The Chromecast made a great leap in quality last year 2020 when the Chromecast with Google TV. Your big bet against Chromecast Ultra is and remains your operating system. The Chromecast now no longer depends exclusively of a smartphone to make our television at home smart. We now have native apps, access to the Google Play Store and we can also play video games, whether they are Android or via streaming. Now that the Chromecast plays in another league, it's time to compare it with other similar products. What differences does it have with respect to the Nvidia Shield TV? Well, we are going to see it carefully in this post.
Chromecast with Google TV vs. Nvidia ShieldTV
Both the Chromecast and the latest version of the Shield TV were released in 2020. the bet of Nvidia has always been seen as a device superior to chromecast, and it is an objective fact, since it is more powerful and has a greater number of functionalities. The Chromecast, on the other hand, is a simpler product that is more affordable and easy to recommend. However, now that a few months have passed since the launch of these two streaming devices, Nvidia is gradually lowering the price of the Shield, which makes its purchase much more attractive compared to the Chromecast.
Designer
Starting with the visual section, Google's Chromecast has a fairly continuist, very similar to the Ultra. It is sold in pepper salad (white, light blue and coral) and as a novelty, it includes a small remote control.
On the other hand, the Shield TV is shaped like a tube. Receives power from one end of the cylinder and we will connect it to the TV at the other end using an HDMI cable. Nvidia's device controller is also somewhat peculiar, as it is shaped like a triangular prism with rounded corners. In this aspect, Google's solution will probably be more for your eyes, although everything it will depend on your tastes.
Power
Inside the small cylinder of the Nvidia device is a processor Tegra X1 +, that is, an evolution of the Nintendo Switch SoC. It is a quad-core and has 3 GB of RAM. Thanks to this silicon, the Shield TV develops its best feature, which is the intelligent upscaling to 4K. Using artificial intelligence, the processor is capable of generating pixels in real time to convert content that is not natively in 4K to XNUMXK. And although it may seem like a lie, it works really well.
The Chromecast on the other hand is not such a powerful device. Your processor is a Amlogic S905X3 quad core and 2 GB of RAM. Its great asset is not its computing power, but its artificial intelligence prepared to recommend content and its new interface. And his Stadia compatibilitySure, but we'll talk about that a bit later.
Operating System
Nvidia Shield TV uses Android TV, while the Chromecast runs Google TV. Both products are under the umbrella of Google, and today you will practically only see interface level differences. Google TV is really a personalization, a kind of skin from Android TV.
In this regard, the two products can run android apps and use all kinds of Google services as your voice assistant. But this is where the Chromecast stands out from the Shield, and that is that Google TV offers us a system machine-learning able to recommend content according to our tastes. Still, many Android TV products are making the transition to Google TV, so it wouldn't be surprising if, at some point, Nvidia decided to update the Shield TV and ended up running Google TV.
Connectivity
The Shield TV wins the connectivity battle by a landslide. Let's remember that these two products are capable of playing 4K content from a Wi-FI network. In other words, if your connectivity is bad, you will not be able to make the most of the device.
Unless you do it by cable, of course. In both products you will be able to connect a Ethernet cable, but here there is a clear difference. In the Shield TV you will simply have to connect the cable to its RJ-45 port compatible with Gigabit Ethernet and ready. And on the Chromecast? You will have to use a dongle and the speed will be limited to 10 / 100 Mbps. The good thing about the adapter is that you can use it PoE (that is, you can feed it with the ethernet cable itself if your router or Switch supports this standard).
El Shield It also has a slot to insert our microSD, allowing to expand the storage of this TV-box, something that in the chromecast we can only do with a hub USB.
Another point where the Shield TV wins again is in the section of the Bluetooth, since it supports the version 5.0 and LE, while the Chromecast only allows us to use this technology to connect the remote control.
Regarding voice assistants, both support Google Assistant, but the Shield TV is supported also with Alexa.
And in the Gaming field?
Chromecast and Shield TV are also two devices designed to access the services of streaming videogames from Google and Nvidia, and at this point, both teams have very clear strengths and weaknesses.
To use the service GeForce Now on your Nvidia Shield TV, you will have to necessarily purchase the Nvidia remote, called Nvidia Shield TV Controller. The Chromecast wins this battle, since to access Stadia you can use both the official Google Stadia controller and any compatible controller that we have at home (PS4, PS5, Xbox…).
However, today, Stadia is much less attractive than GeForce Now. The catalog of Google's cloud gaming service is much smaller than in the case of Nvidia. Plus, GeForce Now lets you stream sets your library of Steam charging you a small commission, while on the Google platform we will be forced to checkout again. Of course, Stadia beats GeForce Now in terms of load times, since they are almost instantaneous. It is also quite a service more stable than Nvidia's cloud gaming proposal.
Where to buy the Chromecast or Nvidia Shield TV
Chromecast with Google TV is available on the Google Store by 69,99 Euros. It is a much higher price than the recommended price in the United States, which is 50 dollars.
Nvidia's proposal is sometimes available on Amazon in some third-party stores. Amazon does not usually directly sell equipment that is the competition of its Amazon Fire TV, so the most appropriate thing will be to buy it through the Nvidia Store, where has a approximate price of 150 euros.
As you have seen, the superiority of the Shield TV about the Chromecast is offset by its price. That is why we say that the Shield TV becomes more attractive on specific dates such as Black Friday, since for a few more euros, you get a much better device. more powerful and complete than the Chromecast.