This will be long, but this comes up a lot so some might get some use from this. So I don't need to hear the TL;DR

OK, admittedly... I've only had the box a day, but I've been putting it through the paces pretty well, and honestly, I'm happy with it (I'll give some links in a second). First understand, I've had my Shield Pro since they were first released, and have always been happy with it. Recently it started locking up and randomly rebooting. Tried a full reset, which worked for a short time.. then the problem got worse. Thursday night it literally rebooted 4-5 times while watching a 2hr movie. When I checked it, I noticed it was hotter than the fires of hell.. so obviously the box was probably on it's last leg. I'd been looking for another Shield Pro anyway for another TV, but they are never in stock or I miss out when they are. Since I literally have no TV w/o a box, I hopped on Amazon, find a box with good reviews, and took a chance. GIven past experiences (granted, years ago) I did not want to get a Fire stick. Got the box Saturday morning and set it up with little fuss.

What I use my Shield/TV box for: Kodi, to stream from my media server (I don't use Kodi add ons)

TiviMate paired w/ an IPTV subscription

On rare occasion, Amazon Prime Video

OpenVPN/PIA app

The box I bought:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PGNW1KZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Many of the reviews said the remote sucked... I have several mini keyboard/touchpads here.. so I wasn't super concerned about that (I frequently used them with my Shield to). For the record, the remote does suck. I bought this one a couple months ago and it is fantastic.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074QP5LRW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

What I like... The box is FAST. Apps install and open very quickly, no lag at all in Kodi or TiviMate even when browsing a fairly large collection on my server or scrolling large channel lists in the EPG. Performance wise for my uses, I would put it very close to my Shield Pro.

What I wish was better.. The main interface is a tad clunky. The keyboard/touchpad will help a lot here. It's not terrible, but took a bit of getting used to after using the Shield for so long.. but slowly it is warming on me. The included File Manager, just flat out sucks. It would connect to one of my NFS shares, but not the other, wouldn't connect to SMB at all.. just made no sense (Kodi saw all shares fine). Installed X-Plore, which I used a lot on my Shield... problem resolved. Next thing that really irritated me, was when using the PIA android app.. a pop up came in from the left side of the screen constantly saying I was connected. It would show on screen for about 2sec, disappear then reappear. Extremely annoying. Thinking it was just some weird quirk with the app, I installed OpenVPN and set it up.. same problem. Honestly, this would have been a deal breaker and I would have sent it back had I not figured this out. I started going through the Apps, and saw one called "AliceUx" and after some Googling it appears this is apparetly the interface some of these boxes use. Going into that apps settings and turning off Notifications, resolved this issue. The only issue that I cannot resolve (and it's not the boxes fault) is Amazon Prime will not play in HD. I assume the same would be for Netflix, Hulu, etc. I don't watch Prime enough for this to be a deal breaker, and if they want to play that game, I'll acquire them in HD. Maybe when Fire sticks go on sale, I'll pick one up for Prime in HD if it becomes a big deal to me.

Longevity remains to be seen of course, but thus far... I'm happy.