Shield user since 2015. Literally just started down this myself. Got this yesterday but was too wiped out last night to set it up. Figured if I can spend less than a hundred dollars For a fourth generation i7 which is capable of decoding AV1. But I can't buy a set top box that will do the same for even close to $100. It was worth a try.

The downside is you lose some power efficiency having a full-blown PC. The upside is configurability and usability. The shield was decent for emulation, but it still can't compete with a full-blown PC. The one other small negative is casting. I'm not aware currently of any great method of casting media to a PC. There's probably something that exists. I just don't know of it yet. But I plan to evaluate a few immutable Linux distributions, including Bazite. With waydroid on top for any Android applications, I find that I just can't get along without yet.

Quick edit after I got home to hook and use the remote. I had looked at several of them and had forgotten the exact specifications of the one I ordered. But I was pleasantly surprised. It has a decent weight. The buttons feel good. It's plastic-y overall, but for the price, that's what you expect. But best of all, it has an accelerometer in there to control mouse pointer movement. It's more perfect than I ever could have imagined, and I'm going to buy two more soon for the project I'm working on for my parents for Christmas. Gonna hook them up with a home theater PC setup like I'm planning for myself. To replace their aging Chromecast TV.