Nvidia Shield Tablet vs HP Slate8 Pro Specs Comparison

I think it’s weird that I’ve never done the comparison between Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro in my previous reviews especially seeing how they both have some in common here and there in hardware department.

First of all, they both are running on Tegra processors, although Nvidia Shield Tablet gets the better treatment here with the latest and greatest Tegra K1 processor. And then, they also are packing 8-inch displays with slightly similar resolutions.

(Nvidia Shield Tablet vs HP Slate8 Pro Specs Comparison)

So with all of these similarities found on both devices, I think today is the best time for me to finally bring them up in my next comparison review.


I think this would be quite interesting to find out and explore more about the whole thing of both devices, especially with their gaming capabilities.

Well, if you’re on the same page with me and you wanna know more about how the comparison goes between these 2 tablets, as well as my take on their gaming performances, then check this one out, my comparison review between Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro.

Hope you enjoy reading it!


I think it’s really amazing to see how aggressive Nvidia has really been for the past couple of years, especially in introducing console-quality gaming through its Tegra lineup.

From the early Tegra 2 dual-core that were found powering some older-gen tablets like Acer Iconia Tab A500, Motorola Xoom or Sony Tablet P, all the way to the present with the latest and greatest Tegra K1 processor embedded inside new-gen devices like Nvidia Shield Tablet or Xiaomi Mi Pad.

And all of these Tegra-powered tablets are no doubt really great in performance, especially for gaming. In fact, almost all of them have been some of the best gaming tablets on the market in their eras.

HP Slate8 Pro is no exception. Thanks to its Tegra 4 quad-core processor and its staggering 72-core GeForce ULP GPU, you can literally throw any games on this device and it will just execute them in buttery smooth performance without any lag.

The same applies to Nvidia Shield Tablet with its Tegra K1 processor that will be more than happier to accommodate any hardcore gamer out there to play their favorite games on Android platform.

But the questions are, with all of the great powerful gaming performance found on both tablets, which one between Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro that deserves to be the best gaming tablet in this comparison review?

Which one is the best in the whole aspect?

Is it worth it to buy any of these devices especially to play heavy games?


I probably will not talk about the designs of Nvidia Shield Tablet here because I’ve already done that a lot in many of my previous reviews. So if you want to learn more about that, go check out my older reviews of Nvidia Shield Tablet on this website.

So basically this tablet still inherits almost every design element found on the predecessor, Nvidia Tegra Note.

So there are dual-front-speaker grilles on the left and right bezels (in landscape mode) and the front-side also has dual-color layer (black and grey), which makes this tablet look stylish and sophisticated.

Meanwhile, the design of HP Slate8 Pro actually looks similar just like the iPad mini because it also uses 4:3 aspect ratio on its 8-inch display, the same aspect ratio used on the 7.9-inch display of Apple’s mini tablet.

So this tablet seems to be wider horizontally, as opposed to the 16:9 aspect ratio of Nvidia Shield Tablet that makes this tablet look thinner in portrait mode.

So the experience of watching movies, reading books, browsing the web or playing games definitely feel better and satisfying on HP Slate8 Pro because this tablet provides much bigger screen real estate than on Nvidia Shield Tablet.

But the consequence is, it’s probably not ideal to use HP Slate8 Pro single-handedly because it's pretty huge to hold with one hand.

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Nvidia Shield Tablet

HP Slate8 Pro

No SIM Released 2014, July 390 g (Weight) DirectStylus 2 8.0 inchCapacitive touchscreen, 1920 x 1200 pixels, 16M colors (~283 ppi pixel density) Dual bass reflex port audio enhancement Android OS 4.4.2 KitKat Quad-core 2.2 GHz Cortex-A15 Nvidia Tegra K1 Chipset ULP GeForce Kepler 192-core GPU microSD Memory Card slot for up to 128GB Internal 16 GB 2 GB RAM No GPRS No EDGE Wi-Fi 802.11 Bluetooth microUSB 5 MP rear-facing camera (2592 ? 1944 pixels) autofocus touch focus, HDR 5 MP front-facing camera with HDR HTML5 Browser No Radio GPS Java MIDP emulator HDMI port 19.75 Wh Li-Ion battery

Released December 2013 8.0 inch Capacitive touchscreen, 1200 x 1600 pixels, (~250 ppi pixel density) Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) Nvidia Tegra 4 T40 S Quad-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A15 CPU 8 MP Camera, autofocus, LED flash microSD card slot for up to 32 GB 16 GB Internal storage 1 GB RAM Bluetooth USB No SIM No EDGE No Data GPRS Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band No Radio GPS Java Beats Audio sound enhancement Non-removable Li-Po 5680 mAh battery Up to 11 hours 30 min (multimedia) Talk time

As far as the specs goes, Nvidia Shield Tablet looks shinier here than HP Slate8 Pro.

