Nvidia may have released a new Shield TV device at CES earlier this month, but not many were wowed. The updates compared to the original Shield TV were mostly cosmetic or software based – the hardware remained the same. That’s right, you had the same Tegra X1 processor and 3GB RAM hardware which is found in the first Shield TV box released in 2015.
However, due to the software changes, the new Shield TV is “three times” more powerful, according to Nvidia. Now, that may seem like quite the incentive to chuck your old Shield TV in the bin and purchase the newer version, but thanks to Nvidia, you won’t have to. The company is bringing many of the new Shield’s features to the 2015 model next week.
Existing Shield TV owners will get to see their slightly outdated model upgrade from Android Marshmallow to Android Nougat. Furthermore, you get a few more apps, the most noteworthy of which is Amazon Video. Amazon is very picky about which Android TV devices can get to stream its 4K services, but now it looks like Nvidia’s old Shield TV device can join that select group. Other new apps include Twitter, Comedy Central and Vimeo.
Don’t worry, even your gaming experience has been given an update. There’s a new NVIDIA Games app, which replaces the old SHIELD hub portal. In the new app, you’ll find access to GeForce Now titles, which can be streamed with the performance of a GTX 1080 graphics card, and your local ‘GameStream’ library with 4K and newly added HDR support. It’s an upgrade from the already powerful GTX 1070s that were used on the server end.
Android Nougat also brings other quality of life features, such as picture-in-picture support, the ability to Play/Pause on the Shield remote by double-tapping the volume slider and double tapping the home button to view recent apps.
