The handheld gaming tablet market is far from crowded with only two major players, however as of June 11, a third player has joined the party. Previously this segment only hosted the Razer Edge and NVIDIA’s Project SHIELD, but now welcomes the Wikipad— a concept similar to the Razer Edge, but at a fraction of the cost. This gaming tablet is priced similarly to NVIDIA’s Project SHIELD but undercuts it by $100, selling at $249.  This product is really the best of both worlds as it adopts a similar design to the Razer Edge, which is a tablet that slides into a handheld controller that converts into a portable gaming console.  The only lunacy behind the Razer Edge is its price point that starts at $999. 

Specwise the Wikipad sports a NVIDIA Tegra 3 mobile processor with quad-core CPU with 1GB of RAM and runs the buttery smooth Android 4.1 Jellybean. In addition to this, it’s also 0.42” thick (without controller attached), making it one of the thinnest 7-inch tablets available, not to mention it only weighs 0.71 lbs making it super light and easier to hold for long hours of play.  In terms of compatability, the tablet essentially can run any game in NVIDIA’s TegraZone and the Google Play store flawlessly, but in addition to this the Wikipad is one of the only tablets certified for Sony PlayStation Mobile. Of course with all these games storage might be a concern, but it does come standard with 16GB of hard drive space and also supports a micro SD expansion of up to an additional 32GB so loading all the games, photos, movies, and music you want is not an issue. 

The detachable controller it comes with has four buttons, right and left bumpers as well as triggers, a D-pad and of course two analog joysticks (similar to NVIDIA’s Project Shield). All of this makes gaming on this tablet a superb experience. However, since it is a tablet, it also has to be good at internet browsing, watching movies, and everything else a tablet should do. It does not disappoint– especially in how smooth and fluid it is. It’s direct competitor the Shield does have a newer chip, the Tegra 4 as well as more RAM (2GB), but it does sport a much smaller screen as well as being incapable of disconnecting from its controller to be used as a tablet. Ultimately the Wikipad doubles as a tablet and portable gaming console and it does it very well with a smooth interface. The best thing about it, however, may be its $249 price point which almost makes it a steal in the tablet world alone, let alone the handheld gaming market.

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Evan Destunis is a contributor to Toronto Standard. Follow him on twitter: @evandestunis

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