Nvidia Shield TV review (2015): The best Android TV device you can buy

Vaughn Highfield December 4, 2015

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£150

Price when reviewed

The TV streamer market is crowded. The two juggernauts that are Google and Amazon are vying for the space, and Apple’s most recent Apple TV is trying to claw back lost ground using its new app ecosystem and advanced features such as integrated Siri. To make things even more confusing, most modern TVs all come with these sorts of capabilities built in as standard, meaning you may not even need a streaming device in the first place.

So, why Nvidia wants a slice of this cold and mostly eaten pie is beyond me. In fairness, Nvidia’s Shield TV is the best Android TV device available right now, but that’s not saying much.

Nvidia Shield TV review: What is it and how much does it cost?

At its heart, Nvidia’s Shield TV is an evolution of Nvidia’s original Shield handheld console and its Shield gaming tablet. Essentially, Nvidia has taken its Shield range to its logical conclusion and stuck it beneath the TV.

Running on the Android TV platform, Shield TV is similar to Android console counterparts such as GameStick, Mad Catz’s Mojo, and the failed experiment that was Ouya. The fact that you may not have heard of any of those speaks volumes about how Android-based consoles have fared over the years.

Nvidia’s Shield TV is different. It isn’t a dumb Android console and, with the inclusion of some rather interesting features, it stands a chance of becoming a hub for your living room home entertainment – not just a limited, slightly low-rent console copy.

However, it’s quite pricey. The 16GB model is £150, and it’s £220 if you want the version with 500GB of storage. Moreover, despite Nvidia initially supplying the remote for free, that’s also going to cost extra.

Nvidia Shield TV review: Design and build

While Nvidia’s angular design ethos and luminous green and black colour scheme might not be to everyone’s tastes, it’s hard to claim that this isn’t a good looking device.

Built from matte and black plastic, with a brushed black aluminium, touch-sensitive power button, this looks and feels like a luxury device. Even when switched on, the power light – a green, angular gash across the surface – looks both subtle and stylish. And, if you decide you want to show it off at its best, you can pick up a weighty all-metal vertical display stand for an extra £25.

The same premium design is carried across to the Shield’s remote. This is wrapped in black brushed aluminium with a glossy plastic face and matte, rubber buttons. It feels fantastic in your hand, but it ought to when you’re paying an extra £35 for it.

What does come included in the box, however, is the Shield game controller. Alas, while the remote control is clearly a premium product, the game controller feels cheap – like that third-party knock-off PlayStation 2 pad you used to have to use when you visited your friend’s house as a kid.

The thumbsticks feel responsive enough, but face buttons are cheap and clicky, the D-pad is spongy and the triggers have little to no resistance to them. It’s only after using the Shield controller that I’ve realised just how good the official Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers really are.

Nvidia Shield TV review: Performance and usability

So why, with such a cheap gamepad and no remote control included, is the Shield is so expensive? The reason is quietly at work beneath the Shield TV’s moody enclosure: the Tegra X1 processor.

The Tegra X1 is Nvidia’s latest mobile chip, which has been designed specifically for gaming and 4K video playback. It’s certainly extremely quick. Games won’t run anywhere near 60fps at 4K, but in the GFXBench Manhattan 3 test it hit a respectable average frame rate of 54fps when running at 1080p. To put that in context, the X1 is twice as powerful as Nvidia’s Shield tablet, the Nexus 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6.

“With a bit of sideloading you can emulate Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and even a handful of GameCube games on this thing.”

That’s not surprising, since, to go with its 2GHz octa-core processor, there’s an Nvidia Maxwell-based 256-core GPU and 3GB of RAM. A half-hearted Android console this isn’t. In fact, with a bit of sideloading and questionable tinkering, you can emulate Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and even a handful of GameCube games.

As for the interface, it’s really just Android TV. It’s practically the same as you’ll find on the Asus Nexus Player or any number of Android TV-enabled sets. Thanks to the Shield’s extra power, however, navigating through the tile-based menus is incredibly snappy and, what’s more, Nvidia has thrown in a few extra gaming-specific features.

Nvidia Shield TV review: Content and gaming

Games are clearly at the forefront of things here. Not only does the Shield controller support up to 40 hours of play time on a single charge, but game-related content is front and centre on the Android TV UI.

Install games from the Google Play Store and they’ll sit in a dedicated Games list, quickly accessible from the main menu no matter what you’re doing. Interestingly, even sideloaded games appear here, although sideloaded apps don’t appear on the main Android TV menu.

Nvidia also has its own Android games store. The advantages of buying directly via Nvidia’s own portal, instead of Google Play, aren’t instantly apparent, but delve deep enough into the library and you’ll find native Android titles that don’t appear anywhere else, such as Half-Life 2, Doom 3: BFG, and Portal. If those titles aren’t new and meaty enough for you, Nvidia has another way to play games on your Shield: GeForce Now.

GeForce Now is, on the surface, very much like the now defunct OnLive. Just like OnLive, it streams content over the internet from remote servers. Most games are priced the same as their PC counterparts on Steam, and for those who want access to a larger library of games to play, there’s also a subscription-based option.

For £7.99 a month, you can stream any game from a library of 50 titles as much as you like. The catalogue is limited, though, and doesn’t include anything particularly new, so it’s clearly a work in progress. Still, with three months subscription thrown in, you won’t have to decide whether it’s worth subscribing for some time to come.

As for 4K video, that’s currently pretty limited, since the only services supporting it are YouTube and Netflix. However, since one of the fringe benefits of all Android TV devices is their ability to double as a Chromecast, you’re not likely to run out of standard HD content to play on it any time soon.

Nvidia Shield TV review: Verdict

As an Android TV device, there isn’t anything better than the Shield TV. While that’s a bit of a backhanded compliment, due to Android TV’s own limitations, Nvidia’s saving grace is its focus on games and 4K.

For the price, you’re getting a rather adept Android games console, a 4K-ready TV streamer and the exciting prospect of on-demand gaming through GeForce Now. It’s also a device loaded with more power than it actually needs, which means it should remain powerful enough to deal with the latest Android titles for some time to come. Furthermore, the added bonus of being able to emulate older consoles so well – and at 1080p resolution – is tempting indeed.

The biggest problem for the Shield TV, however, will be finding an audience. Most avid gamers will already own a console or gaming PC, while those looking specifically for a streaming device will be better off with a Chromecast 2 or an Amazon Fire TV Stick. I seriously doubt there’s enough of a demographic sitting between these two camps for the Shield to be a success.