- I've already had several media players, 1 that was decent and cost 180€, another 65€ that was really crap. - And yet the 180 sometimes also had a problem and that was because there were sometimes serious hiccups with a film/series and the H.265 codec was not yet on it and 4K films could not handle it.
So you will not have this with this Nvidia shield pro, if there is something wrong with a film, then it is the person who uploaded it.
- The only thing I can think of is such a very light stutter, nothing bad, I pause for 20 seconds and then it's all right again, very bizarre but nothing serious, could be a glitch because I NAS drive works in the network, I think with a normal external hard drive you won't come across that, I'll have to test that again. But don't let this stop you from buying this media player, it is just the top especially compared to 100 den others that you can buy at 0-120 euros, they are often not that good and sometimes just rubbish because of too little ram memory, slow processor, etc.
- This Nvidia Shield pro 2019 is the best media player I've had, people post that this is an expensive device but it is 1 of the best, maybe the best there is. - It is also a lot cheaper than paying you for certain things, so 220 euros is really not money from what you can do with it and it will still save you many hundreds if not even thousands of euros annually. :). Always thinking about the long term, look at me, I buy media players for 65 euros and it has been of no use to me, nothing.
- The upscaling also works well, especially with HD movies and the like. It's sharper. That's definitely an extra you have, the other older Nvidia shield players don't have that. It is true, a film that is not good in terms of quality and does not have 720/1080 HD, then that image will not be better, it is especially noticeable with decent HD quality that it is upscaled to 4K and I can tell you say, the quality is really wow.
- The processor is also slightly faster than the previous Shield, I saw on yt that there were sometimes problems with 4K via plex but that would not be the case with this one. Do not forget; the faster the processor is, the better it is to stream to your Nvidia via your smartphone, for example, and I'll tell you wrm; my tv is also with android on, tv is already 4 years old and i clearly notice the difference when i stream something (like yelo or something) to my tv vs shield, via the shield it plays with less hitches and smoother. That's because that processor is a lot faster than that of my TV. Some also claim that the 2017 shield is just as good and fast, but that is not correct, which does not mean that the difference is super big, I think there is about 10% difference in speed but 10% can make a difference in certain things.
- The remote is also very good and fast, apparently 100 times better than with the shield of 2017. So if you want a good remote for your shield, the new remote is fine. There are also 3 settings of how you want to use the remote. In my case, it is also connected to the TV, etc. It takes some getting used to.
- This Nvidia plays all formats for what I have already tested and as well as with 4K films, it has no problems with it at all, how wonderful is that ;).
I prefer to use MKV, but other formats also work flawlessly.
- The google play store is limited, I think if you dig a bit on the net that there are many more possibilities but I haven't got that far yet. But if you want to watch movies without hitches, you can install Kodi, but turn on dutch (subs) in the settings. - I almost always use kodi, of course I have a few backup apps if necessary (because not all apps like kodi play the movies equally well, it takes some searching and testing).
- You can also install vtm go, for example, but many other apps cannot be found via the store, or you search the net for how to do it or you do like me and just use the smartphone to stream everything.
- Don't forget that this shield comes with a Chromecast :).
- Another nice thing is when I connected everything and set it up and so on that I had to do little to nothing to connect my nas system, Nvidia did it almost by itself to find my nas, that was also something like wow, because with my previous media player and my android TV I was allowed to tinker and do myself to find the nas etc ... Another perk.
- Gaming; I can't say anything about that so far, also because I didn't buy it to play, but I do notice that there are x many games to play for free. Whether that gaming works well I don't know, I see on yt that it goes reasonably well but is not perfect.
- This shield pro 2019 also has USB 3.0 ports, which is always a plus, 3.0 is of course faster than 2.0. As with everything, the faster the better.
- There is also an Nvidia shield app for the smartphone and it is really great :).
For example, you can find your remote via your smartphone, it makes a lot of noise so you don't know your remote is somewhere, you can let the remote play a sound via that app, handy :).
- The voice control that works quite well, perfect no, it still doesn't exist, sometimes it's just better to enter it yourself and some apps you have to scroll a little further to find it.
- The Nvidia only has 16GB of storage which is not much, I get to it because I mainly watch movies so I now have at least 10GB left but don't panic, if you want to expand to more, hang an external hard drive on it and it problem is solved immediately.
- There is no HDMI cable in the box, I might have liked it, but hey, I always have a few on reserve and an HDMI cable doesn't cost a lot of money.
Conclusion: This media player is a very small and light device and is the best I have ever owned, it is not the cheapest but it is 1 of the, if not the best media player on the market and after many years you still get updates for it, also not unimportant. Watching movies in 4K, upscaling HD movies/series, all this works really great.
Stay away from those cheap trash and buy this media player.
You will have more fun and less annoyance with it.
I personally also recommend the pro 2019 version because of its 3.0 usb ports (and the good remote) unless you prefer the cheaper one because I thought it works with sd cards but doesn't have a 3.0 usb port, it's a choice you will have to choose decide which of the 2 suits you best.
For the people who have the 2017 shield it is very easy; everything works for you as it should, you have no problems with this or that, that upscaling is not necessary, just buy that new remote. I read from almost all people who have that 2017 shield that the remote is bad, so here's my tip that you can buy that new remote.