22 5 - 18 February 2020
M
edia streamers come
in a variety of shapes
and sizes, but none
are as formidable as the
chunky new Nvidia Shield TV
Pro. Nvidia’s updated
Android TV box is a monster
of a 4K media hub, with
beefier internal components
than previous models and
added support for Dolby
Vision. But with so many
cheap and capable streamers
out there, is the Nvidia Shield
TV Pro worth paying for?Hardware
According to Nvidia, the Pro’s
performance is “up to 25%”
faster than any previous
Shield TV device, thanks to an
updated Nvidia Tegra X1+
processor and 3GB of
memory. However, it only has
16GB of onboard storage,
which is quite a drop from the
500GB available in the last
version. Meanwhile, on the
rear edge, there are two USB
3 ports, an HDMI 2 output and
a Gigabit Ethernet jack.
As well as being a powerful
media streamer, with 4K
HDR10 and Dolby Vision
support, the Shield TV Pro
doubles as a Plex Media
Server, so you can organise
and access your personal
media library and stream
wherever you go. It’s also a
formidable gaming hub that
can stream Triple-A games
titles and run practically any
retro emulator going.Nvidia
Shield TV Pro
At a whopping £200,
however, it’s undeniably
pricey. If that’s beyond your
budget, there’s a cheaper
Shield TV, also with an all-new
design, for a more reasonable
£150, but it only has 2GB ofToblerone. We don’t much
care for it, though, because it
doesn’t feel particularly
secure in the hand and it rolls
off surfaces too easily. Beyond
the usual controls, the remote
has a dedicated Netflix key
and a voice-search button
that activates the Google
Assistant-aided microphone.
Pressing any button ignites
a subtle white backlight that
illuminates all the buttons –
except, annoyingly, the
navigation wheel – then fades
after a moment or two. There’s
an app you can use from your
phone instead, but it’s not as
refined as Roku’s remote app.Setup and channels
Initial setup is made simple by
a phone app that guides you
through the process. However,
our installation stalled to
download an update that took
10 minutes, which was
unnecessarily frustrating.
Once installed, the home
screen is split neatly into tabs
(or ‘channels’) for Netflix,
YouTube, Nvidia Games and
plenty more besides. It’s very
easy to add and remove
channels on the home screen,
and to customise their order.
There’s a wealth of
content to explore. You
can access most of the
popular streaming services,
including Netflix, Amazon
Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, ITV
Hub, Google Play Movies & TV,
YouTube and more. Now TV isIs this the most powerful media streamer you can buy?
memory, 8GB of internal
storage (though you can
expand this with microSD)
and fewer ports.
Both the standard and Pro
boxes come with a redesigned
remote control shaped like aProduct Test
We test and compare the latest products
This unit lets you stream 4K HDR
content, manage your personal media library
and play games in a multitude of ways