It all began with a VCR and Gilmore Girls. My obsession with never missing a TV show, that is. Ours was so old you couldn’t program it anymore, so my husband would go into our room, turn on the TV and hit record for me so I wouldn’t miss my show while I was in school.
Fast forward a couple years, we got a DVR as soon as we could - along with a newborn - and life was really good. I preordered Chromecast way back when that came out, and recently used it to binge-watch the Rocky movies after seeing, and loving, Creed.
So when an opportunity came up to try out the Shield Android TV I was excited. I had been procrastinating on signing up for HULU to watch season 1 of The Librarians, and had been lamenting about missing old-school video games. The timing was perfect.
What I didn’t expect was how amazing this device is. A supersized Chromecast that connects anything from Netflix and HULU to MLB.tv and Pandora, combined with the exclusive android games, that syncs with my Google accounts, all on my big screen AND it has pinball! What more, besides popcorn, does a girl need?
Set up was easy. Mostly. My aforementioned children were excited about the new gadget too, so as I was choosing the language I accidentally selected Dutch instead of English. In my defense, my most recent gaming time was on a Wii, so an XBox style controller was a bit awkward. You would never know that pre-children I spent hours playing video games, (actually reviewing them for this site!), because I totally forgot the B button was the back button, and proceeded to set up the Shield in Dutch - successfully! (With some help from Google Translate.)
The first night we watched Ice Age - The Meltdown on Netflix. I was in heaven watching it for the umpteenth time, while my younger daughter watched it for the first time - I have no clue how she missed it! The picture quality was phenomenal - the HDMI 2 is 4K Ultra HD with 10-bit color. Combined with my surround sound system, the Dolby 7.1 surround pass-through of the Shield the sound was intense.
But while I understood yes and no in Dutch, it really wasn’t going to work long term. So I went to Nvidia’s site, checked for a solution there and on their message boards. Nothing came up, although there was a great deal of information available, so I opted to contact support.
The contact information was easy to find and very welcoming, not one of those sites that you have to dig for the information. I got a confirmation email that my message was received and in less than 24-hours got a response with a solution.
While I may be in the limited category of why the language was not right, I was not the only one who had the issue. The only solution was to factory restore the machine - not a big deal since I hadn’t set up much (there’s only so much Dutch you can type into Google Translate!). And once I translated my way to where I needed to be, it was super simple to fix.
Oh, and I did test the “B” button on the second set up, and absolutely laughed at myself for forgetting to use it, since I could have avoided the whole reset process had I done it. But then I couldn’t tell you how amazing customer service is!
If you’re looking for a device, go for either Nvidia’s Shield Android TV or Tablet. I unequivocally recommend the product and the company. In a world where electronics rule, having amazing customer service to help - as well as a dedicated group of users on the message boards from around the world! - makes any device better. And then, of course, there’s pinball.