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NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Reviewed: Gaming and Possibly the Ultimate 4K Streamer
Earlier this week, NVIDIA officially launched its SHIELD Android TV set-top device, with far more horsepower than something like Roku or Apple TV, but on par with an average game console, and at a more affordable price tag of $199. MojoKid writes: What's interesting, however, is that it's powered by NVIDIA's Tegra X1 SoC which features a Maxwell-derived GPU and eight CPU cores; four ARM A57 cores and four A53s. The A57 cores are 64-bit, out-of-order designs, with multi-issue pipelines, while the A53s are simpler, in-order, highly-efficient designs. Which cores are used will depend on the particular workload being executed at the time. Tegra X1 also packs a 256-core Maxwell-derived GPU with the same programming capabilities and API support as NVIDIA's latest desktop GPUs. In standard Android benchmarks, the SHIELD pretty much slays any current high-end tablet or smartphone processor in graphics, but is about on par with the octal-core Samsung Exynos in terms of standard compute workloads but handily beating and octal-core Qualcomm Snapdragon. What's also interesting about the SHIELD Android TV is that it's not only an Android TV-capable device with movie and music streaming services like Netflix etc., but it also plays any game on Google Play and with serious horsepower behind it. The SHIELD Android TV is also the first device certified for Netflix's Ultra HD 4K streaming service.
This looks like a bigger, beefed-up version of an Ouya. Android hard-core gaming isn't a thing - it's an interesting device but why would anybody want it? Wait 3 months and just get the UHD Roku, or continue using your TV's Netflix.
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Given Android's reputation, I'd say that it sends to google everything I do and watch on the box, and then some. Does a microphone stay open all the time?
The most powerful computer in the world is useless without software to run on it. What's the point of a powerful Android gaming console if only phone-type games are released on Android?
Any other game console is going to have more games than this thing.
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This thing is looking great to use as a desktop (though the 3GB RAM is not an upgrade over an old PC on ddr2).
It is perfect for the vast library of OpenGL 4.5 linux games for ARMv8 that I can't wait to play! Wait.. ok, while waiting for great ARM linux games you'll play such great titles as xpilot, imaze and one out of 12 doom ports that you can actually get to run easily enough.
Just curious, what kinda spying/data collection is it doing? voice collection? Video collection? games played? movies watched? Photos stored? Web sites visited? if it has that capacity? Live video? And why should anyone trust them not to collect all those nice things we do. I think in this day and age theses are the questions we have to ask when we make hardware purchases.
Jack of all trades,master of none
I bought an expensive EVGA Nvidia Tegra 7 tablet based on promises that it would be receiving Andriod 5 (Lillipop) "real soon now". Turns out that even the KitKat "upgrade" was incredibly buggy and I'm still on Jellybean. Nvidia promised Android 5 for 2014. Then it slipped to February 2015. Then, when February 2015 came and went, Nvidia became completely unresponsive on the Android 5 upgrade.
I bought this tablet based on the promise of Android 5 from what I thought was a capable and well respected name in the industry. I didn't want to buy a Google Nexus tablet and reward Google for their short sighted lack of memory expansion and gouging the consumer for a small increment of internal memory. But at this point I expect that it is the last Nvidia product that I will ever buy.
No matter how reasonable promises of upgrades seem, believe half of what Nvidia tells you about current products and nothing about what they promise will be available soon in the future for the device, or expect to be treated the way past Nvidia customers have been.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Pretty useless for Kodi because it can't bitstream lossless audio (runs on a closed ecosystem and requires licensing to do so). Also can't handle 23.97 output (converts to 24fps) so there's judder. There are lots of other cheaper devices which can do the job better.
As far as Netflix 4k streaming goes, you need HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2 support, and if you have that you almost certainly have Netflix 4k streaming built into your 4k TV already.
It looks nice until you realise that you need to pay a $12 a month for Netflix HD to really make use of it and it can only play videos from a limited number of formats.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
MojoKid is a child molester. HotHardware.com is a front for paedophilia. Search your heart. You know it to be true.
I worked on that Tegra Note 7 project, and I hear what you're saying. I think the management has their heads up their asses to burn customers like this. Internally everyone wants to work on the new shiny stuff and the maintenance of the last generation gets sent over to the offices in India and Shanghai. But those teams don't want to work on the old stuff either, it's just an elaborate game of hot potato.
I'd recommend you sell your TN7 on ebay while it's still worth a few bucks. And save your money for companies that maintain old product lines, like Apple. Even though I love using Android and working on Android, there are no vendors that really any good from a customer service stand point.
(posted as AC for obvious reasons)
The big problem many of these types of boxes have is the limited availability of support of streaming networks.
Does it support the CW, what about Max Go? So far most of the boxes that I have looked at only have a limited selection of apps that will work.
My android phone has more streaming video support then Fire TV, Roku, Shield, etc.
Whoever can figure out that a small app store for your device isnt the right way to go will get my money.
Microsoft Has Hijacked Android In A Hostile Takeover
What's the point of a powerful Android gaming console if only phone-type games are released on Android?
"Phone-like" can have several meanings:
OUYA's library would port well to this device. True, a lot of games on OUYA are intended for short sessions, as were a lot of Flash games for PC when that was a thing. But they're all adapted for a controller, and many are sold on a "shareware" model with a free subset followed by a one-time IAP.
For a settop box is there any reason not to use a low-end PC in a quiet case and run OpenELEC, XMBC or even Windows Media Center?
Home theater PCs are for geeks because they're not quite as easy as a dedicated device. Dedicated devices in small, quiet cases are easier to obtain, as they're sold pre-built in major electronics chains, unlike a small form factor PC where you usually have to buy it over the Internet and deal with mail order drawbacks, buy it as parts and assemble it yourself, or both. (Or since when has Best Buy started to carry a small, quiet PC other than the $600 Mac mini?) A dedicated device is also less complicated to maintain than a general-purpose computer.
Pretty useless for Kodi because it can't bitstream lossless audio (runs on a closed ecosystem and requires licensing to do so).
You really don't think that's going to be solved by the community?
How would you suggest that "the community" meet the organizational requirements for compliance with the digital restrictions management (DRM) schemes used by major motion picture studios?
You mean XBMC can't just slow everything down by a fraction of a percent?
Once you slow everything down or speed everything up to lock the frame rate to that of the monitor, you're resampling audio, and resampling is no longer lossless.
I don't buy display devices with networking built into them. That's stupid.
If you keep that up, you could end up not buying display devices at all. TVs are shifting toward "smart", and home desktop PC monitors are shifting toward "touch-enhanced all-in one computers". And an HDMI monitor for a traditional tower PC is unlikely to forward multichannel audio because desktop PC audio has traditionally been 2-channel analog through a separate 3.5mm jack connector.
A paragraph of the article you linked claims that Android infringes patents but doesn't specify or link to which. So it's an alleged patent tax, not a copyright tax. Besides, which patents are these? And can they be designed around by not having an SD card slot?