NVIDIA SHIELD

Advantages: Stylish and compact appearance, design, adjustable even in brightness, console backlight. High performance for a similar device, automatic active cooling. Processor performance settings. + Wi-Fi 5 GHz. Lan 1000 Mbps. Possibilities of menu control both from the remote control and from the gamepad. Multimedia in a local network, 4K UHD high definition video. Voice control, Bluetooth with the ability to connect additional. devices. A gamepad with the ability to plug in headphones and play at night without disturbing anyone. Touch-sensitive volume control both on the remote control and on the gamepad. Supports external USB drives and hard drives. Google Play, and of course GeForce Now!

Disadvantages: No HDMI cable included! was very surprised when unpacking, for such a price, and no cable ..! And there is no other way to connect. The inability to completely turn off the console. There is only sleep and reboot mode, the same as locking the smartphone. You can forcibly turn it off only from the settings menu, but you will have to turn it on by turning the power supply on and off. It does not bother, and from some side it is even convenient, you do not need to wait for the download and the widget ribbon on the desktop is always updated. But sometimes I accidentally press to send the video to the console from my smartphone, and it wakes up. It may be convenient, but not for everyone. Not resistant to scratches, glossy polished plastic, which has inserts both on the case and on the remote control (volume sensor), as well as on the gamepad. Sometimes you come across geypads that, after a month or two, start to fail in control, but they change without problems by the company under warranty. Not as many games as I would like. New ones appear, but not immediately, and for some time they are also paid, although when buying a key to the game is given even for a computer. Many games on GeForce Now and Google Play do not have Russian language or localization, but there are also Russian ones, there are also quite a few of them. On GeForce Now (who have not played) I advise you to play: Just Cause 2, The Witcher 2 and 3, Space Marine, Tomb Raider, Metro 2033, Gas Guzzlers Extreme, Brothers. Most with full Russian localization, videos and voice acting.

Comment: Quite by accident I found out about this console, when I got tired of Chinese fakes that hang, slow down, stupid, on which they go, then the games do not go, then they are cut down, then you need to redo something yourself, finish the cooling, etc. To fully master the beauty of Nvidia, you need at least a month, try and compare everything. Started playing on Geforce Now, 2 months have passed. the gamepad began to randomly trigger up the right stick. I thought it was a cant of the game or the Internet.But having contacted support, they quickly helped to understand what exactly the problem was, and they also quickly replaced it. After the replacement, the problem disappeared. Those. the support is great. Updates are periodically released for everything at once, the console, remote control and gamepad. Of course, her price is not cheap, but it's worth it, I understood that. This is exactly the feeling when you use it and understand that you have not wasted your money in vain! Of course, you do not need to compare it with the Playstation or Xbox, this is different, and different money. Not for avid gamers. Who might be interested in Shield? People who like to play, but not often and pay less for it, use the console as they want, not only for games, but also for video, programs, streaming. Questions that new buyers have, as it was for me: 1. What is GeForce Now? It's a gaming service platform that runs games on Nvidia servers across Europe and streams video over the Internet to your TV. You need high-quality internet via cable, not WI-FI! The service itself adjusts the image quality depending on the bandwidth. These settings can be changed in the GeForce Now settings menu, if there is a constant loss of packets, change the provider, as I did and forgot about it. 2. Is Google Play the same as on your smartphone ?: No, this is the Google Play version for Android TV, it is different. There are only applications in it that support Android TV, mainly well-known programs, games and much more. You can install something else only from the apk file. I hope my review was helpful :)

Advantages: NVIDIA, what can I say! A serious brand, a product from which you can easily buy without fear that the product will be "abandoned" to the mercy of fate (they will stop releasing updates, firmware, fix bugs - if they exist, of course). In addition, a great futuristic design. Crazy performance, no glitches, lags or freezes. Everything flies. The picture quality is excellent. On the whole, it is a complete thing in itself. Killer of other android boxes.

Disadvantages: The preinstalled programs out of the box do not cover all the functionality that the box is capable of, so some applications will have to be installed by hand. It is not difficult and understandable in principle. The buttons on the remote were a little sorry. Unfortunately, there was no separate extra on / off button.

Comment: Before that, I owned the Tronsmart Vega S95 Telos prefix, in principle I liked it - there were certain complaints and glitches (and the Chinese manufacturer stopped releasing firmware updates almost immediately after the release, without fixing some rather unpleasant bugs), but it was possible to use it. But everything is learned by comparison. NVIDIA SHIELD versus Tronsmart is like a premium car after a used old Korean Uzbek assembly. I do not regret the purchase at all and recommend it in every possible way. P.S. I took the version without a gamepad, the game functionality is not interesting. Movie and streaming services only.

