Most powerful? Certainly. Best and fully featured? No. Unfortunately, there's no market for powerful Android TV devices - your phone is 10x more powerful, so very little software makes any demands on them.

I'm actually withdrawing Android TV support from an Android game I develop because hardware hasn't gone anywhere over the 10 years I've been developing the game for, so it can't handle the latest version.

And of course, without the demand from software, Android TV boxes aren't going to improve.

I know this is niche but really the only thing I see the Shield lacking is AV1 VP9.2 support. This would allow HDR on most Google Products : Youtube, Stadia and Play Movies.

EDIT: thanks u/Kodi_Fan_Omicron for the clarification!

Nothing has really changed in the industry. For certified Android TV devices the 2019 Shield Pro still reigns supreme. If I needed a new main device it would be another Shield Pro for all the same reasons it did 2 years ago. My main use is 4K remux playback with Plex.

Probably.

I needed native system volume (CCwGTV does not have), so I went with 2019 Shield Pro.

The other devices that were contending finalists before being eliminated were

1. new apple tv 4k and

2. CCwGTV

Here is a good resource, SIAP - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O7JZJvmKwo0UlDNataxRyW5BGjkhgSdcF-jIHrmexFg/edit#gid=0

For a DIY person, I’ve had better luck with an OpenELEC device than I did with the Shield. I got an Odroid N2. The biggest caveat though (which took awhile to solve) is that any wifi adapter seems to be a bottleneck for UHD. Once I put the Odroid on Ethernet, it handles everything, with TrueHD atmos pass-thru. For streaming apps though just use a Chromecast-GoogleTV or AppleTV; the apps seem to work better that way in my experience.

Edit: okay I see now this is an AndroidTV sub. Welp, I guess my only applicable recommendation is the Chromecast.

BuzzTV XRS4900