Which is better to stream 4K content and games – Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro? Finding 4K Ultra HD content has never been easier. Unlock a complete 4K Ultra HD experience. With support for leading HDR formats, Dolby Atmos Audio, access to the latest 4K content, and a lightning-fast processor, both Amazon Fire Stick 4K and Nvidia Shield TV Pro enable you to experience the beauty of 4K Ultra HD movies and shows on your TV. Know about more benefits in Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro comparison.
Pros & Cons – Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro
Amazon Fire Stick 4K
PROS
- Affordable
- Supports 4K with HDR10 and Dolby Vision
- Amazon Alexa
- Quick Wi-Fi streaming and menu navigation
CONS
- No Google Play apps
- Ethernet adapter not included
NVIDIA Shield TV Pro
Pros
- Better for gamers
- Can expand storage with external options
- Works best with Google’s ecosystem
- Could be used as Plex Server
Cons
- No support for 4K/120Hz
- Doesn’t include HDMI cable
Specs – Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro
Amazon Fire Stick 4K
NVIDIA Shield TV Pro
- NVIDIA® Tegra® X1+ processor with a 256-core GPU and 3 GB RAM.
- Wi-Fi 5 – 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi.
- Captive Portal support.
- HDMI 2.0b with HDCP 2.2 and CEC support.
- Bluetooth 5.0 + LE.
- OS uses Android 9.0 (Pie) powered by Android TV with Chromecast 4K built-in.
- It has storage up to 16 GB.
- It’s 4K HDR Ready.
- Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10 support.
- Google Assistant as well as Alexa (optional) as voice assistants.
- Up to 1080p playback at 60 FPS (H.263, MJPEG, MPEG4, WMV9/VC1).
- Format/Container support: Xvid/ DivX/ASF/AVI/MKV/MOV/M2TS/MPEG-TS/MP4/WEB-M.
- Dolby Audio (Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos) & DTS-X surround sound support (pass-through) over HDMI.
- AI-enhanced upscaling for 720p/1080p to 4K up to 30 FPS.
- 4K HDR playback at 60 FPS (H.265/HEVC).
- 4K playback at 60 FPS (VP8, VP9, H.264, MPEG1/2).
- Has many types of audio support: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, WAVE, AMR, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, PCM, WMA, WMA-Pro, WMA-Lossless, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD (pass-through), DTS-X (pass-through), and DTS-HD (pass-through).
- High-resolution audio playback up to 24-bit/192 kHz over HDMI and USB.
- High-resolution audio up-sample to 24-bit/192 kHz over USB.
Price – Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro
The final difference when comparing the Shield TV Pro to the Apple TV 4K is the price. The Shield TV Pro is priced at $199, while the TV 4K starts at $179 for the 32GB model and goes up to $199 while doubling the storage to 64GB.
Amazon Fire Stick 4K is available at $49. Roku, the biggest name in streaming hardware, now has a $40 option called the Roku Express 4K Plus that has taken the top spot on our list of the best streaming device options. It’s $10 cheaper than the Streaming Stick Plus, our previous favorite 4K streaming device, yet is just as capable.
At the high end of the market, Apple’s latest version of its Apple TV 4K streaming box sells for $179 and comes with a couple of slick upgrades, including an all-new Siri remote control (the company is also selling the remote separately for $59).
What is the key difference – Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro?
Design
The Fire TV Stick 4K is slightly larger than the standard Fire TV Stick, measuring 3.9 by 1.2 by 0.6 inches (HWD). It’s a simple rectangular matte black plastic bar.
The Nvidia Shield TV Pro is a little more complex in design, but it still looks great. The device is rectangular instead of square, and sits in at 6.26 inches wide, so it’s quite a bit larger than the Apple TV 4K. On the top, you’ll find angled edges and green-lit highlights, which is a nice touch.
Ports
Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K comes with a male HDMI connector on one end and a micro USB port on one side. If it’s slightly too large to fit comfortably in a port on your TV, a short, flexible HDMI extender lets you reposition it at a different angle.
On the back of the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro device, you’ll find an HDMI port and an Ethernet port. Unlike the Apple TV 4K, the Shield TV Pro also includes a pair of USB ports, which can be used to expand upon the device’s storage and play external media. It makes the device a little more versatile, though not everyone will need that extra functionality.
