NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Pro Streaming Media Player; 4K HDR Movies, Live Sports, Dolby Vision-Atmos, AI-Enhanced Upscaling, GeForce NOW Cloud Gaming, Google Assistant Built-In, Works with Alexa

I've had the Shield TV Pro for a few months. It's fast, 4K picture is excellent with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Best feature is the AI upscaling - makes HD shows on Netflix and YouTube look much sharper on a 4K TV. Works really well. It's also the only streamer that properly plays my Plex 4K movies with full Dolby TrueHD Atmos sound to my soundbar. Fire Stick and Apple TV can't do that. Comes with 16GB storage [expandable with USB], 3GB RAM, gigabit ethernet, 2 USB ports, and a great backlit remote with lost remote finder. Cons: It's expensive at £199 and the chip is from 2019, so no Wi-Fi 6. Storage fills up fast. If you just watch Netflix, get a Fire Stick. If you care about best picture and Plex, this is still the best.

Well I wish I'd bought one of these years ago. It's quick and responsive but the very best feature for me is the AI 4K upscaling which is incredible and works on far more things than I'd imagined. There's a demo mode for it too in which you can have a split screen to see the difference which is dramatic even on a pretty bog standard 4K TV. I'm not going to go into other features of which there are many and have been covered in numerous other reviews. OK downsides are that it's expensive but you get what you pay for and compared to next best thing the Amazon Cube it's not so much more. It should've come with a stand, I was able to 3D print one and they're readily available cheaply. The remote could've done with a mute button and the Netflix button is unnecessary. But this is nitpicking, it's great and has certainly stood they test of time as being the best.

Having used cheaper Android TV boxes for years, I was at my wits end. The specs supplied for the lower-cost options are misleading. There are multiple issues with the majority of these inferior devices but the two 'biggies' are lack of updates & the fact that the network connections (both ethernet and WiFi) are notoriously slow. I'd actually reached a point where I was contemplating building my own device with a raspberry pi (etc.). I then did some research & discovered the Nvidia Shield Pro! I do realise that at £189, the Shield is (conservatively) 3-4 times the price of some of the cheaper alternatives, but there is a good reason for this: 'It does exactly what it says on the tin'. The Nvidia Shield Pro is BY FAR the best Android TV box I've ever used & you can trust the specification & performance information provided. The UI is smooth & easy to use, it is clear that Nvidia take great pride in the user experience & I applaud them. This device is a true multimedia centre and is geared towards cloud gaming. I looked at buying the official controller but this was expensive. I therefore purchased an 'MSI FORCE GC300' Wireless controller for £32.99 (a bargain) & paired it with the shield. For budget-friendly gaming this device is a must & it also converts any UHD TV into a high-end smart TV (Dolby vision & AI upscaling are giving me some of the best picture quality I've ever personally witnessed). To summarise, learn from my mistakes; buy this now instead of a cheap & inferior alternative. If I'd have known how good the Nvidia Shield devices are (back then), I would've! Hope this helps!

Despite the limitations of Android TV, the shield delivers on a basic level on every front, but often excels, so long as you're willing to get a bit techy and geeky. If you're looking for a simple plug and play device, android TV app support may leave you wanting, but if you have the technical and troubleshooting chops to poke around a bit, you will find a really flexible device that will do loads of awesome stuff. I got the shield to serve two purposes. The first and main reason was as an upgrade to the older steam link to stream games from upstairs, and the second was to have one device that can pretty much do everything we need it to media-wise. As a gaming device the Shield will deliver 4k 60fps with 5.1 surround sound from my high-end gaming PC upstairs over an Ethernet cable no problem at all. I use both the Steam Link app and the third party Moonlight app to do this. Geforce now is also pretty nifty, but I only have the free version owing to the input lag of purely cloud gaming making it only really useful for demoing games you have interest in. On the TV side of things. I set up VLC with access to a shared media folder on my PC so that I can stream downloaded content over the local network - which again streams with no problems with surround sound working fine. I know there are more impressive solutions for this like the included plex, but I rarely watch TV or movies and so this simple method suited my needs just fine. My girlfriends main concern was getting the streaming services she uses on the Shield, and this mostly worked fine. All the apps we wanted were easy to grab with the exception of All 4 and SoundCloud which do not have Android TV versions. For most people this wouldn't be a big deal as the shield can be casted to, and so those apps you can just cast the content from your phone. But my girlfriend wanted a more comprehensive solution as she prefers browsing content on the TV instead of locating it on her phone and casting (fair enough). Android TV has its limitations in that not all the apps you would get on android phones will appear in the google play store as they aren't supported (IE, the developers dont care). Fortunately installing apps using .apk files is super easy, (look up side-loading) and you can try your luck downloading the .apk files of android phone apps and installing them to see if they work. I was able to get All 4 working this way (even if the menu is in the wrong aspect ratio, content is fine) and I managed to get soundcloud working using a web-browser app and just pointing it to the website. Web browsing is actually totally workable as the shield supports mouse and keyboard devices, and the ability to side-load apps means I can install SmartTube to replace YouTube (its a youtube app which blocks the ads). The tegra chip inside the Shield also makes it a formidable emulation device and I've tested a PS1 emulator with great success. The only downside here is the on-board storage is only 12gb usable, which is super limited for things like PS1 games. The only other downside is the ads on the main menu. I know there is a solution to switch out the app launcher and thus get rid of the ads, but I have yet to find a solution for this. In short: - It streams games great ✔ - It's got all of the streaming services we use (with a little bit of techie magic) ✔ - It can browse the web and handle web streaming services like soundcloud etc if you need it to ✔ - It supports third party android applications like SmartTube via side-loading ✔ - It emulates like a pro ✔ - People can cast to it ✔ - It streams content over the LAN with ease ✔ - Extensive blutetooth support for mice, keyboards, and games controllers ✔ - It's got an awesome remote shaped like a Toblerone ✔ - The way it can control your TV means you can ditch your TV remote and go all-in with the Toblerone. ✔ - Small internal storage is problematic for larger game ROM or app collections, and the only way to expand it is via USB memory stick (i would've liked a memory card slot) ❌ - Ads on the main menu are frankly unacceptable for a device of this price, but this isn't worth knocking off a star and can be overcome, I just haven't figured out how yet. ❌

