[ixnu]

The Shield Android TV has just had a price reduction to 179. After trying Chromeboxes, Chromecasts, and vanilla PC's, it's the closest to streaming nirvana - when it works.

The Shield TV runs Kodi as well as any PC. Nvidia's gaming ecosystem runs very well either from the cloud gaming grid or local PC. They deserve credit for taking the platform well beyond what Google could do with it.

However, my worry is that Google will abandon the Android TV OS in favor of Chromecasters and sticks and leave Nvidia to pick up where the Nexus Player has failed. The Android TV OS interface is simple enough, but there are glaring issues that continue to frustrate. Simple things like customizing the launcher are impossible. Also, there are persistent bugs at the OS level like a flakey ethernet driver and unreliable voice commands.