Final words and conclusion
Final words and conclusion
The Nvidia Shield Android TV is an intriguing little device. Sure, it's more expensive opposed to many other Android TV devices, but the quality and sheer power and technology it harbors is far greater and worth the money.
The Shield Android TV is lovely in its design, looks and ways to control and manage. The trick for Nvidia was to give it a proper controller to game with (which works out tremendously well). And if you are just using the product to watch some movies, stream Netflix or Youtube, then that Shield remote is just the shiznit. From a hardware point of view, I mean hey it's Nvidia hence it's done well. The X1 is a powerful chip that can deal with anything thrown at it. The hardware has no issues with any kind of content whether that is 1080P or 4k2k Ultra HD content. Hardware wise this might be the very best Android box available on the market to use as a media center PC. But therein also lies a weakness... Android. It is so often that all the hardware is right, yet you remain dependant on apps. Kodi for example can play back all the MKV 1080P and even 2160p content you throw at it, but immediately we stumbled into small stutters and some judder on the big 65-inch telly. On a regular monitor over HDMI all was fine. The current Kodi build needs an update to properly deal with 24hz movies while you are locked in at 60hz 1920x1080 / 3840x2160. A working auto-refreshrate switcher is what is missing, so you navigate at 60p, but once a movie or tv-series at 24p kicks in, the monitor or telly needs to be switched to that signal.
The easy fix here is to select Ultra HD at 24p, but it is that kind of manual configuration all the time that I often run into and just hate dealing with. I also feel strongly that perhaps Nvidia should have spent a little time on this, e.g. include your own Kodi media-player built with proper and wide codec support. Again, the hardware can do it, but so very often the software fails. So if you run into this issue, please use a fixed 24p setting on HDMI or try out some nightly / beta builds or even other software to get the auto-refreshrate switcher to work. Other than that the unit is impressive on both video and audio quality and features, very much so.
Gaming however is the core fundament of the Nvidia Shield Android TV box, the X1 definitely is one of the faster Android game devices out there, but pales away in the sighting of any modern console. Nvidia Grid combined with GeForce Now is what this product release really is all about. Nvidia invested heavily into server farms spread over data-centers worldwide. The problem however remains the fact that that you'll have a hard time getting a PC gamer to go streaming. Streaming is and remains something for a younger generation, which needs to be a console type of individual slash gamer, at home in front of that telly. This is why the Nvidia Shield Android TV was launched, a box that sits next towards the telly, offers Smart TV functionality, offers media center capability and then that very same box can be used to play games on.
In order to do so the complicated yet fascinating Grid was setup, streaming games over the internet. And yes, I have to say I am not disappointed. The main fear being lag and latency, honestly isn't bad at all. But it all depends on your internet connection of course, if you have some packet-loss, then forget about it, and your internet needs to start at a recommended 10 Mbit/s to be capable, higher even for proper 1080p60 content. The overall quality of the games is definitely not comparable to PC gaming at the nicer and nicest settings, but it is pretty okay console quality. Nvidia will need to add triple-A title support though as right now the choice is OK, but not plentiful enough.
Final Words
Bringing together Nvidia Shield Android TV and the Nvidia Grid for cloud computing really is what this device is all about. As a PC gamer I am not disappointed but was also not thrilled. Truth be told, I was rather happy to get back to my old trusty PC and game as no-matter what, the feel in quality and responsiveness simply isn't the same with game streaming. But hey, it is pretty good for a certain demograhic and that has to be the conclusion of this article.
Nvidia's Shield Android TV has the perfect hardware feature-set for what this unit needs to do. With proper software and a little more tweaking I am sure we can eliminate the playback stuttering we noticed during 24p movie playback (missing refresh rate switcher). But you will need to be a person that likes to fiddle and tweak with devices like these. Overall the OS software based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) runs really great. The menu is fast and responsive and, with the remote control, is easy to navigate. The processor is plenty fast while the SoC is tied to 3GB of memory, the default model has 16GB storage but can easily be expanded with a microSD card.
The hardware is done right, the specs are done right. The product however will need that last push to get media playback perfectly under control. At that time you will be able to watch Ultra HD movies even with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master audio, and with certain Kodi builds even Dolby Atmos is a reality. Gaming wise this is definitely not a product you should be comparing with a gaming PC, but it is pretty nice as an additional experience overall. The GeForce Now streaming based titles are growing and that should appeal to more end-users. It remains to be seen if game streaming is the future, I honestly don't know. But it's good to have choices and alternatives and it certainly works well enough on a fast stable internet connection.
The Nvidia Shield Android TV in the end is hardware well done from A to Z, most but not everything on the software side is done well. You will need some Kodi tweaks and builds to get things perfect, but that's the case with any Android based media player. The combination of all its features I feel justifies the 199 EUR/USD. However if you are only after simply HTPC functionality or Smart TV functionality and stick to 'normal' DTS and Dolby Digital a Raspberry Pi or Chromecast is simply the cheaper route to take. But the Shield Android TV is worth the money, especially the inclusion of the controller and currently the remote control softens the deal.
In the end we find the Shield Android TV a fascinating little device with huge potential.
- Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
- Or go back to Guru3D's front page.
