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Huge "dumb tv" proponent here I've had an nvidia shield for years and it checks all the boxes for me. It runs android and from what I know, it's one of the mo
by gpspake 6y ago
Huge "dumb tv" proponent here
I've had an nvidia shield for years and it checks all the boxes for me. It runs android and from what I know, it's one of the most well supported android devices period in terms of consistent updates.
Here's why I love it:
- I have access to the play store for apps, not some proprietary tv manufacturer subset of poorly developed apps. That means I can install the retroarch/plex/etc android apps directly from play.
- It has built in google assistant which I use every day to play music and yt videos (as well as controlling other stuff in my all-google house.
- Thanks to CEC, if I say "hey google play [artist] videos on shield" it will turn on the shield, which will turn on my TV, which will turn on my stereo. I never have to touch buttons if I want to listen to music.
- Because it's android TV, I can clear my homescreen of everything but the app launchers I use - no ads, no suggestions, no junk apps.
- It has a really cool feature that lets you stream 4k from a PC with an nvidia card. I added the rdp exe as a "game" that I can stream so I stream my office desktop to my living room tv to browse reddit and check emails and stuff. (This is probably one of the most incomparable features)
- It has 2 usb ports. I use one for retroarch roms and the other one for a logitech wireless kb with a touch pad (which is great for when I'm streaming my desktop but also when I need to enter a password or something.
- you can pair any controller with it but I've used the nvidia controller that came with it to play a bunch of n64 and snes games all the way through on retro arch.
My TV is stupid and I like it that way. As far as I'm concerned, the shield is my TV's os
- reedjosh 6y ago> - I have access to the play store for apps, not some proprietary tv manufacturer subset of poorly developed apps. That means I can install the retroarch/plex/etc android apps directly from play. > - It has built in google assistant which I use every day to play music and yt videos (as well as controlling other stuff in my all-google house. You're not getting it. The whole point is to avoid constant tracking. If you have Google services, you're being tracked.
- iFreilicht 6y agoThe point is to get to choose the experience you want, and if you want the simplicity of having an Android box connected to your dumb Tv, that’s a-ok. If you want to go kore custom and just have a raspi with plex on it, that’s great, too. The problem with smart TVs is that they force tracking and ads upon you, with little to no options of opting out.
- jannes 6y agoThe problem with Google is that they force tracking and ads upon you, with little to no options of opting out. You don’t know what background processes are running on an Nvidia Shield, do you?
- iFreilicht 6y agoI do, I’m just saying not everybody cares. And one may care even less when there’s no ads to be seen.