This is a brilliant device in all rights, I was debating weather to go for a firestick or this as the price difference is quite big however after a lot of research I decided this was best for me as I am also a avid gamer and having the choice to do both on one device is just hassle proof. The set up couldn't have been any easier, was very handy and brill to set up, you DO need to have a google account to use it so just be wary of that but that is all you need. Having access then to the google play store was a deciding factor also as you get access to a large more selection of apps than most other devices so the entertainment value alone is great when you consider all the apps/watching apps available at your disposable. The picture quality is excellent and couldn't fault it, it is also very fast speeds at running and booting so not waiting forever for things to load it is almost as close to instant as your gonna get today. When is seen the fan airway at the back i was a bit concerned there would be noise of some level however can safely assure it is completely quiet and produces zero noise from the actual device hardware so that was very relieving as when first unbox a slight bit of worry set in. The box itself does stand upright however I set it against a small figure I have beside the TV to avoid any falls or mishaps, with it leaning against something it is perfectly fine, I am aware you can get a stand if you really want but honestly doesn't bother me or noticeable so I'm fine with it the way it is. The control is also a nice triangle shape, at first was unsure but after first day or so it is perfect to hold in hand and also ideal for setting on places if I get up to move around as it does not move or slide anywhere due to the shape! Have since launched a few games on it also, you NEED a NVidia shield account to access the GeForce NOW games so be aware of that also, but the games have ran perfectly without issue and great picture quality! Cant fault the gaming side of it so far but at the same time have not ran any triple AAA game for a lengthy period of time so would need more time to gauge that. CONS SO FAR: So after my first initial few weeks of it running perfect it all of a sudden would refuse to connect to my Wi-Fi when booted after being turned off from the wall. After bit of research it seems to be a common factor that the time/date is off and offsets it. This was pretty disappointing after only a few weeks of use to encounter such a flaw. The Time/Date did not actually solve my problem though, instead I had to split my Wi-Fi to 2.5ghz and 5ghz and connect it manually to the higher speed. I had been planning on splitting my Wi-Fi anyway just hadn't got round to it so it only loses 1 star for me HOWEVER for someone who is not technically minded this could be a fatal error that would render their device useless and need replacing so BEWARE of this!! One other slight issue is the NETFLIX button on the remote is VERY sensitive, I have been meaning to look up how to disable it just because of the amount of times accidently pressed it or brushed against it and launched Netflix. This is a very small problem but can be annoying when watching something but not the end of the world! Conclusion: Apart from that Wi-Fi issue which has since been resolved I am loving the device and its capabilities, my partner is also living having all her viewing options in 1 place so is ideal for our household, I would be of the opinion though if you are not technical minded or mind messing around with settings a bit to just go for a firestick just to save yourself time and hassle, but for the larger IT audience this is perfect device!

Love this, upgraded from fire stick and this is so much better as amazon is locking down their sticks as I use an app (tailscale) and Amazon doesn't support it anymore. It's easy to use and the picture and sound is so much better even with the AI upscale to 4k. I'm using it over ethernet so it definitely much faster for streaming from my jellyfin server. Would highly recommend (if you can get hold of one). I haven't tried the online gaming yet.

I’ve had this for a long time, and I’ve found it superb. Especially the audio pass through that allows me to hear the original sound quality, DTS MA, Dolby HD etc. Very good picture quality. A bit limited on apps, no CH4 app. Worked well with Apple TV, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer & Paramount+. I bought this primarily because it has a Gigabyte Ethernet port, this is useful when streaming 4K Blu-ray as it doesn’t cap the stream that can happen on some other devices. I believe this and Apple TV are the only two devices that have Gigabit Ethernet ports (Base 1000), most others have slower Base 100 ports which is not a problem for most online streams but when streaming raw data from a server with original Blu-ray streams it can cause dropout. It’s great that it still gets updates.

Excellent bit of kit 10 times better than the hot stick if you know what I mean I’d say a little bit expensive for what it is and quite small just make sure you do some research on it for certain downloads kodi but it is the same principle as loading the hot stick setup is easy connection was simple and the remote buttons light up when picked up so all good