So first of all, its 8-inch screen is sporting higher 1920x1200 pixels resolution (full HD resolution), as opposed to the 8-inch display of HP Slate8 Pro that comes with slightly lower 1600x1200 pixels.

And then, there are 2GB of RAM, a more powerful Tegra K1 processor coupled with 192-core GeForce ULP GPU, 5MP cameras front and back without LED flash, Android 4.4.2 KitKat comes out of the box which is upgradable to Lollipop, microSD card support for up to 128 GB and the 19.75Wh battery powering this tablet.

Meanwhile, as an older-gen tablet, HP Slate8 Pro comes second in specs. It’s powered by a Tegra 4 quad-core processor with 72-core GeForce ULP GPU, its RAM is 1GB, the cameras are 8MP on the back and another one on the front (720p), there’s also Beats Audio sound enhancement, while 5680mAh battery is running the engine.


In terms of sharpness, of course Nvidia Shield Tablet has the edge here against HP Slate8 Pro. And that’s clearly because its 8-inch screen is sporting much higher resolution (1920x1200 pixels) than the 8-inch display of HP Slate8 Pro (1600x1200 pixels).

So browsing the web or reading books on Nvidia Shield Tablet definitely gets the most benefit here because the text will look sharp and crisp even in overview (without zooming in).

But even so, the screen sharpness of HP Slate8 Pro is still exquisite because the amount of pixels on its screen is not significantly different with the display on Nvidia Shield Tablet.

Interestingly, the 8-inch screen of HP Slate8 Pro uses unorthodox 4:3 aspect ratio, which is the same aspect ratio found on the 7.9-inch display of iPad mini.

As a result, this makes this tablet look wider horizontally, thus giving a much bigger screen real estate in portrait mode.

So reading books, browsing the web, watching movies or playing games is definitely more pleasing to do on HP Slate8 Pro than on Nvidia Shield Tablet.

On software side, both Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro are running on stock Android OS. So if you’re already familiar with pure stock UI of Android with less customizations, then you can totally find it here on both devices.

The homescreen layout is standard, there are app drawer, widget element, Google Now, drop-down notification/setting window and many more.

And as an older-gen device, of course HP Slate8 Pro comes pre-installed an older Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean software here, while Nvidia Shield Tablet looks more updated with its Android 4.4.2 KitKat, which is upgradeable to Lollipop.

The good thing of using stock Android UI is, not only do these 2 tablets run much faster and smoother in performance, but they are also more efficient with the use of memory/RAM and especially power, providing much better longevity of battery lives on both tablets.

However, according to some benchmark test held by tech sites on the web, Nvidia Shield Tablet surprisingly is not very good when it comes to battery life.

So it could only last around 5 hours and 46 minutes for browsing with WiFi. Meanwhile, HP Slate8 Pro looks better here in battery life by reaching over 11 hours and 30 minutes for doing video playback, which is really impressive.

Luckily, Nvidia Shield Tablet is upgradeable to Android 5.1 Lollipop. And this newer version of OS brings major improvements especially in battery life. So hopefully, by upgrading to Lollipop, the battery life of this Nvidia's tablet could be improved much further.


If you’re really into photography, then you’ll be glad to hear that the cameras, especially the rear one, on each Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro is more than capable to take decent quality photos or videos.

Nvidia Shield Tablet is equipped with 5MP cameras front and back, while HP Slate8 Pro looks more promising here with its 8MP camera on the back, accompanied with another 720p front-facing shooter.

I know that mega pixel count doesn’t have anything to do with picture quality, but I believe the photos taken by the rear camera of HP Slate8 Pro will provide more details than on Nvidia’s slate.

Even so, you can still count on the rear-facing camera of Nvidia Shield Tablet because the predecessor (Nvidia Tegra Note) actually has a great quality rear camera (based on many video reviews).

