First and foremost, it doesn’t matter at all that it was made in 2019. It plays every video I’ve ever thrown at it and it’s still getting updates.
Second, it’s very easy to replace the launcher, as already mentioned in the thread.
Third, a general purpose computer would almost certainly be more powerful in absolute terms, it would also be much worse in terms of usability for the specific purpose of playing videos and acting like a tv appliance. I’ve used HTPCs before and worked very hard at making them comfortable to use with a TV. No matter how hard I tried, they were always clunky. As soon as I got the shield, I never contemplated using an htpc again.
First and foremost, it doesn’t matter at all that it was made in 2019. It plays every video I’ve ever thrown at it and it’s still getting updates.
Second, it’s very easy to replace the launcher, as already mentioned in the thread.
Third, a general purpose computer would almost certainly be more powerful in absolute terms, it would also be much worse in terms of usability for the specific purpose of playing videos and acting like a tv appliance. I’ve used HTPCs before and worked very hard at making them comfortable to use with a TV. No matter how hard I tried, they were always clunky. As soon as I got the shield, I never contemplated using an htpc again.