I got sick of my slow clunky NP back in December and upgraded to a Shield; wish I'd done it years ago.

Shield TV - no brainer

I got tired with the Nexus Player last year and replaced it with an Nvidia Shield. I didn't realize how crappy my experience was because of the Nexus Player. Don't get me wrong. I loved the device, but it was just to glitchy and slugish and the remote was pathetic.
Love the Shield.

When I finally tired of my NP crashing constantly and the terribly slow performance. I just got a FireStick 4k.

I didn't want to get another Shield as they are still a bit expensive for my tastes.

The FireStick makes a great replacement, if you don't mind Amazon promoting their shit all over the home screen. And the remote is nice.

Fun fact.. the remote that comes with the current gen FireStick works on the Shield. If you have a FireStick, you can pair the remote with it, program the IR portion of it to work with your TV and then re-pair it back to the Shield.

Xiaomi Mi box S or Shield TV

I switched from NP's to Firestick 4k's a couple weeks back on my dumb TV's. They're as good as I'll ever need. Plex, netflix, prime tv etc are all snappy and run better than my samsung 8000 series smart tv.

Best to wait for black Friday if you can. I got a Shield TV for $115 last year...maybe less, I don't remember exactly.

Not really Android TV but the Fire TV stick 4k is also a decent budget choice.

Pony up for the shield TV. Its the best androidTV experience currently available.

If not a Shield TV, which is definitely the best experience, I'd consider a Roku. My main TV has a Shield, but I have a Roku in my bedroom.

I am not a fan of Fire TV. The Amazon app store feels like a step down from the Play store, whereas Roku offers a pretty solid selection of services. Maybe it's better now that Amazon and Google aren't fighting and you can actually get YouTube on Fire TV, but I always found it to be a frustrating experience (along with pretty much all Amazon devices).

Replaced mine with an NVIDIA Shield. It's super solid.

I love the Shield, but it's way overkill if you are only doing 720p unless you want to take advantage of some of its other features (Plex server/GeForce Now/etc).

If you must buy today, the MiBox S is probably your best bet, but if I were you, I'd hold out a bit longer. Rumor is that Google is about to announce a new ATV device, and Nvidia is about to introduce a Shield dongle which will probably be less expensive than the current box.

Mii Box S if you can find a good deal, but a shield tv if you can afford it.

Shield will be better in the long run, personally wish I just bought the shield rather than the mii box

I would describe the replacement to the Nexus Player as the NVIDIA Shield TV.

Before next year (January?) there should be a two new Shield TV systems launched, one of which will probably be a dongle.

Same hardware though, so if you get one now you won't lose functionality.

Walmart had the Mi Box S for sale recently for a mere $40. If you decide to stay in the Android TV ecosystem, you probably can score a Shield for your primary TV during Black Friday and get cheap Mi Box S's for your other tubes.

I have 2 powerful CERTIFIED devices for you.

1st Device

Mecool KM3 (Getting one Myself) •Certified Google AndroidTV Device •Adroid TV Ver. 9.0 (Pie) •Amlogic S905X2 Quad-core 64bit Processor •Mali G31 MP2 GPU supporting 4K and UHD •Supports H.263 - H.265 Encoding and MP4 support •4GB DDR4 RAM •64 GB internal storage with expandable SD slot up to 32GB •USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports •100mb Ethernet Port •2G and 5G WiFi support •Bluetooth 4.1 •Bluetooth Remote

Price $81.99 on Amazon with Prime 1 day ship

2nd Device

Mecool KM9 Pro (currently own)

Every single spec listed for the KM3 except this device has 32GB of internal storage instead of 64GB. It still has literally everything else already listed above.

Price also $81.99 on Amazon but $69.89 obo on eBay w/ free shipping out of New Jersey

If you want powerful, certified and a potentially futureproof device, these are definitely your candidates.