Upscaling
There is one area where NVIDIA gains the upper-hand and that’s with its AI Upscaling functionality. Apple’s TV 4K (2021) does feature upscaling support for 1080p content, but NVIDIA uses a proprietary method that has turned out to be quite impressive.
Storage
The Fire TV Stick 4K uses a quad-core 1.7GHz CPU with 8GB of memory. It has MIMO 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 with BLE. The Wi-Fi specs are important, because unlike the larger Fire TV, there is no Ethernet adapter included with the Fire TV Stick 4K
Apple gains the edge when you look at onboard storage, as you can opt for either 32GB or 64GB. But that’s it. As soon as the storage is filled up with games, apps, movies, or other content, you’ll be relegated to deleting some things. Meanwhile, the Shield TV Pro sports just 16GB of onboard storage, but it can be expanded thanks to the dual USB 3.0 ports on the side.
Chip
From a specification standpoint, it’s with a quad-core processor, the Fire TV Stick 4K is much faster than its predecessor, so you get faster loading times for apps. The Shield TV Pro is using the latest NVIDIA Tegra X1+.
Remote
The Nvidia Shield TV Pro’s remote, on the other hand, is a bit larger and features a unique triangular prism shape, motion-activated backlit buttons for basic controls, a single shortcut for Netflix, and a microphone for voice control.
The Alexa Voice Remote 2nd Gen sports the same design as the 1st Gen but with additional buttons. The new buttons on the 2nd Gen Alexa Voice Remote include controls for your TV’s power and volume as well as a mute button. This means you can rely on it nearly all of the time and only bring out your TV’s remote when you need to change settings.
Content search
On the Nvidia Shield TV Pro, there’s some pretty great Google integration too. A lot of this integration has to do with the fact that the device has Google Assistant built in — and Google Assistant is largely considered to be the best digital assistant out there. On the Shield TV, you’ll also be able to access content that you have purchased on Google Play.
Gaming
Amazon Firestick supports several gaming apps, as it also functions as a gaming console to play games but not to the level that Nvidia Shield provides. Most of the Android games are available on Amazon App Store. It allows you to use many wireless Bluetooth gaming controllers to play your game.
While the TV 4K may have an upper-hand thanks to Apple Arcade, the Shield TV Pro fights back with cloud-gaming and NVIDIA GameStream. As you might expect, you can use NVIDIA GeForce Now with the Shield TV Pro, streaming all of your favorite AAA games in your Steam library right to the big screen. Meanwhile GameStream provides 4K HDR gaming at 60 FPS right from your desktop computer. The only real requirement is that you must be using an NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics card in order to take advantage.
Setup
To set up Amazon Firestick you must have the Firestick remote, HDMI cable, internet and Amazon Prime account. Connect your Firestick with the TV’s HDMI port and connect it to the internet and enter your Amazon Prime Account credentials to access Firestick. If you don’t have an Amazon Prime account, you have to create it before setup. If your purchase Firestick with your Amazon Prime account your Firestick device is pre-registered with your Amazon account.
To set up Nvidia Shield it requires two USB cables, power, remote and Internet. Nvidia Shield is connected to the HDMI port on your Television. Similarly, connect the ethernet port or WiFi network. Then select the language and enter your Nvidia Shield password or select connecting to Google option (optional) and enter your Google Account login credentials. You can access all your cloud-based saved games, recommended apps and many more.
TV platform
In comparison, you’ll need to wade through loads of Amazon content on the Fire TV Stick 4K, since Amazon really wants you to check out their stuff before anybody else’s. The NVIDIA SHIELD TV Pro is powered by Android TV, which is Google’s most user-friendly streaming interface yet. It has a high-contrast look and easy to navigate layout in neatly arranged categories.
Apps
You can find all of the most popular streaming platforms on both NVIDIA SHIELD TV Pro and Fire TV Stick 4K. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, you name it, you can stream it. Well, actually, that’s not so true for the Fire TV Stick 4K, as it doesn’t have Vudu, iTunes, and YouTube TV. The absence of Vudu and iTunes limits the number of titles you can watch with Dolby Vision, a notable new feature for both streaming sticks.
