Nexus Player Review

I have had my Nexus Player for a few days now and have been able to see the pros and cons of the device. I do not regret my purchase but there are certainly some cons to consider.

First of all, if you are considering getting the Gamepad for Nexus Player, do it! It is a great controller and feels good in the hands. I have a Moga controller but it is about to get sold to buy another Nexus Gamepad. It has weight to it so it feels good in the hands. It has the look of an Xbox controller with the layout of the Playstation controller (which has always been my preferred layout).

Gamepad for Nexus Player

The stock controller however, has a lack of volume buttons which means I have to keep all three of my remotes near to operate everything (tv remote to turn the tv on and off, receiver remote to turn the volume up and down, and Nexus remote to operate it). Honestly, I could eliminate the other remotes if it simply had a volume button that changed the volume of the system. Luckily there are already people out there making their own remotes for Android TV and I'll certainly be looking into them as they become available.

Stock Nexus Player Controller

Android TV itself works pretty great right now. It is pretty easy to get around and see your apps. The top bar has recommended shows from almost any media app on the machine, which is really cool. Seeing the latest episode of Flash from Hulu popup at the top without me going into the Hulu app is super convenient. It also has the YouTube playlists that my daughter watches constantly right next to it so again, that top bar is a huge plus for Android TV.

My critique right now though, is not necessarily a current problem but I can see it being a problem in the future. Right now, they basically have rows going across the screen to select apps and media and right now it works pretty good, but when I think of six months from now when they have 200 some apps, they had also better have a way to scroll through them better than hitting the right arrow 200 times.

It seems very geared toward not having a lot of content right now and I am sure they have plans to optimize this for larger content base down the line. So my only critique of the the OS right now is really a non-issue unless it is not changed later.

Lastly, the Nexus Player itself works good. It handles the graphics of Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat 5 very well. However, I cannot tell if this is a Gameloft glitch or a Nexus Player over heating issue but at the end of a race, occasionally it will reboot the Nexus Player. I cannot tell if it is because the processor overheated or if something in the game glitched. My initial thought was overheating because it reboots the system but I physically felt the system and it did not seem that hot so I am not sure. And it only just started doing it yesterday after playing the same games on it with no issues two previous nights.

The space is also an issue. My dream is for a Nexus gaming console and that is what I have turned it into. Problem is, it is very limited on space. I installed Asphalt 8, Modern Combat 5, Beach Buggy Racing and then it would not install Dungeon Hunter 4 because of lack of space. So this weekend I will be looking for a way to install apps on a small external hard drive.

Bottom line on the Nexus gaming console dreams, space is limited and it might have an overheating issue. Probably worth it to wait for Razr's Tegra K1 Android TV to be released soon, but feel free to stock up on Nexus Gamepads. They are worth it.

Update: After a few weeks it has become clear that it is an overheating issue. Almost any game will cause the system to reboot after less than an hour. With Goat Simulator it takes about 5 minutes before it reboots. It even overheats on non-graphically intense games.

My advice is to wait for a Tegra K1 Android TV as the Intel chip they chose for the Nexus Player was clearly not ready for this.