nVidia SHIELD TV Pro 500 GB Home Media Server - Black

The Nvidea Shield Pro is a brilliant peice of Kit for anyone who owns a decent Nvidea based Gfx Card Gaming PC for playing games in other Rooms / Displays around your home. The Shield is also a very capable Android box in its own right too, but maybe a bit Overkill if it's just an Android TV say your after then there's plenty cheaper alternative ones out there. I use it for streaming my gaming PC's games to my 4k Living room & bedroom TV's & to that ends it is exceptional fast & responsive... I also use it for Android TV too & it just runs the Software & Apps so quickly it is Overkill indeed but it's certainly a pleasant experience. Pros = Streams games Lightning Quick + Android TV + Plex etc... Cons = Expensive & you might need to upgrade your household's internal network speed to get the best of the Shield's fast streaming. In the Nvidea Shield Pro's case then I think that it's true = You Get What You Pay For.

This is an amazing product. It is super useful as I consume a lot of media. It easily runs VOD apps such as iPlayer, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video. Also has several music apps including Google Play Music and Spotify. It is also perfect for streaming games from a PC in another room to your TV. Warning though as you need a wired connection, connection over wi-fi drops out and stutters. Otherwise this is pretty much perfect especially with the 500gb HD. This makes it a useful thing to take in a travel bag for hotel viewing.

The available apps on my Samsung Smart TV were being reduced and when I lost the ability to connectivity to my media server from the TV, I had to look for an alternate solution. I decided on the Shield device for many reasons. These included the device being very fast, it looks good, the 500GB storage space helps and most importantly, NVidea keep the android version up to date. This would also replace the functionality of my Amazon Fire Stick and Google Cast. To date, I have had no problems with this device. I use Plex, NetFlix and Amazon Prime regularly and have had no problems. The game streaming is excellent and I often stream games from my PC onto the TV.

Bought this to replace a previous ROKU streamer just over 12 months ago. Relatively expensive upgrade but had hoped it would be worth it. Use mainly for streaming and occasional gaming. There have been more bugs than I care to count - every firmware update seems to render a number of apps unusable (often for months at a time). At present experiencing random crashes (every 5 -10mins) on PLEX, STEAM, KODI etc. There are also known issues with trying to use both controllers at the same time that NVIDA just seem incapable of fixing. All the bugs makes the thing virtually unusable. So much potential but finally had enough and now boxed away in a drawer. *Would encourage people to read the forums before buying rather than just reviews here.

It is a sleek small product with regular updates. The initial setup experience I have to say was tedious and terrible with a missing Plex promotion that apparently comes after 7 days of purchase although I'm still waiting and has resulted in me buying a year subscription. The version of Plex media server that shipped with the product was out of date and left as an exercise for the consumer to update using Google Play Store. An updated version now ships with 5.2 of the Shield Experience software. I had to use a browser, rather than the Shield, to set the server up as not all the features such as Live TV and DVR were available. Once these are setup they are available on the Shield. I use HDHomeRun Connect to supply a 2 channel Freeview signal over Ethernet cabling to the Shield. I initially wanted to use this device to replace my DVR and play some games with Geforce Now. It has been an expensive journey and despite reading numerous reviews nobody mentions that the Plex EPG is not a defacto grid based EPG showing a list of channels vertically and time horizontally. No instead it groups by categorising programs. I find this useless. So, for this particular use case, the configuration is 10 times more expensive that other products available on Amazon, or perhaps just moving to Virgin or Sky-Q and still has some missing capabilities. Some of the Geforce Now games launched that I wanted to play were not available. The Android games worked fine. The gaming controller is impressive and chunky. Has feedback vibration. The voice remote is also very good interpreting my Yorkshire accent very well. In conclusion, I haven't removed anything from my TV shelf, instead I've added 2 more boxes. Hmm, may of been a better idea just buying a gaming console and subscribing to Virgin or Sky to receive a smarter multi-channel DVR with an enhanced EPG.

A great box and I like the new controller but that's about it. I had the old 2015 500GB version and I'm going to be totally honest and say ITS NOT WORTH UPGRADING AT ALL. It really isn't. Its looks the same and performes just the same!

Bought this to basically act as the hub of my media entertainment, including a bit of retro emulation. Overkill for my actual needs, but then I'd rather over-buy and under-use than be left wanting, and I have absolutely no regrets. This came with a great controller (love the faceted look) and a nice slim metal remote. Again, I have this hooked up to my Logitech Harmony Elite so I rarely use that stuff anyway, and bought a small keyboard with trackpad for easy text input. Enough about peripherals, what about the unit? Well, it handles anything I throw at it, great image quality, supports HDR 4K, and makes Netflix almost justify their price hikes! I've got mine cabled up via ethernet, but it had built in WiFi and works really well with that too. It gets regular updates and now the interface is pretty well refined and very easy to use. It doesn't have all of the catch-up TV apps for some reason, but there are plenty of ways around that if you are into that sort of thing. Games look really good on this as well, not quite mainstream console quality (unless you try nVidia's game streaming service) but that's not its primary focus either. It just happens to be good. So yeah, a bit spendy, and overkill for my immediate needs, but the pace of change for this kind of device has slowed right down and so I can't see me changing this for years (unless it breaks!).

Apart from the very very poor documentation from nvidia, the shield is awesome. Performance wise it is quite good, although I wonder why the network monitor says I loose packets when I am connected via 1Gb link from the PC to it .. The controller is amazing, I just love it. The playback on things like netflix etc is really good, lots of features and settings. Definitely recommend it.