Is there any similarity – Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro?
HDR
Both the Shield TV Pro and Apple TV 4K (2021) are compatible with all of the usual content compatibility suspects you look for. This includes the HDR10, the most common form of High Dynamic Range found in many streaming devices and television. Dolby Vision support is also onboard both of these streaming devices, to go which pairs quite nicely with Dolby Atmos support. Basically, you can’t go wrong either way when trying to get the best picture or sound quality with either of these options.
Audio
On the audio side, the Nvidia Shield TV Pro supports 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound as well as Dolby Atmos object-based surround sound. High-resolution audio is also supported, with some formats supported natively and others supported via passthrough. If you’re a Plex user, you’ll appreciate that the Shield’s Plex client is one of the few that supports Dolby TrueHD with Atmos and is powerful enough to play 4K HDR movies without server-based transcoding.
Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K supports Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, assuming your TV supports them of course. Both devices can let you enjoy titles in 4K HDR, HDR10, and HDR10+ formats, but adding Dolby Vision + Atmos into the mix results in the best cinematic home experiences ever.
Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro customer review
Big Improvement
The remote is a huge improvement. The power button on the remote can turn on my tv, my receiver, fire stick, and switch the inputs automatically so the fire stick is on screen and ready to go with just one click of the power button. It’s really nice. This is how it should have been all along. It gets even better though… lets say my TV is already on, and my receiver is set to a different input such as my FIOS tv box? All you do is click the home button on the remote and the remote switches the receiver to the correct hdmi input on the receiver for the fire stick! One remote to rule them all, and yes it controls volume on the receiver too! This is excellent. It’s highly configurable. The setup is quite nice. You can define which inputs get picked when hitting the power and home button. You can define which device the volume buttons control.
Amazon has done a great job with the Fire Stick 4K. It’s faster than previous fire sticks. No more menu lag. Things are smoother and faster overall. This makes my TV experience much more enjoyable.
By LongtermUser at Best Buy on Amazon Fire Stick 4K
Life will never be the same!
The NVidia Shield TV Pro has made cutting the cord so much easier and less stressful!Having been a long-time (over twenty year) subscriber to Dish Network cutting the cord was something that came up for consideration with each and every annual rate increase. We were often held back by the large amount of recorded content stored on the DVR’s hard drive.
Well thanks to the pandemic and the shutdown of most all productions we managed to burn through all recorded content and began turning more and more toward online content.
It was at that point where we came to realize that we could drop Dish Network in favor of YouTube TV, keep local and 90 percent of our regularly viewed channels all while saving nearly fifty percent on our monthly bill!
The NVidia Shield TV has been an absolute pleasure, with the ability to install nearly any available streaming application.
YouTube TV
HBO Max
YouTube
iHeart Radio
Pandora
Amazon Prime Video
VUDU
…and so much more!There are games, music, & weather apps all at the press of a button, and setup was a breeze.
The 4K UHD video combined with Crystal clear multichannel audio (including Dolby Atmos some on supported apps) is a massive improvement over and above Dish Network, and the small footprint of the NVidia Shield TV device takes up less space, uses less energy (due to it being 100% solid state i.e. no moving parts)!
The NVidia Shield TV supports Google’s Chromecast for sharing content directly from a mobile device, it has Google assistant built in for quick and easy voice control, and has the ability to connect with my home’s Google Home speaker system for whole-house audio!
By SpenceJT at Best Buy
Alternate of Amazon Fire Stick 4K vs Nvidia Shield TV Pro
Apple TV 4K 2021
For most people, however, Apple’s venerable streamer just isn’t worth the money, especially now that Roku has nearly all the major apps and AirPlay. If you really want Dolby Vision, you can find that on the Roku Ultra at almost half the price.
The perfect foil to the affordable 4K streamers above, the new Apple TV 4K still costs $179, but is the better choice for people who want to check every feature box — or who just want an Apple device to use Apple Arcade for gaming or take full advantage of their Apple One subscription bundles. Video purists will appreciate its flexible HDR and TV calibration feature, while those with older Apple boxes will love the new and improved remote.
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