So I assume that Nvidia will also use the same or even better camera sensor on Nvidia Shield Tablet, especially given that this tablet is a flagship device from this company.

Anyway, there’s an LED flash provided on the rear-camera of HP Slate8 Pro, as opposed to Nvidia Shield Tablet that doesn’t have it. So taking photo or recording videos at night in low-light situations is definitely more ideal to do with HP Slate8 Pro.

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Playing games has always been one of the most favorite things to do on any tablets. It’s no exception with Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro.

In fact, thanks to their Tegra processors, these 2 tablets are extremely powerful for playing games.

So you can literally throw any games on any of these devices and they will be more than happier to execute your favorite games in buttery smooth performance, even in full highest graphics.

From simple games like Angry Birds or The Simpson Tapped Out to much heavier and more graphically-demanding titles like Half Life 2 or GTA San Andreas, all can be played perfectly on Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro.

As far as hardware is concerned, HP Slate8 Pro comes with a Tegra 4 quad-core processor, coupled with 72-core GeForce ULP GPU. Sadly, it only has 1GB of RAM, which is not huge enough for today’s gaming.

Meanwhile, Nvidia Shield Tablet looks more superior here with the latest and greatest Tegra K1 quad-core processor, accompanied with 192-core Kepler GPU. Not to mention, there’s also 2GB of RAM to provide much smoother multitasking on this device.

In terms of gaming performance, of course Nvidia Shield Tablet has the edge here compared to HP Slate8 Pro. And that’s clearly because its Tegra K1 processor provides more horsepower especially in graphical department.

So no wonder if this tablet has the capability to play not only regular Android games, but also many other console-quality games that are ported straightly from PC/console to Tegra K1 hardware.

There are many games that you can play perfectly on Nvidia Shield Tablet, like: Half Life 2, Portal, Odworld: Stranger’s Wrath, Trine 2, GTA Liberty City, Need for Speed: No Limit (more advanced graphics and visual effects) and many more.

Unfortunately, there’s no Bioshock is available for this tablet because this game is exclusive only for iOS devices.

Besides playing those high-performing Tegra K1 games, you can also throw regular Android games like Modern Combat 5, Asphalt 8: Airborne, NOVA 3, Gangstar Vegas or GTA San Andreas on Nvidia Shield Tablet and this tablet has no problem at all to handle any of these titles.

The same thing also happens to HP Slate8 Pro. Despite using an older-gen Tegra 4 processor, HP Slate8 Pro is still a powerful gaming tablet though.

So you can also play the aforementioned games above, like GTA San Andreas, Modern Combat 5, NOVA 3, Need for Speed No Limits or Asphalt 8: Airborne on this device.

Interestingly, according to what I’ve heard from some random Android gaming websites, Half Life 2 actually can be played on Tegra 4 devices, including HP Slate8 Pro. It goes the same with Portal and Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath.

Sadly “Trine 2” cannot be played on Tegra 4 tablets. So if you love this 2D platform game, you might want to pick up Nvidia Shield Tablet instead.

Between the 2, of course I will straightly go with Nvidia Shield Tablet because it obviously has better more powerful gaming performance than HP Slate8 Pro.

And it also comes with Nvidia gaming controller (sold separately). So the gaming experience will be more immersive on Nvidia Shield Tablet with this controller.

Not to mention, this tablet is also supported with expandable storage via microSD card slot for up to 128GB. So you can install as many games as you want without deleting the existing files or games on this device, which is awesome.

Even so, HP Slate8 Pro is still a great powerful tablet, especially for gaming. And you can also put many games on this device, thanks to the support of expandable storage via microSD card slot for up to 32GB.


Well..well.well, we’ve finally come to the final conclusion of this comparison review. So which one gets the crown here in this review? Is it Nvidia Shield Tablet? Or otherwise, is it HP Slate8 Pro?

Okay, both Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro are great tablets. No doubt about that. And they are also really amazing for playing games.

They have high-grade specs, they perform really fast and smooth, their cameras take great pictures and overall, they are just great for enjoying media entertainment contents like movies, books or music.

However, as a newer-gen tablet, of course Nvidia Shield Tablet is the one that has more horsepower especially in graphical performance than HP Slate8 Pro.

