I bought an Nvidia Shield recently, thinking it would be a great all in one media player and gaming system for my son. It isn't.
Just in case anyone else is considering one here, I wanted to share because there are a bunch of unjustified positive video reviews on Youtube.
After owning it for one day, my unit developed an error that prevents it playing any media. Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube etc, nothing plays. Just that irritating "oops try later BS". Not a great start for a media player.... I checked for solutions online and found hundreds of posts with others trying to solve the same issue but no actual fix.
How much time do you want to spend doing factory resets, updating and winding back apps, switching out cables, turning it on and off etc? I lack the patience. Nvidia support is somewhere between terrible and clueless, as usual.
As a gaming system, I am also giving it a thumbs down. It is technically capable of running a bunch of emulators well which would have been great for the price but.... The hardware and software are too limited.
There is just two USB ports and one of those will likely be taken up with external storage. Moving files around and putting roms in the right folder etc is a nightmare. You need a second device like a PC to do it in any way that makes sense.... Which makes the Shield device pointless. A pc would make a better media player / gaming device on it's own.
I don't think Nvidia made a mistake by making it Android based. Their mistake was trying to put their own front end on top. They clearly lack the necessary skills, expertise and support infrastructure to pull it off.
Mine is going back for a refund. I now think of the Shield like the holocaust - never again!