Advantages: This is the best Android all-in-one harvester on the market! Powerful processor, excellent nVidia support Can be used as a game console and as a media center The main difference from the Pro version is that it does not have a built-in hard drive. You can connect an external USB 3.0 (preferably SSD) and there will be no difference. Geforce Now - the ability to play computer games in stream mode, i.e. the game itself runs on powerful nVidia servers (latest generation Tesla graphics adapter, you can set ULTRA graphics settings in any game!) Steam and U-play support, and you can also play all android games compatible with Android TV You can also stream games from your home computer, provided that it is equipped with an nVidia graphics card from the list of compatible

Disadvantages: Android TV is not pure Android, not all applications are compatible with it. Streaming games from nVidia servers requires a high-quality Internet connection with minimal ping to nVidia servers, otherwise the picture will crumble.

Comment: It is not necessary to buy with a native gamepad. Firstly, it will be one, you will have to buy a second, but they are monstrously expensive and not worth their money. I recommend that you take the minimum set (version with only a remote control), and buy gempads separately. Almost all known gamepads are compatible (from X-box and PlayStation, Logitech, GameSir, etc.)

Advantages: Very compact, often guests ask: where is the prefix? It plays well HD video files from network folders (rips, database remixes, avi, microvolts, etc.). The only mysterious moment is that any serious 4K content that I play from network folders slows down, the videos for the TV show are flawless, YouTube in 4K is also excellent, and 4K movies are slow. For 8 months of ownership, not a single 4K movie was watched. The joystick is comfortable and long-lasting. If you want to increase the internal memory by using external media, you must take into account a number of factors: USB3-flash 3.0 will work much faster than MicroSD CARD. (it slows down a lot on SD) USB3 media should only be plugged into a specific port, into the only correct specific port, on the second port this idea will not work. The peculiarity came to light during the consultation via the hotline.

Disadvantages: Few ... very few games for the Android TV operating system. And the cloud gaming service itself also rarely adds worthwhile games to the collection. Plus or minus, even the prices are reasonable, but the choice is scarce. You only need certain graphics cards to stream games from your own PC.

Comment:

Advantages: GeForceNow is fire !!! Android TV7 - all the capabilities of this platform and their market KODI and torrent-tv is an excellent way to organize a media library and watch 800 online TV channels.

Disadvantages: There are almost no games in geForceNOW that I would be interested in playing ((Those that I tried (outside the Moscow Ring Road + 40 Mbps) did not lag and gave an excellent picture and fps

Comment: I have not had a gaming computer for a long time and assemble it ... it's a pity to spend money on expensive video cards to play with taste ... Now the need has disappeared - I play computer games not on a laptop for 100 sput, not on a computer for 50 sput, but on prefix for 17tyr. Feel the difference, as they say. I liked the remote control with voice and touch controls. They also managed to make the joystick from the heart (built-in vibration, touch volume control), although the gamepad looks like a game pad, but it is so weighty and comfortable.

Advantages: There are many of them, I will only list what is mentioned little in the reviews. 1. Chromecast support out of the box. This means that if you install the Google Home application on your Android phone, you will be able to broadcast your phone screen to TV (of course with sound), as well as send videos from Youtube, Facebook and some other applications from your phone directly to TV by clicking a special icon. In the latter case, the screen is NOT broadcast, the phone can at this time do completely different things or even turn off altogether, the Shield video stream takes directly from the Internet, similar to the Apple TV. You can, of course, control the roller with the Shield itself. The "big" computer has not been forgotten either - if you click "Broadcast ..." in Chrome, you will be able to broadcast a Chrome tab or a YouTube video in full screen mode to the TV, again with the Shield itself broadcasting the video after receiving the link to it. They write that in some version Chromecast works in Apple devices, I have not tested it yet. 2. The remote control via WiFi is much more convenient to use than infrared. 3. And if you don't want to go through several remotes, you can limit yourself only to the TV remote, if the TV supports HDMI CEC - then the Shield is perfectly controlled from the TV remote.It seems like you can do it and vice versa by setting the IR emitter of the Shield to control the TV, but I have not tried it. 4. If you don't want remotes at all, you can install a special Android TV Remote Control application on your smartphone. At the same time, typing text becomes especially convenient, for example, in the browser and the Youtube search bar. You can connect a wireless mouse to USB and use it to select applications and channels. Surely, you can connect a keyboard, but I have not tested it. Finally, both the remote control and, probably, the mouse and keyboard can also be connected via Bluetooth, which I myself have not tried. 5. It is stated that the full expansion of the internal memory is supported by an inserted external flash drive. I have not tested it, I still have enough internal memory.

