Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
I’ve owned an NVIDIA Shield TV Tube since 2020, and I’ve been somewhat happy with my purchase due to its wide variety of features and endless stream of updates. I do have some serious complaints, though. My biggest issue is the lack of ports, but I also found that it requires a factory reset every year or two due to significant performance problems.
Acer announced the Acer 4K UHD Google TV Streaming Box in South Africa late last year, and this looked like the answer to my prayers. This Google TV box is made by prominent ODM SEI Robotics, but a closer look revealed that it easily met my requirement for more ports. This theoretically means I can plug in my portable hard drive for no-frills local media playback, or easily plug in a flash drive to transfer APKs. I recently splashed out on the Acer TV box and, after using it for roughly six weeks, here are my thoughts on making the switch.
How important are ports to you on a Google TV box? 13 votes I won't buy a box without a variety of ports 15 % It's nice to have, but not a must 69 % I don't care about extra ports on a TV box 15 %
So many ports, but some significant oversights
Easily my favorite thing about the Acer TV Box is the sheer number of ports. It’s equipped with two USB-C ports (one of which is devoted to power), a microSD card slot, a full-sized USB-A port, an Ethernet port, and an optical audio input. By contrast, my Shield TV Tube has a microSD card slot and Ethernet port, while the Google TV Streamer has a single USB-C port and an Ethernet port. It’s possible to add more USB-C or USB-A ports on the Google TV Streamer via a USB hub, but compatibility is hit-and-miss.
The Acer TV Box’s USB-A port is very handy for sideloading apps, as I can simply plug a flash drive into my TV box and install apps like SmartTube. By contrast, the Shield’s microSD card slot is awkwardly located, so I’m forced to unplug the HDMI cable to remove it. It doesn’t sound like a big deal until it is.
I also eyed these full-sized USB ports for local media playback, especially in light of streaming service fatigue and Plex acting up on my Shield. I usually plug a portable hard drive into the Xbox One if I want to watch locally downloaded movies or shows, so being able to plug into the TV box itself would be more convenient. Unfortunately, my old portable hard drives refused to work, although my 2011-era external hard drive with a separate power adapter worked fine. In the case of the former devices, they don’t even appear in Google TV’s storage settings menu.
The Acer TV Box offers plenty of I/O options, but USB-based storage expansion is really hit-and-miss.
This issue suggests that the TV box doesn’t supply enough power for typical portable hard drives. I’m not the first person to report problems with hard drives on Google TV boxes, but it’s still disappointing. I also had to format my external hard drive as, much like other Google TV gadgets, the Acer TV Box didn’t play nicely with its preexisting file format. As annoying as I found all of this, I’m still one of the lucky ones. This could be devastating for people who only have one portable hard drive and thought the Acer device would support it out of the box. For what it’s worth, Acer’s website notes that power is only available via the USB-C port. This suggests that some USB-C drives might work fine, but I don’t have any USB-C hard drives to test.
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