In the world of Android TV streaming, there are few competitive set-top boxes available. And by competitive, I mean something that offers more, feels more and is baked in with premium features the standard of what NVIDIA has done with the Shield TV.
The company has a norm of updating its Shield TV line Android boxes after two years, and with the second-gen NVIDIA Shield TV launched in 2017, what else could be the next rollout year if not 2019.
Just in time, NVIDIA has announced the third-gen Shield TV. Two models were announced today, Nvidia Shield TV and Nvidia Shield TV Pro. As far as the price wars go, there is a tiny $50 difference in price between the two.
Well, since NVIDIA does not include version numbers for the shields, this one’s are simply the “2019 Editions.”
From the word go, there are performance improvements, a new remote and new form factor, as well for one variant.
The Pro version sports the same good old classic design of the previous generation Shield TV. The internals is quite different, as you would expect. NVIDIA Shield TV Pro runs on new Nvidia Tegra X1+ SoC aided with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The new processor delivers up to a 25% performance increase over the old chip powering the 2017 Shield TV.
The back of the Shield TV Pro has several ports, including a HDMI 2.0 port, two USB-A 3.0 ports, and a wired Gigabit Ethernet Port.
The standard version of the Shield TV sports a similar chipset too under the hood, with 8GB of internal storage and 2GB of memory. For this model, forget about the USB ports. The Shield TV comes in a smaller form factor, however.
For streaming purposes, both NVIDIA Shield TV and Shield TV Pro features several improvements over the previous generation; AI-powered 4K upscaling, Dolby Vision HDR support, also Dolby Atmos surround sound.
And, of course, the new remote that features voice search, motion-activation, backlit buttons and an IR blaster to control your TV as well as a built-in lost remote locator. Aside from that, there is also dual-band AC Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 5.0 support.
It is also worth mentioning that the new Shield TV Pro does not ship with a game controller, which I know, won’t resonate well especially to owners of the 2017 Pro Edition.
Finally, for the price, NVIDIA Shield standard version will be selling at $149(approx. Ksh 15,000) while the Pro version will set you back by $50 more – $199 (approx. Ksh 20,000).
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