Nvidia Shield Pro V2

If you are reading this you are probably already aware of what the box is and are just looking for pros and cons. It is hard to quantify some aspects easily without getting hung up on specs. Chances are that at the price point this sits at you will also be looking at a version of the beelink gt series. If all you want is a simple android media box then a gt, or even a lower specced device may be enough and you can stop reading this now. Otherwise read on.

The shield (pro, v2, whatever) is expensive and overpowered for a tv box alone, but it does bring video upscaling to the party which none of the competition do. There are reports that some people have issues with the AI upscale causing stutters, I have never seen it happen and its been my go to device for all my media consumption from the day I got it.

Its not my first rodeo with android boxes, and this has been almost unbelievably good at everything I need from it with none of the issues previous android boxes gave me.

On the retro gaming front, There are retro games systems running perfectly on the shield that other android boxes struggle to even run, much less run well, The ppsspp emulator is a big one of those. Ppsspp runs faultlessly on the shield, as do the many other emulators. Those that I can confirm are working flawlessly include atari lynx, vcs/2600, 800, 5200, 7800, ST, sinclair spectrum, nintendo gameboy,gameboy colour, gameboy advance, N64, sega sg1000, master system, megadrive, gamegear, nintendo nes, famicon, snes, nec pc engine, neogeo, magnavox odyssey, Sony psx, playstation portable, Mame 2000,2003, commodore 64, Amiga, Bandai wonderswan and Milton Bradley Vectrex and even some PS2, though the PS2 pushes the limits and is hit and miss, so don't buy this if all you want to do is emulate a ps2. There are numerous others, but those already mentioned are confirmed working and are easily run through Retroarch 64 on the shield. They are obviously not native to the system, so you may need to source BIOS files for some machines emulated and it is worth having a keyboard for some of the computer emulation. Note that BIOS files are copyrighted, as are most of the games these emulators run, apart from the Vectrex which was thrown into the public domain when it reached the end of its shelf life.

When it comes to initial setup, Setting up the shield is a breeze, even easier if you have an android phone as it can grab all the network and app settings from the phone as the shield is an android unit itself. Storage on the shield isnt great, being only 16gb, But you do have 2 usb expansion ports. Add an external drive or a usb stick for more storage if needed (no micro sd card facility on the V2 shield unfortunately). External storage can be just plug in and remove for transfer to a pc etc, or you can let the shield format it as ‘internal’ memory. If you take that internal memory option you need to think of it as being fixed to the shield and not removable as setting it to internal storage will remove the option to store files on the usb for transfer to pc as the computer won’t recognise the file structure, so choose wisely.

A word of warning on using USB thumb drives on the shield. If plugged directly into the shield they run hot, Very hot. Even with the shield in standby any usb thumb drive left in the shield was getting uncomfortably hot. After trying 2 brand new (different but well known brand) new usb thumb drives and finding how hot they both got, I did some research and found the only way to prevent the heat issue was to use a USB hub. Having added a hub, drives both perform normally when connected to the hub and at most get warm during actual use like any other thumb drive when accessing a lot of data. There are plenty of people out there that have had thumb drives fail after relatively short periods (months not years) when plugged straight into the shield and left in place, so adding a cheap hub between the drive and shield will save you suffering the same fate. If I hadn’t been removing the USB to add stuff to it from the pc I would never have noticed the problem and am convinced the excessive heat would have drastically reduced the life of my thumb drive. Neither the hub nor either drive have shown any heat issues since the hub was added.

In terms of media, the shield will easily run a plex setup if that’s your thing. It can also play movies stored on the usb drive or from internal memory. Kodi? No problem, and All the usual apps like netflix, Prime, Youtube etc, along with access to the google store for more. Vpn software runs fine and generally the shield is faultless, Except if you are in the UK and want channel 4 catchup. There is no official app for it on the shield platform, though there is at least one alternative that be sideloaded to bring c4, c5 and more back into play on the shield but that’s something you need to look for yourself and needs to be installed from a 3rd party source. Similarly there is at least one app to avoid youtubes ridiculous amount of ads these days, but again you won't find it on the play store so it is another app you would need to sideload if that was something you wanted.

Control of the box has numerous options beyond the supplied remote including bluetooth (or wired USB) games controllers, keyboards etc, but also an android phone app for controlling the shield. If you install the shield app on your phone you can not only control the shield from your phone itself, but can even find your remote if its gone awol down the back of a cushion as you can use the phone to tell the remote to sound a noise for thirty seconds at a time.

As to the remote, it is an odd toblerone shape that lights up when you pick it up, it’s a weird feel at first with an equally odd button layout, but you get used to it fairly quickly. It has a dedicated netflix button, but if you dont have netflix there is a piece of software called button mapper that lets you completely disable it, or change its use to a short press, double press and long press so you can launch any one of 3 apps from that one button when needed. I accidentally press that button a lot when trying to turn down the volume, so consider button mapper if you don’t want to keep launching netflix by accident.

The shield pro V2 came out in 2019 and hasn’t had an upgraded hardware revision since, which unbelievably is still a good thing as any new version would likely be running the latest firmware. When set up, I would highly suggest disabling auto firmware updates. Chances are it will download an update as soon as it sees your network, If it does you will get an ‘install fw update’ message on the home screen. Personally, I would ignore that update if I were you, and be aware that the update prompt can be switched off in the settings to never show up again if you want to avoid any accidental update later. The reason for not updating and crippling updates? Simply put? it’s Google. The latest firmware has google ads baked in. I dont want ads for disney etc on my box, I dont want any ads at all in fact, especially when this is a premium box so to my mind should have no forced ads as it was first released without such intrusions. But nvidia succumbed to corporate greed in tying their latest updates into this google BS and should hang their heads in shame for foisting it upon users in their latest updates. Stay on the firmware it came with and avoid the ads. If the thought of ads doesn't bother you then update away, I have found only one potential downside to not updating, and that is casting from your phone to the shield as the chromecast on the phone doesn’t trust the shields outdated profile. But considering the shield can do all the heavy lifting itself? Then casting from a phone seems superfluous.

For a games controller I use an 8bitdo pro controller,, and like everything else it has been faultless on the shield.

So to sum up, the ONLY operating negatives in the real world with the box are, no official channel4/5, the chromecast issue on older firmware, and having to avoid the latest firmware update to avoid google ads. It’s worth noting that updating to the latest firmware also causes some emulators to fail as well, so if gaming is a thing to you, then again, avoid the updates.

There is one thing I really don’t like though, the power adapter is proprietary. It looks like a USB C connector but it isn’t. Don’t go ruining the port and potentially the shield by forcing a USB C connector in the power socket. If you are 50/50 on buying it, don’t give it another thought and buy it, this box is awesome and worth every penny it cost. Yes, it could be cheaper, but if you want a seriously good android media device, this is it.

Despite being based on 4 year old architecture with the Tegra chip at its heart, and only 16GB of storage in the main unit, this is still a great device. A definite Jack of all trades and surprisingly, a master of a lot of them.