The Android with the longest support life isn't a phone, it's the NVIDIA Shield TV How is a $200 Android TV outdoing $800 phones in terms of support life? By leveraging the same kind of hardware control that Apple does.

by ShawnDex
Nelebh

I have a friend who swears it's the best thing he ever bought, and I agree. It's amazing how capable and still supported that device is đź‘Ź

N0t_Just1n

It’s less about making the hardware and more about device fragmentation.

Samsung doesn’t just make a few flagships a year. They have 2 sometimes 3 versions of the S series including the Active phone. 2 versions of the Note every year. Plus a ton of random cheap A50, A20, A10 and then also tablets on top of that. That’s a lot of devices to develop and test updates for.

Now look at companies that have good LTS.

Nvidia: One chipset in about 4 devices, 2 of which are identical (2015 and 2017).

Apple: makes 2-4 phones a year MAX

Google: Makes 2-3 phones a year MAX

OnePlus: makes 1 or 2 phones/year MAX

It’s simply not profitable to update 20 phones every few months.

donsmith2060

I've been trying to build an AV computer for over 20 years, waiting on space, capabilities and services. Tuner cards then hard drive space, emulator power. The shield ticks off 85% of the requirements with no hassle for a fraction of what I've spent over the years trying to get similar functionality. I would never run anything else.

reddit_reaper

Shield is great but one major issue with phones is that Qualcomm has been a dick for years not releasing driver's for soc older than 2-3 years. That's why Google is trying to split the kernel and driver's even more

Sarah_Ng

You cant compare a tv OS to a mobile OS...

NeffeZz

I have one for 4 years now and it's still better than any chromecast, fire TV stick or TV built in OS.

samjuels

It's amazing. I own two.

GrimAsFook

Still got my 2015 shield. Best purchase ever and still going strong.

LordXamon

I should have buyed the shield instead of the shitty mybox. It just keeps bugging out.

​

And the only thing that keeps me from buying one now is that the cheap version comes without usb slot.

SLUnatic85

People buy phones.every 2-4 years now. People still try not to do that with TV's

modifiedbears

The Shield has only had two OS version upgrades. There are lots of phones that have seen the same amount. Plus, this occurred over there course of five years. How many of you have the same phone you had five years ago? This is a really dumb Apple to oranges comparison.