I know it's not the most cost effective setup, but I ended up getting one anyway. I had been planning on waiting for reviews, but then looked at the JBL return policy and felt comfortable enough placing an order.
To summarize my comment from a few days ago about why this over a Shield TV and separate speakers, the reason why I was interested is that for my second room, I want as simple a setup as possible. I've got a 5.1 surround system in my living room (and yes, a Shield TV) for when audio (and video) quality is most important. But in this second room, I want it as easy as possible. I previously only used the TV's own speaker with sources directly connected to the TV. But in addition to awful sound quality from that, the TV there is kind of old and glitchy... my sources sometimes confuse the TV's HDMI-CEC and 'fight' for control. So using the soundbar (and Google Assistant) for source switching is perfect.
This TV is old (1080p, no HDR) so I can't answer anything about 4k or HDR.
I've also got a mostly Google-based setup, so the fact that it acts as a Google Home was also a nice-to-have.
But anyway, impressions of the thing.
I obviously haven't had it that long, so I wouldn't say this is an in-depth review or anything.
Sound quality is... okay. It's much better than TV speakers, and it's much better than the Google Home Hub / Nest Hub I've got in that room. It gets bassy enough for my purposes without the sub, but I mean, yes, it's also a soundbar so it's not perfect. I knew what to expect going in, and I'm pleased with the output based on those expectations. It's pretty good. But yes, typically a dedicated 2.1 system will sound better. I will not be getting any additional sub even if I decide to keep the Link Bar.
No USB ports is a slight bummer because it means you're stuck with only about 4GB storage. Which means I probably am not running Kodi (with the Emby for Kodi plugin) like on my Shield due to all the cover caching, but the Emby app itself runs great. It also means no USB game controllers. I was a little concerned at first because the Bluetooth pairing screen only gives two options: Connect remote, and Connect phone for Bluetooth audio. But I chose Connect remote, and my Xbox One (Bluetooth) controller paired perfectly.
Performance of the SoC for Android TV... well it's not as fast as the Nvidia Shield, but again, it's good enough. I've been able to run RetroX NES, SNES, and Genesis emulation with no problems. Not exactly too demanding, but I wouldn't expect it to run Crysis or anything. Additionally, the Steam Link app works great. So performance hasn't been an issue except for one caveat I'll mention below.
HDMI passthrough doesn't seem to add much lag if any. I've been playing Mario Maker 2 on my Switch and not noticed any problems going through this as opposed to directly through the TV.
It doesn't seem to decode DTS formats, but supports Dolby TrueHD fine.
Sideloaded Amazon Prime Video works fine as well. (I used a 4.11 version since some people said newer ones have issues on other devices). Can't wait for it to be freely available for all devices in the Play Store though.
Some of the bigger negatives for me:
-
You can't
Chromecast any music, orplay any music from within apps, with the screen off. As soon as you tell it to turn off the TV screen, it stops playback. You can play music using Google Assistant using Youtube Music, Spotify, etc. with the screen off, but nothing from the ~~Chromecast/~~Android TV side works that way. And even trying to use Pandora opens the app on the Android TV (screen on) rather than playing music with the screen off. - The remote feels kind of cheap, and the directional 'buttons' on it suck. But to be fair, Nvidia's remote is awful too. At least the JBL remote won't change the volume just by breathing on it.
- Google Assistant performance (what I was alluding to earlier). It's SLOW. My Home Hub will have answered a question sometimes before the Link Bar even realizes I've asked a question.
- I can't add it to a speaker group in Google Home for whole-home playback.
Google could easily fix the screen off thing and speaker group thing, so I hope that happens eventually.
A few other quirks that aren't really negatives, just weird:
- Pressing and holding the back button doesn't jump to settings like on the Shield.
- There's no way I can find to jump between recent apps or to close apps like on the Shield.
- As far as I can tell, there's no Android Picture-in-Picture support (which I never used). There's also no HDMI/source-based picture-in-picture, which I didn't expect but would have been really cool if they could've done it.
- If you're playing a video and go back to the homescreen, the video stops. On the Shield the video continues to play in the background.
- If you're playing music and go back to the homescreen, there aren't any music controls (like on the Shield I believe this would be handled through notifications, but I haven't seen any 'notification drawer' on this at all yet).
UPDATE : As of a day later, I can't reproduce the Chromecast one. As in, I'm now able to cast to the speaker without the screen turning on. Not sure if there was an app update on my phone or the Link Bar but this works like I'd expect now (but only for Chromecast).
nice review, for the price and the extra 300 for the subwoofer, its a non runner for me.