Nvidia’s slightly crazy Shield gaming device-cum-tablet is now in the wild, and iFixit has done what it does best and torn the sucker apart.
Turns out that there’s a lot squeezed into the frame of this hybrid device. As well as packing a serious GPU, it’s got a huge 7350mAh battery (previous reports had said 3400mAh, but more battery is never a bad thing, right?), heavy-duty controls, even a fan. Interestingly, the design’s fairly modular, which means that after some intense button-bashing it should be pretty straightforward to, say, swap out the button board for a new one.
The screen is a little more difficult to remove — practically impossible in fact — so it may pay to not accidentally break the display if you value your dollars. Elsewhere, there’s a weird plastic cover held on with magnets that covers… nothing, but the battery should prove fairly easy to replace, which is good news if you’re gaming long and hard.
All in, the Shield scored 6 out of 10 on iFixit’s repairability scale, which means that, while it’s no hacker’s dream, it should at least be easy enough to get back in shape if you’re clumsy. [iFixit]