to it sweetly while in line at Panera Bread.

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