[Tinwarble]

none of the charts show the strengths/weaknesses of the SHIELD....how does it rate against the rest. I have a very difficult time believing that this device is outperformed by those other boxes in any regard. I can maybe see the audio being an issue for maybe only the most discerning but thats all...who has the box.....there has to be a bottom line here.

Ok, so lets break things down.

1)Hardware wise there is currently nothing running Android (ARM or x86) that will touch the SATV.

2) Yes there are missing features like no HD audio pass-through and 23.976 fps. However, the hardware is more than capable of dealing with those features and given what has been said, not only by Nvidia but also by some of the Kodi devs, Nvidia is very interest in making the SATV the best media player it can be. The next update (2.0) should reveal just how serious they are about this.

3) The SATV will probably have longer term Android support than many of the other boxes. Most boxes (ignoring the Nexus Player and Forge TV) are still running older versions of Android, 4.x.x, and those that have the features that the SATV doesn't have have had those features "hacked" in. The SATV runs Lollipop and will get a "M" update when it becomes available, and will probably get "N" and possibly "O" when they come out.

Why is that important? Because every time Google updates Android they add/update APIs which adds new features as standard. When features become standard it is much easier to get apps, such as Kodi, to implement those features as it doesn't require coding for a specific box or SoC.

4) The SATV runs Android TV and not just some modified version of Android. This could be a plus or a minus depending on what you want to do, but if you're buying a Android box you're wanting more than just something that runs Kodi well (for that there are plenty of other boxes). With that in mind, there are certain apps that will only run on Android TV (and some that will only run on the SATV) and other apps, like Netflix, that will only output at HD resolution on certain boxes.

Bottom line is, there currently is no "box that does it all", all boxes have their pit falls. However, that being said, the SATV has the greatest potential to being that "all-in-one" box. If you believe in that and your willing to wait and/or can do with out or live without certain features, then buy the SATV.

If you don't believe that or you want the best possible experience right now, then get something else. But unfortunately, if you want that with both Kodi and Android then that means a 2 box solution.