30 bux for the new remote, that isn’t as bad as I was expecting ($50+), good new for existing owners who hate the old remote.
I use my AVR receiver remote for my shield, so I tend to forget about its annoying design.
Both SKUs get the new Shield remote, which has motion-activated backlit buttons, a mic for talking to the Google Assistant, Bluetooth connectivity for talking to the Shield, and an IR blaster for TV control. There’s a built-in lost-remote finder, and the device is powered by two AAA batteries. The new remote is sold separately for $29.99 for any older Shield owners who just want to upgrade their remote.
Yeah it’s good news about the remote price. Over here in the UK they charge stupid prices for a replacement remote for the previous version.
£50 is a bargain. Mostly they charge around £70.
I actually read the Ars Techica thing earlier. In the comments on the article someone suggests that according to The Verge, the hamburger button is the one that can be mapped.
Boom!
With Plex mapped to the Hamburger (settings) button and the Shield powered off and TV and AV receiver on a different source, one press of the Hamurger button kicks in CEC with Plex on the Shield loaded within two seconds. Color me impressed.
Same thing with everything powered off from the get go.
Despite what I was told yesterday I’m not getting DV with my existing dual-layer DV files but meh! It was Dolby Vision’s subtitle appearance that I mostly preferred about DV anyway, so no deal breaker and I still have Plex on my LG if I really feel the need for DV.
Back to the remote and its unusual triangular shape. After just a few minutes it just felt natural in the hand. The button layout seems a little strange at first but nothing that familiarity will not fix.
Now the bad…the ongoing issue with losing HDMI connection seems to still be there. At least when it happens now it corrects itself and I no longer have to start powering off devices to recover.
A little gripe but having the settings button as the programmable one isn’t optimal. Hopefully one day we get the option to re-assign the Netflix button (for those who don’t use Netflix.) or indeed any other button.
Generally though other than it’s best in class audio capabilities I have always found the Shield to be no more than average. Not limited to but especially with SD content. That’s now all changed.
Whether any of you current Shield users upgrade or not do, yourself a favour. When the remote goes on sale as a stand alone purchase…just do it. It’s night and day compared to it’s abysmal predecessor.
I assume you’ve tried the AI Upscaling then? How do you like it? And more importantly, does it switch off when playing native 4K content? It would drive me nuts to have that image processing on an already 4K source.
Well with 1080p I can’t definitely put it down to the AI upscaling, but my picture gripes compared to the ATV are gone. Also yes it comes up as not required on my 4K HDR remuxes.
@TeknoJunky
Am I right in thinking that after putting the Shield to sleep it used to take you back to the Shields home page when you wake it up? I’m sure mine did.
However that seems to no longer be the case. If you power off your devices after watching something in Plex the Shield resumes in Plex next time you start it up with the power button.
I don’t really do much outside of Plex on the Shield so it looks like that customisable hamburger button can be retained for settings (or other.) Things just keep getting better.
It has the microphone in it for search by speech and it has a programmable IR emitter for directly changing the volume on your TV. The buttons get back-lit as soon as you pick it up. And you can trigger an annoying beep emanating from the remote itself, in case you forgot into which upholstery gap of the sofa you’ve let it drop. So that justifies it a bit.
But yeah, it still has its flaws.
If you want to operate it blindly, you have now 5 potential ways to hold it wrong, instead of 3. (due to its triangular shape and the symmetry of it)
The button also aren’t protruding enough from the surface, so I always have to rub it twice or so, to make sure I am actually on a button with my finger.
I was simply comparing it to the garbage nVidia offered on earlier models (for which they wanted far more than $30.)
Personally, thanks to the backlighting, I sold my harmony touch. I also sold my original Shield.
I actually made a profit switching to the Shield Pro.
I still like the USB rechargeable headphone remote.
This ended up being a slight spec bump and software bump, didn’t it?
The new Tegra (which new Switch’s also got) isn’t so much faster that the 4K AI and Dolby stuff couldn’t end up on the Shield 2017 eventually.
Respect to Nvidia for supporting the hardware so long. Now if only Android TV would get a bit more love…
I didn’t see it mentioned here, but apparently the “tube” can only run 32-bit apps. Short of some emulators there aren’t a lot of 64-bit only apps, but it’s still something to consider when you’re making a purchase.
