Throw in support for Dolby Vision HDR, Dolby Atmos and DTS-X surround sound, and the Shield TV Pro is a regular AV powerhouse. The chip also handles real-time transcoding, so if you have a NAS drive full of files in different formats, you can stream them without a hitch. It’s getting old these days, yet its Tegra X1+ processor onboard is still comparatively speedy, powering an AI-enhanced 4K upscaling technology that actually works, improving both the clarity of HD pictures and the vibrancy of colours for a 4K screen. Nvidia’s Shield TV has long been considered the king of Android TV boxes, and the Shield TV Pro is the best-ever version. Price when reviewed: £200 | Check price at Amazon Nvidia Shield TV Pro: Best Android TV box, bar none The best Android TV boxes to buy in 2023 1. If you’re happy to tinker, though, you will find some bargains – and fun – to be had If you don’t like getting your hands dirty with sideloaded apps or reconfiguration, we suggest sticking with an Amazon Fire TV or Nvidia Shield TV. However, even on these, you might have problems running Netflix or Amazon Prime without employing esoteric workarounds. Generally speaking, boxes running genuine Google Android TV are easier to use and more reliable.

The latter may or may not have access to the Google Play store and may run preinstalled versions of Kodi and popular video-streaming apps. Only a handful of Android TV boxes actually run what Google calls Android TV – most simply run a version of Android with the manufacturer’s own TV-focused interface. The other thing to watch out for is software. If you’re buying one of the myriad Chinese-made boxes, we would advise looking for one with a quad or eight-core processor, 2GB to 4GB of RAM and 16GB to 32GB or more of storage – often confusingly labelled “ROM”.ĭual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi plus 4K support are also useful extras, but don’t get too excited by claims of 6K or 8K support: until more TVs and streaming services support higher-than-4K resolutions, they’re virtually meaningless and it’s doubtful that the boxes have the horsepower to process all those pixels. READ NEXT: Best TVs What should you look for in an Android TV box?įrankly, it’s a chaotic market, with the specs, features and boxes themselves changing regularly. A good VPN will hide your traffic from your ISP and let you virtually change your location so your Kodi add-ons will work from anywhere. If you’re concerned about your ISP being able to see your Kodi activity, we highly recommend using one of our favourite VPN services when using something like an Amazon Fire TV Stick. However, there are dozens of perfectly legal devices out there and there’s nothing illegal about the Kodi platform itself, provided you don’t use it with piracy-enabling add-ons. In the wilder parts of eBay, you might stumble across devices calling themselves Android TV boxes that claim to come unlocked or preloaded with what would normally be subscription channels or free content. While other streaming players may or may not include voice control, Fire TV has voice control built into every Fire TV model using Alexa, the same personal assistant found in Echo smart speakers.Many Android TV boxes market themselves as Kodi devices on which you can download the Kodi open-source software and gain access to music and audio streaming across an enormous range of services.You certainly have full access to other channels and apps, but Amazon emphasizes its own services, like Prime Video and Prime Music, by default when you look for content. Because Fire TV is an Amazon product, it emphasizes Amazon services.That's in contrast to Chromecast with Google TV, which has access to the entire library of Android apps, including Android's mobile games.

Fire TV is built on the Android OS, but Amazon has modified the software substantially, so it cannot run Android apps.Although, Apple TV is an outlier, with no low-end product to compete with the inexpensive Fire TV Stick Lite.įire TV distinguishes itself from competing products in a few important ways: Most of these devices have a lot of baseline features and capabilities in common, such as access to a vast library of streaming content and a range of products across all price points. The streaming media player field is fairly crowded you can choose among Fire TV, Roku, Chromecast, and Apple TV, and that doesn't include several less popular models.

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