finally had the time to unbox mine. had less of an incentive, as all of a sudden, the QNAP NAS I had been using as the player started passing thru Atmos again (my best guess is an HDMI handshake issue that got resolved after a few reboots)
Decided to use this for the bedroom setup to replace an underpowered Remix Mini PC (Kickstarter funded) that I had previously been using. That was able to run Kodi, but I noticed stuttering with some 4K material, despite being on a gigabit connection
Initial thoughts?
Would've been great to have the remote bundled, as the game controller is a bit clunky to use (when not really playing games). Unfortunately I didn't get to buy the discounted bundle
Also had issues with range using my Logitech K400R keyboard. Seems like a common issue where the frequency it used conflicts with the Shield. Got resolved by using a USB extender or OTG cable.
Performance wise, it's pretty zippy. Using SPMC (and not Kodi), with the Arctic Zephyr skin and Emby as the backend. Have it synced to Philips Hue lights (using Hue Lightstrips behind the TV to provide Ambilight) and that works perfectly as well
No real need for Atmos passthrough now as I'm just using a soundbar.
Probably too pricey for just a simple media player, but does look sleek and is pretty responsive.