THE NEW NVIDIA SHIELD (TV) HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED!

Starting from January 15th the brand-new NVIDIA Shield will start shipping! It has been announced today by the NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at CES 2017, who also revealed the new name: from NVIDIA Shield TV now it will be called just NVIDIA Shield. Quite honestly, that was the name that everyone called it already to be fair. The new Shield aesthetically seems to be exactly the same but smaller, way smaller! Also the main specs do not seem to differ that much. It seems that will come with the same Tegra X1 processor and the GPU will always be a 256-core but it is unclear whether it would be the Maxwell GPU as before. 3 Gb of RAM, Dual Band AC WiFi and included gamepad (new design, see below) & remote control with microphone for voice control and audio output that if sold separately (like now for the NVIDIA Shield TV) costs $59. The new NVIDIA Shield will be powered by Android N Nougat!

The base model just as now will be a 16GB version and in the following days a 500GB version will be also available (like the PRO right now). It is available for preorder now for $199.99 on Amazon and it’s expected to ship to customers on the 15th of January.

Nvidia claims that the new Shield has three times the performance of any other streaming box on the market. It runs Android TV OS and has access to 4K content from Netflix, Google Play Movies, Vudu and now has also added Amazon Video in 4K HDR, a first for an Android TV device outside the Amazon Ecosystem.

In addition the Shield “2” will have support for Google’s Assistant for voice control, including hands-free commands, like Google’s Home Speaker and Pixel Smartphone. A new device, a peripheral microphone called Nvidia Spot is being sold separately and can be placed anywhere in the home to receive voice commands! Will function similarly to Amazon’s Echo, though it doesn’t work fully standalone and requires the main NVIDIA Shield in order to function. The new Shield will support integration with the SmartThings smart home hub, which allows for control of many different smart home appliances.

According to The Verge, existing NVIDIA Shield TV devices will get the new one’s features through a software update delivered sometime in January. From all above, the new Shield seems to be still the king of Android TV but not the game-changer we were expecting as the previous model did when introduced into the Android TV world. I for sure, am impatient to test it out and will post further information on my first hands on!