Not to mention, this Nvidia’s slate is also equipped with an amazing digital pen called “Direct Stylus 2” as well as its own port.

And for your information, the writing experience of DirectStylus 2 on Nvidia Shield Tablet is really awesome and realistic, just like writing on a real paper. In fact, it is on the same level with the S-Pen on Samsung GALAXY Note devices.

So not only can you write some simple notes with Direct Stylus 2, but you can literally create some beautiful paintings out of this digital pen.

However, HP Slate8 Pro is also a top notch performer just like Nvidia Shield Tablet. As a matter of fact, this tablet impressively has better and more efficient battery life than Nvidia’s slate.

So you can play games on this device as long as you want for very long hours.

Bottom line, any of these devices is a really great quality tablet. In fact, they both are still 2 of the best gaming tablets on the market right now.

And the good news is, as I’ve seen lately on Amazon, both of them are currently not very expensive to buy.

Nvidia Shield Tablet with Tegra K1 is now available on Amazon for just $199 for the basic 16GB model. But I heard, this model doesn’t come with stylus, so you need to buy it separately.

Meanwhile, the refurbished model of HP Slate8 Pro can now be had for just $130 on Amazon.

So if you’re still on the street looking for a great reliable gaming tablet, then look no further because Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro are 2 tablets you don’t wanna miss.

Anyway, to end this comparison review, let me answer some of the questions I’ve previously asked above:

Which one between Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro that deserves to be the best gaming tablet in this comparison review?

They both are actually great powerful gaming tablets. No doubt about that. And HP Slate8 Pro also has the power to run some Tegra K1 games, like Half Life 2, Portal or OddWorld: Stranger’s Wrath. However, if you ask me which one is more powerful, of course it is Nvidia Shield Tablet.

It’s got the latest and greatest Tegra K1 processor, which obviously is way more powerful than Tegra 4 processor found inside HP Slate8 Pro.

And it also offers a lot of great things like amazing digital pen, bigger expandable storage support, bigger RAM, a much sharper display and it also comes with its own specific gaming controller (sold separately).

Which one is the best in the whole aspect?

In the whole aspect, I’ve also got to say that Nvidia Shield Tablet totally grabs the crown here in this regard.

It has an amazing digital pen experience (DirectStylus 2), more powerful gaming performance, better sound quality (dual-speaker grilles), bigger RAM and a much sharper display.

However, HP Slate8 Pro actually also has its own strengths compared to Nvidia Shield Tablet, like its more stronger battery life, higher 8MP rear camera that has LED flash and it also comes with the support of Beats Audio, which makes the gaming experience totally awesome and immersive on this device.

But even so, both Nvidia Shield Tablet and HP Slate8 Pro are equally great quality tablets in the whole aspect.

I mean, they are great for playing games, watching movies, reading books, browsing the web and you can literally do anything with any of these devices.

Is it worth it to buy any of these devices especially to play heavy games?

YES.. yes of course. It’s just no-brainer that any of these 2 devices is really worth it to buy, especially for gaming. You cannot make any mistake if you buy either Nvidia Shield Tablet or HP Slate8 Pro to accommodate your hobby of being a hardcore gamer.

They are AWESOME!!


Nvidia Shield Tablet

Pros:

• an insanely sharp full HD display
• powerful performance, especially for gaming
• decent quality cameras
• amazing digital pen experience just like writing on a real paper
• good sound quality thanks to dual-speaker grilles
• pure stock Android UI
• upgradeable to Android Lollipop
• elegant design
• expandable storage wit microSD card slot for up to 128GB
• it’s really cheap, at just $199

Cons:

• battery life is average, but could be improved with Lollipop update
• Tegra K1 processor is really power hungry

HP Slate8 Pro

Pros:

• a sharp display (almost full HD resolution)
• microSD card slot support for up to 32GB
• decent quality cameras, especially the rear one
• powerful gaming performance
• great screen aspect ratio
• solid battery life
• pure stock Android UI with less customizations
• LED flash on its rear-camera
• it’s cheap right now (refurbished is around $140, which is totally worth it)

Cons:

• Tegra 4 processor is usually plagued with overheating issue
• there’s no stylus just like its sibling, HP Slate7 Extreme
• it only has 1GB of RAM

Have any question? Leave your comment here!