At the end of July Nvidia issued a recall affecting many SHIELD tablet owners. If you bought such a tablet between July 2014 and July 2015 and found, via the system status control panel, that your device had a battery type 'Y01' you were advised to take part in the recall process to get a new one. Put simply, Y01 battery equipped SHIELD tablets are a fire hazard, though we never saw any reports of this hazardous nature in the media.
According to a recent report on Fudzilla, those who participated in the recall program have now started to receive new Nvidia SHIELD tablets. It says that "Nvidia doesn’t want the old tablet back; it will remotely kill the device, how nice is that". Furthermore the report states that Nvidia suggests you rid yourself of the old tablet following your country's guidelines for electronics waste disposal.
If you do have received a replacement for your old hazardous tablet Fudzilla advises you to backup the old one properly before you turn on and register the new one and Nvidia remotely kills your old device.
Some SHIELD owners say that they got a return mailing box to send the faulty unit away for recycling/fixing but apparently you can just say that you've already binned it without Nvidia causing any fuss – and that may indeed be true. After all who wants a device which is a fire hazard in their home?
Apparently some users are living dangerously by installing a custom ROM on the Y01 SHIELD before it is 'killed' so they can use it as a spare Android tablet. For those who have taken that path, and are technically inclined, doing a DIY battery replacement on a Y01 SHIELD appears to be possible (including video walkthrough) and should make your old SHIELD safer. (This paragraph - no advice intended.)
Have any HEXUS readers received their replacement Nvidia SHIELD tablets yet?