Disadvantages: 1. After broadcasting a Youtube video from the phone (Huawei Nova), the broadcast of the phone screen works for me only after restarting the phone. But, most likely, the problem is in the phone, at the first broadcast of the phone screen, a warning popped up that this phone was not optimized for this and problems are possible. 2. Wouldn't hurt an SD card slot. 3. Non-standard power connector, we could have supplied USB-C. 4. I did not buy the Shield game controller, in particular, because there are batteries of their own format, which means that after 5 years I will have to think about replacing them. It would be better if there were batteries or AA batteries, for a game controller this would increase the weight and dimensions uncritically.

Comment: Broadcasting the smartphone screen via Miracast is not supported, but this can hardly be called a drawback, given the impossibility for many smartphones (without dual-channel WiFi) to simultaneously operate a smartphone with Miracast and a WiFi access point - which makes Miracast almost useless for a smartphone. Chromecast is a much more thoughtful thing.

Advantages: - Stream games from your computer. - High-speed performance (cannot be compared with any braked SMART TV). - The bundled joystick is good.

Disadvantages: - Sometimes (a couple of times a day) the remote control "comes to life" from the third time - On Android TV, not everything that could get out of the market comes out of the market (limitation of the TV version of the OS). - Head search either searches in Russian normally, or in English. If you have Russian language set, then in English it is difficult to find something by voice.

Comment: Games from a computer over the wire - no brakes and lags (FIFA 18), XBOX joysticks are determined with a bang. All applications "fly" (compared to that on SMART TV SAMSUNG 2016). Top among TV boxes. I wanted to take a lower-budget set-top box for the second TV - xiaomi. But after reading reviews on the forum about her - I took the second one, but without a joystick.

Advantages: It does not require a long and tedious setup, everything works out of the box right away and as it should. Good remote control via radio channel and the ability to control the TV via IR Operation speed, complete absence of lags Excellent work as a media center Pure android tv Large user community on w3bsit3-dns.com Voice search and voice input works great, in third-party software too

Disadvantages: There is no power button on the remote control. Little permanent memory - 11GB is available to the user, although this is fully compensated by external drives. Little RAM - but this is the magic of numbers, I could not face a real shortage, with KODI or HD MediaBox running - there is a little more than 1GB of free memory You can pay attention to the price, but you cannot write down as a disadvantage, since the quality of the device in comparison with Chinese TV BOX at such a high level that the price seems justified.

Comment: Before me they wrote a lot about the prefix and I agree with almost everything, so my review will be "philosophical". one.The difference in price with the Chinese TV BOX is, in my opinion, justified, although for not entirely obvious reasons. The main advantage of boxing is that any housewife or elderly person will be able not only to use streaming video playback from torrents or television, but also to configure it all. It is clear that for those more or less versed in android and network technologies, this advantage is not obvious and just saving personal time, but, unfortunately, such people are becoming less and less. 2. The device is able to completely change the ideology of consumption of "gray" media content. No need to download torrents to your computer, no need to store movies on your network, no need to be puzzled by NAS, no need to be puzzled by bypassing locks, etc. No subscription to IP TV from the provider is required. And all this while observing paragraph 1 and spending very little time reading thematic forums. All instructions on the forums boil down to the name of the program you need to view and a link to download it. Honestly, I haven't seen such a long time that everything would be so simple on w3bsit3-dns.com. Put the program - everything works, you don't need any settings, you just need to know the list of the necessary software. But for everything from point 2 to be exactly as I wrote, you must have a good and fast Internet channel and a high-quality router. P.S. I play games on PS4 and then only in one, for this reason Shield's gaming capabilities have not even been tested and I am not writing about them.

Advantages: Solid virtues

Comment: The first prefix I tried on an android. Generally everything pleases. From the moment of unpacking it looks very stylish. I expected the device to be compact, but so that ... Setting up in the presence of an android phone or tablet takes a few minutes - you just need to confirm the account from the phone, and then it's all by itself. Automatically found networks and connected to them, updated the firmware of the remote control and the device, The feeling of using is absolutely fantastic. You need to spend time mastering all the nooks and crannies of the interface, but it pays off later. Voice search works flawlessly. All content slipped to the player is played wirelessly without any lags. Youtube is available by definition. Amazon and Hulu probably don't work for us, so I immediately removed them from the main screen (the prompt is a long press of the central button). Of the media players, there are Plex and Kodi.In general, they are about the same, but Plex has an emphasis on paid services, but better integration with the start screen. Kodi is free, but there is a lot to do on your own. So I spent a couple of days deploying its server side and now you can start watching a movie on a tablet, and continue - on Shield on a big screen with DTS sound.

Advantages: Everything works smartly. Games fly. Streaming games is also not bad in terms of picture quality.

Disadvantages: After a week of use, one USB input died. Fortunately, there are two of them)))

Comment: I am very pleased with the prefix.