NVIDIA SHIELD Portable 2 Breaks Cover In FCC Filing With Pics And A Full Teardown

There was a point in time when NVIDIA was at least considering the release of a second generation SHIELD Portable device. We know this because a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that is stuffed with pictures has been made public. NVIDIA submitted the filing around the middle of last year with a short-term confidentiality request that is good for 180 days, and with that now having expired the filing has been making the rounds on the web.

Given that NVIDIA recently announced an upgraded SHIELD TV set-top box with support for 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) but made no mention of a SHIELD Portable 2 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), it seems unlikely to us that it is still planning to release a second generation handheld console. Stranger things have happened, however, so we won't rule out the possibility entirely.


In any event, what NVIDIA submitted to the FCC looks like a final and polished prototype, one that is very similar to the original SHIELD Portable. You can see in the pictures that NVIDIA added a new series of capacitive buttons to the center of the controller. One of the documents also indicates a larger LCD display—it has a 5.66-inch display with a 1440x810 resolution, up from the original's 5-inch display with a 1280x720 resolution.


Based on the dimensions submitted to the FCC, the second generation SHIELD Portable is also slightly thicker (but sleeker looking overall), measuring 107mm x 138.6mm x 60.4mm (HxWxD).


There are sparse details about the hardware inside, though an accompanying teardown reveals a few tidbits. Among them are 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE connectivity. Also visible is a microSD card slot for expandable storage, a headphone jack, and an HDMI port, all three of which were also featured on the original SHIELD Portable.

While we do not anticipate NVIDIA announcing a second generation SHIELD Portable, if it does decide to, there are some upcoming events to keep an eye on. They include Mobile World Congress (MWC) and the Game Developers Congress (GDC), both in February, along with the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in May.