NVIDIA Shield Android TV box may have launched in the first part of 2015, but even at the end of 2016 it’s still one of the best Android TV boxes with a powerful Tegra X1 processor, 3GB RAM, 4K video support, HD audio pass-through, the fastest GPU found in TV boxes so far, Netflix HD & 4K certified, and more. The company is allegedly preparing to launch a new model, and some photos have been leaked to Android Police.
The design of the box looks basically identical to the new model, but it comes in two different sizes maybe because of extra ports and internal storage, and the game controller has been re-designed with a mix of triangular shapes.
What we don’t know are the specifications. The company may have done a simple refresh, keeping Tegra X1 processor, increasing the memory and storage capacity, and possibly adding some extra interfaces, or they went with one of their new more powerful SoC initially targeting the automotive market: Parker SoC with two Denver custom ARMv8 cores, four Cortex A57 cores, and 256-core Pascal GPU, or Xavier SoC with 8x custom ARMv8 cores, and a 512-core Pascal. The latter has only been unveiled recently, and supports 8K video with HDR, so it’s probably way too early for that… Another possibility is that the company designed a new unannounced SoC specifically designed for TV boxes.
We’ll hopefully find out more at CES 2017 in about two weeks time. This could also mean some good deals for the first generation hardware once the box is officially unveiled.
Via Liliputing
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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