Surprisingly, the NVIDIA SHIELD TV was announced way back in 2019, it’s now five years old going on six, and it’s still the king in terms of Android TV streaming devices. But can the newcomer from Google dethrone the King? Back in August, Google announced the new Google TV Streamer, which was a pretty bland name, but it does make sense, particularly with the killing of Chromecast.
Google says that it has fixed a lot of the issues that plagued the Chromecast with Google TV (released in 2020), including adding more storage. But is that enough to beat out the NVIDIA SHIELD TV, which costs twice as much? We put them head to head.
The Specs
Inside the Google TV Streamer is the MediaTek MT8696, though Google won’t list that on the specs page. It is also paired with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Google includes a USB-C port for power, a HDMI 2.1 port for connecting to your TV and an Ethernet port for faster internet speeds. On the smart home front, it also has support for Matter and Thread Border Router. Finally, it can stream at up to 4K HDR resolution at 60fps, and it also supports Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG for HDR formats, with Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby Atmos for audio formats.
When it comes to the NVIDIA SHIELD TV, it is still using the Tegra X1+ processor with a 256-core NVIDIA GPU. It also is paired with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. However, the “Pro” model does have 3GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. It also includes an HDMI 2.0b port, a micro SD card slot for expanding storage, Ethernet, and a power adapter. It can stream up to 4K HDR and has 4K upscaling available. With support for Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10. On the audio front, there is Dolby Audio, Dolby Atmos, DTS-X surround sound, and support for high-resolution audio. When the NVIDIA SHIELD TV first came out, things like Matter and Thread Border Router weren’t really a thing, so that’s not included here.
The Hardware
While Google is looking to make their streamer stylish, so that it will be displayed in your home instead of hidden behind the TV, the NVIDIA SHIELD TV looks more like a tiny gaming console (or like a tube if you didn’t get the “Pro” model). Functionality, both work as expected. Though, the Google TV Streamer does look much nicer on a TV console, and can blend in quite easily.
Where the NVIDIA SHIELD TV excels here is with two USB-A ports, in addition to its HDMI, and Ethernet ports. This is useful if you plan to plug something in like a controller for playing games. Since the SHIELD TV does support NVIDIA’s GEFORCE NOW.
Both remotes are minimal
The remotes that are included with both the NVIDIA SHIELD TV and Google TV Streamer are pretty minimal. You have the usual buttons including home, volume control, power, and the D-Pad. While the NVIDIA SHIELD TV does include a dedicated button for Netflix, the Google TV Streamer does the same, and also includes one for YouTube. As well as a star button that can be mapped to any app you’d wish to use.
But most importantly, both remotes do have access for the “Find My Remote” feature. Since remotes do get lost quite a bit, using this feature to have a sound go off to try and find the remote is definitely very useful, and hopefully every streaming device will have this in the future.
The Software
Despite both streamers running on Google’s platform, there are some big changes between the two. For one, Google TV Streamer runs on the newer Google TV platform, which debuted in 2020 with the Chromecast with Google TV. Yeah, I know, it’s confusing. Meanwhile, the NVIDIA SHIELD TV still uses Android TV.
On the surface, both Android TV and Google TV are very similar, with the biggest difference being the recommendations on Google TV for additional content to watch. Though there are some additional changes that have started to roll out more recently, like the new Home Panel, which will show Nest Doorbell notifications and allow you to control your smart lights from the TV directly. Of course, you can do this on Android TV via the Google Assistant too.
Another thing to consider here is gaming. The NVIDIA SHIELD TV does support NVIDIA GEFORCE NOW, the company’s cloud gaming service, which is incredibly popular and is constantly adding more games. Being able to have such a small gaming console in your living room is really nice, though the one downside is the on-board storage with the SHIELD TV. Since they got rid of the 500GB model with the second-generation release in 2019.
What it really comes down to is longevity. The NVIDIA SHIELD TV is already nearly six years old, since it was announced in January 2019. And while NVIDIA Has done a really good job at keeping it updated, at some point updates will stop coming. And it’s likely to be well ahead of when the Google TV Streamer stops getting updated. Not to mention the more RAM and storage on Google TV Streamer will go a long way.
Which Streamer should you buy?
If I were to buy a streaming device today, it were down to the Google TV Streamer and the NVIDIA SHIELD TV, I’d go with the former. The Google TV Streamer has a newer processor (though it’s not that new), it also has double the RAM and double the storage. With streaming apps getting more demanding and larger, these are both things that really need to be taken into account.
Another thing to consider is the price. The Google TV Streamer is $99, while the NVIDIA SHIELD TV is $149 and $179 for the Pro model with the extra RAM and storage. That puts it in the Apple TV 4K price range for not a whole lot of storage—just 8GB.
The easiest way to make your decision is to ask yourself what you are going to do with it. If you’re just streaming content, then the Google TV Streamer is a good option. But if you want to have a Plex Server and play some games on GEFORCE NOW, then the NVIDIA SHIELD TV is the better option.
