Nvidia Shield not available for sale - alternatives?

[Mister Steve 31]

The Nvidia Shield 2019 pro is out of stock everywhere and Nvidia announced a price increase to $300 if or when it becomes available again. Bad news either way.

What is an alternative device that runs Android TV, interfaces via HDMI, and supports side-loading and OS customizations like the Shield? It does not need to be as "beefy" as a Shield. 

Thanks

[marriedman 114]

Good lord... $300 bucks for 8 year old hardware? That's insane. At that price I would just get a NUC.

[ebr 16882]

53 minutes ago, marriedman said:

At that price I would just get a NUC

Not the same experience at all...

There are a number of other Android boxes these days that should come close to the Shield.  You might want to check out the Hardware forum.

[yocker 2008]

4 hours ago, marriedman said:

Good lord... $300 bucks for 8 year old hardware? That's insane. At that price I would just get a NUC.

The Shield can still not be beat. The age doesn't matter as it powerful enough to view movies without problems.
If you want to game on it then yeah.. That will be a problem.

[justinrh 292]

Zidoo is supposed to be grandiose. 

[marriedman 114]

6 hours ago, yocker said:

The Shield can still not be beat. The age doesn't matter as it powerful enough to view movies without problems.

Guess I am just the odd man out, I gave mine away to my neice because I just wasn't impressed with it.

[Mister Steve 31]

Does anyone have a suggestion on a device that

• runs Android TV
• interfaces via HDMI
• Supports side-loading and custom launchers. Aside from Emby I use SmartTube Next and a few other utils
• Costs less than $200

It does not need to be as "beefy" as a Shield. This device will drive a kitchen area TV.

[yocker 2008]

6 hours ago, marriedman said:

Guess I am just the odd man out, I gave mine away to my neice because I just wasn't impressed with it.

Passthrough of lossless formats and 7.1 is hard to find in streaming boxes.

[marriedman 114]

That's why I recommended the NUC. My NUC13 could do it. That and a 10 foot UI was pretty awesome. Before the RAM crisis you could get one for a song too.

[yocker 2008]

1 hour ago, marriedman said:

That's why I recommended the NUC. My NUC13 could do it. That and a 10 foot UI was pretty awesome. Before the RAM crisis you could get one for a song too.

I don't disagree with you but from my experience Dolby Vision is a pain to get working on PCs (specially if using Windows).
The Shield for me is just a much simpler product that does and have all i need.

For my bedroom TV i just use a cheap raspberry pi i got thrown my way.

[ebr 16882]

12 hours ago, Mister Steve said:

It does not need to be as "beefy" as a Shield. This device will drive a kitchen area TV

In that case, you could just get a Google Streamer.

[Mister Steve 31]

12 minutes ago, yocker said:

For my bedroom TV i just use a cheap raspberry pi i got thrown my way.

Hey yocker, I can deal with a Raspberry pi. What os, software, and remote control are you using? 

[Mister Steve 31]

11 minutes ago, ebr said:

In that case, you could just get a Google Streamer.

Thanks, I'll look into it. I thought Google was locking down all of their devices to disallow side loads though. 

[yocker 2008]

12 minutes ago, Mister Steve said:

Hey yocker, I can deal with a Raspberry pi. What os, software, and remote control are you using? 

LibreELEC from the Raspberry PI installer.
The Pi i use is a small RaspBerry Pi 3, it's fine for the old 1080p TV in my bedroom. I havn't tested it with anything 4K so i can't comment on it being good enough for that.

Edit: Also note that i don't think Dolby Vision is possible on the Raspberry Pi in case that's important to you.

Edited 50 minutes ago by yocker