NVIDIA Starts Rolling Out Android Marshmallow To The Original SHIELD Tablet [Update: Halted]

NVIDIA’s SHIELD Tablet has been pretty popular both in it’s original form and the newer K1 which was released late last year. While the K1 has already recieved Android Marshmallow, the original has been left on Android Lollipop. However that is now finally changing.

NVIDIA has posted a full changelog for the new SHIELD Tablet upgrade 4.0 which includes Android 6.0 Marshmallow along with a few other small changes as you can see below.

This update for SHIELD Tablet upgrades the Operating System to Android version 6.0

NVIDIA SHIELD Camera

New UI inspired by Material Design, improved burst photo functionality

Adds new real-time HD Image Effects

Now on Tap

Quickly find information related to what you are seeing on the screen, also from inside an app

New Adoptable Storage

MicroSD cards can be integrated with main internal storage, auto managed by system

User Interface Upgrades

Personalize Home & Lock screens with different wallpapers, new NVIDIA wallpapers

Personalize Quick Settings menu, add/remove, rearrange toggles

Google Now voice commands can be launched from lock screen

Improved App Permissions

Permissions are now managed centrally

Power Consumption

App Standby power improvements

New App Optimization feature

Improved BT Low Energy scanning power efficiency

System wide improvements including

Monitor Memory Usage with detailed usage of each app

Improvements to WiFi Connectivity

Optimized preloaded apps

Update to Android 6.0 Security Patch Level January 2016

Aside from the standard Marshmallow additions, this upgrade brings the ability to set separate wallpapers on the home and lockscreen. Thanks to the SD card slot on the tablet you can also better use the extra storage due to how 6.0 handles removable storage. NVIDIA does recommend however that you back up your SD card before taking the upgrade.

The WiFi variant of the tablet should have the update already available to all users with the LTE variant grabbing it within the next few weeks.

Update: Nvidia has temporarily stopped the OTA from rolling out to more users due to a potential wifi bug rendering the (wifi-only) tablets pretty much useless. There is a workaround if you’ve run into the bug, doing a factory reset, but Nvidia has taken a stand into getting that bug squashed and re-releasing the OTA so that everyone can enjoy Marshmallow. We’ll update this post when the OTA is rolling back out.