TL;DR: Returning my nexus player. Should I get a new device, or just live with Chromecast until something new comes out?
I bought the Nexus Player in May of last year, primarily for the remote functionality, and the convenience of not having to cast everything to the chomecast from my phone because it always seemed glitchy. It was also nice that my wife and son had access to my google play movies and other accounts so that if I wasn't home, they could still watch my library of shows. Lately I've been having issues casting google photos and vudu to the nexus player. When casting google photos it starts lagging worse and worse until finally it crashes and stops casting. With Vudu, the video quality drops from HDX to HD, then HD to SD, and I get alot of buffering issues. It doesn't do this with the chromecast or any of my other devices, my network and speeds are fine, so I've narrowed it down to being the Nexus Player.
I did a factory reset and that didn't help, so I ended up talking to Google support. They told me that I had done all the troubleshooting they could think of, and said the device needed replaced. After they found out that I purchased thru Amazon instead of directly from Google, they said I would have to get in touch with Asus for support. They transferred me, and the Asus rep said they don't replace them, that I would have to send it in for repair which would take a couple weeks. I told them that I wasn't satisfied with that, and they said the only place that could swap it for me would be Amazon (which doesn't even sell it anymore). Just for fun I decided to get in touch with Amazon. I explained everything to them, and they said as a courtesy they would let me return it for a full refund. I couldn't believe it, I purchased it 5/31/15, there was only a 30-day return window, and they are refunding me my full $69.99!? Insane.
But now, I won't have a nexus player. I'll be back to my gen1 chromecast. Nexus Players aren't available anymore. Shield TV's are almost a year old and still cost $200 plus the remote that I'd want. Do I suck it up and buy one, or just get another chromecast and hold off until something new is announced/released?
I don't expect a new shield TV this year. The Chromecast 2 is definitely a major upgrade over the first gen. You could do that or go for a NP off ebay. Or you could wait for I/O in <2 months, see if Google releases a new Android TV device.
Many of us got lucky with the shield during the sale leading up to black friday, and during black friday ($175 for the whole bundle). With that said, I was one of the people that bought my first one prior to the sale (with the remote), paid the full retail value and was perfectly content having paid the price. I was lucky to have my sale retroactively adjusted but I would have been happy regardless. Its a premium device with a premium price tag. It lives up to the price.
I wouldn't be bothered by its age. The X1 chip is a champ, 3GB RAM is great, we have Android M for expanded storage, it has 4K and HDCP 2.2 support, native HD audio support, HEVC/H265 decoding. Its quite future proof. And NVIDIAs support has been great with it.