The NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Review: A Premium 4K Set Top Box
by Ganesh T S on May 28, 2015 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Media Streamer
- Home Theater
- TV
- 4K
- Shield
- NVIDIA
Power Consumption and Thermal Performance
In order to see what the power and thermal characteristics of the SHIELD Android TV are like, the device was tested in two scenarions:
- 1080p60 HDMI output to Pioneer VSX-32, connected to a Sony KDL46EX720 46" 1080p TV. Connected to a wired network, with a Samsung T1 SSD hanging off the USB 3.0 port
- 4Kp60 HDMI output to a Samsung HU6950 40" 4K TV. Connected to a wireless network, with a Samsung T1 SSD hanging off the USB 3.0 port.
The table below summarizes the important power consumption numbers.
| NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Power Consumption | |
| Activity | Avg. Power (W) |
| Idle (Scenario 1) | 3.6 W |
| 1080p Netflix Streaming (Scenario 1) | 4.6 W |
| 1080p YouTube Streaming (Scenario 1) | 4.7 W |
| Kodi Playback (Hardware Accelerated 1080p60 H.264) (Scenario 1) | 6.5 W |
| Kodi Playback (Software Decoding 1080i60 VC-1) (Scenario 1) | 10.4 W |
| Idle (Scenario 2) | 4.2 W |
| 4K HEVC Playback (Scenario 2) | 9.1 W |
| 4K Netflix Streaming (Scenario 2) | 10.3 W |
| Gaming (Scenario 2) | 19.4 W |
Since the gaming scenarios stressed the at-wall power consumption heavily, we decided to run the GFXBench battery life test which puts the T-Rex benchmark in an infinite loop. After 2 hours, we took a thermal image of the unit (oriented vertically with the SHIELD stand).
The thermal solution is excellent, and the frame rates were consistent across all the benchmark runs. Thanks to the low-power SoC, the chassis temperature was just 34 C (ambient at 23 C). The fan noise was audible only when we kept our ears against the vents in the back panel.
Moving on to the business end of the review, we split up the positives and negatives into two sections - one for Android TV itself, and the other for the SHIELD.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
167 Comments
View All Comments
ganeshts - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
From NV: "we do not have an empty HDD bay in the 16GB sku. Users will not be able to add their own HDD into the 16GB sku."ZOONAMI - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
Wow thank you for prompt reply!Cami Hongell - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
Tellybean is the first video call service on Android TV and the SHIELD is the first device that works with a regular Logitech camera. Try it out and please let us know what you think. http://eepurl.com/blSzU9vdek - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
How does the performance compare to the XB1 and PS4? Those would seem to be the two immediate competitors for this device. It seems like Anandtech has grown too focused on comparing everything to Tablets/phones...kron123456789 - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
"How does the performance compare to the XB1 and PS4?" — It doesn't. This is just hardware:Sheild Android TV — 256 CUDA cores(at ~1GHz), 16ROPs, 16TMUs, 3GB of RAM with 25.6GB/sec bandwidth
Xbox One — 768 GCN cores(at 853MHz), 16ROPs, 48TMUs, 8GB of RAM with 68.2GB/sec bandwidth
PS4 — 1152 GCN cores(at 800MHz), 32ROPs, 72TMUs, 8GB of RAM with 176GB/sec bandwidth
ppi - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
Given that basically all TVs now are "smart", what are real advantages of device such as this one over a Smart TV? I am talking video and content playback, of course.While I do not own 4K TV, my 1080p Samsung has no trouble playing HD YouTube and variety of formats from USB disk.
jt122333221 - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
More content should be available on Android TV, and it's more likely to be updated than your TVs. Also, there are a lot of people who don't have a Smart TV and who would prefer NOT using their TV's smart features (I despise mine, the interface is horrible, apps are abysmal; only reason I have it is because it came with the TV I wanted).Yojimbo - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
I have a Samsung smart tv and it's slow, slow, slow.jeffkibuule - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
When's the last time your TV got a meaningful software update?TheJian - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
You did see the gaming benchmarks right? If that wasn't a major point for the user, not sure why you would pay for this here other than playing all kinds of formats from your USB drives (flash etc), across the network (smart tv's usually not good at that either). Not to mention Grid gaming, which eliminates much of the need for a high end PC and constantly buying $60 games (be it console or PC).You have to be looking at this for more than just vids I think. IE you can do anything android devices can do. Meaning play their games, browse the web etc. I can sit on the couch and browse with a keyboard and mouse with this and a big screen (saving me a fat foot after 8hrs at work and some home time also on top). Too bad anandtech didn't bother to use it like this and comment.
I think SMART tv's are actually pretty stupid. They basically can stream some crap from netflix, youtube, amazon etc and not much more. Now if your tv has roku built-in or something, ok maybe sort of smarter but even that lacks major formats (really just has far more channels than smart tv's). My roku 2/3's are useless for USB sticks on about 80% of my content. I end up sticking it in the bluray player instead as most of the time it either can't play the audio or can't play the video.
If all you're after is movies and some streaming, I'd probably rather have a bluray player for $79-$99 that plays almost all formats from USB and streams fine, not to mention playing all disc formats (LG, BP350 $79 or something). Or even just a roku2 (new model with faster chip or roku 3 if using headphones in remote is needed) if just after streaming stuff but again, from usb sucks here, so I'm just talking web streaming vids.