Nvidia Shield TV

Long-term owners

for running it for like 9 years with a cost of less than $200 and essentially zero maintenance

Jan 2026 · comment

can't believe that 7 year old device is still the best media player on the market

Jun 2026 · comment

Hasn't all this been mostly solved on the Nvidia Shield Pro for ~7 years now?

Jun 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

• Apple TV 4KRecommended as a fast, private replacement for spammy smart TV software, controllable with one remote via CEC, though Apple pushes its own promotions and it is pricey.323recommend
• Apple TV 4KRecommended for smooth, simple streaming, fast hardware, long software support and a privacy-friendly business model, though critics cite missing audio passthrough and a higher price than before.93recommend
• Roku streaming playerPeople recommend Roku for its slick interface and phone remote app, but critics most often cite home screen ads and viewing data tracking.20recommend
• Amazon Fire TV StickPeople recommend it as a cheap way to add streaming and sideloaded apps to an older TV, with the Fire TV Stick 4K Max as the top model; critics mainly object to ads and data collection by Amazon.19recommend
• Roku streaming devicePeople recommend it for a consistent, fast, clean interface and a cheap price; the main caveat is ads and settings changed after updates.14recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 192 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I've upgraded to an nvidia shield using projectivy launcher which allows me to set a customized and very clean interface with the just the apps I use and nothing else.

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal”

2. They're still decent hardware for a streaming device (although somewhat dated at this point), but now you have to go out of your way to make the software not shitty.

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal”

3. The way Shield TV is still occasionally getting some updates is impressive for example, but it's stayed on an ancient Android version

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Surface Laptop Ultra: Made for World Makers”

4. They were able to build this device and provide a Android TV certified 4K device that didn't need to have planned obsoleteness.

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

5. They are the best devices for playing pirate Emby servers 4k Remuxes with dolby vision and dolby audio support direct play.

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

6. It's probably still the best Android TV you can get today but that's really sad because the SoC in it came out in 2015

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal”

7. I love the Shield, compared to even the Chromecast at the time, we noticed a huge difference in colour on the TV.

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

8. The Nvidia shield outlasted every android tv device from Google and maintained a near pure experience as promised

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “An ad-free Android TV”

9. I love the NVIDIA Shield as a technical product...but...I really wish they spent some effort on User Experience.

   Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

10. The hardware is great, and if you install a custom ROM, you have more freedom than Apple TV will ever give you.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “I didn't realize my LG TV was spying on me until I turned off Live Plus”

11. I use an NVIDIA shield on a dumb TV with firefox sideloaded (ad blockers, ect) for 95% of my streaming.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options”

12. the shield is a much nicer device to use if one wants to use anything outside of their local media.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

13. I use a Shield for this reason, but it's clunky and I'd much rather have something that just works.

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “New Apple TV 4K”

14. It doesn't support TrueHD Atmos (UHD Blu-ray Atmos in other words). It also doesn't support FEL.

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

15. for running it for like 9 years with a cost of less than $200 and essentially zero maintenance

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

16. The only issue I ever had was Google adding ads to the front page of the Android TV launcher.

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids”

17. A Shield is the better choice because you can install apps that Apple would never approve of.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Hisense TVs add unskippable startup ads before live TV”

18. Shield performs exponentially better in every way except for the god awful stock interface

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

19. a circa 2015 design (the 2019 rev was just a cost reduce/bug fix with same performance)

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

20. The lack of hardware support for a few modern codecs is a pretty big complaint from me

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

21. can't believe that 7 year old device is still the best media player on the market

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “A powerful new chapter for Windows PCs, accelerated by Nvidia RTX Spark”

22. the best Android-based streaming device money can buy is still the NVidia Shield

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “My Steam Machine Is a 50ft HDMI Cable”

23. a device that simply works and passes the audio untouched to my sound receiver

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “H.264 Is Magic (2016)”

24. Hasn't all this been mostly solved on the Nvidia Shield Pro for ~7 years now?

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Steam Machine game testing”

25. The Shield continues to work but it's a bit sluggish now and needs a new gen.

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “New Apple TV 4K”

26. Any version of the Nvidia Shield TV can do this, even the original from 2015

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Apple announces significant price increases for MacBooks, iPads, more”

27. They treat your home screen like a billboard, and I have no faith that they're not stealing all my data either.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Stopping the smart TV from being used against you”

28. They're missing support for newer codecs and current WiFi standards, can't decode Dolby Vision FEL

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

29. going from fantastic to a horrible mess software wise over the span of a single Android generation

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “H.264 Is Magic (2016)”

30. The one big hardware deficiency of my Nvidia Shield TV is its lack of YouTube AV1 support.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Netflix’s AV1 Journey: From Android to TVs and Beyond”

31. A dumb TV you can buy for cheap on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist with an Nvidia Shield or a similar streaming device running Android.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal”

32. A dumb TV you can buy for cheap on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist with an Nvidia Shield or a similar streaming device

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal”

33. the only advantage of the Nvidia Shield is better HDMI audio passthrough but it has so many other issues

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal”

34. I now moved on to playing content using nvidia shield and blocking outside traffic completely.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch”

35. The appeal of the Shield Pro is you don't have to deal with custom flashing a "no-name" device

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “New Apple TV 4K”

36. a dumb TV you can buy for cheap on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist with an Nvidia Shield

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal”

37. My biggest gripe with the Shield is the newest one has a remote that I really don’t like.

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Microsoft Copilot AI Comes to LG TVs, and Can't Be Deleted”

38. at the time it came out it was pretty powerful compared to the underpowered alternatives

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

39. They are still in stock and sold by local brick and mortar retailers as well as online!

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device”

40. It's still my daily driver for personal browsing and the device I primarily develop on

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “My Steam Machine Is a 50ft HDMI Cable”