Google Nexus Player review - The Verge
A quick overview of how Android TV works
It’s now trite to refer to a set-top box as a "puck," so I won’t. The Nexus Player is a discus. It’s a flattened cannonball. It’s… a big black cookie. Whatever: it’s a puck. It’s a flat, round object about as big around as a coffee can (think more shuffleboard puck than hockey), with a notably larger footprint than the Apple TV. With power and HDMI cables connected to its rear, from a birds-eye view it looks a little like the Starship Enterprise.
Like virtually every other set-top box, it’s designed to be used and not seen, and it’s basically successful. It’s not nearly as unobtrusive as the Chromecast, which plugs directly into an HDMI port and is completely hidden, but it’s not nearly as obvious as my Kinect or even the thin layer of dust that covers my whole TV stand.
It's made to be used and not seen
The included plastic remote connects via Bluetooth, so you don’t need a line of sight to the box to get it to work. If you’re somehow offended by the Player’s visage, you can hide it — so long as it’s connected to power and your TV, it can be anywhere.
Ultimately, that remote is a far more important piece of the set-top box equation than the box itself. So it’s a shame that the Nexus Player’s is a cheap, plastic toy of a clicker. There’s a five-way directional pad, a back button, a play / pause button, and a circle that I can’t imagine most people will ever figure out means "go home." All the buttons are plasticky and harsh, forever feeling as if they might crack on the next press. Even the textured remote itself feels cheap. Google basically made an uglier version of Apple’s ultra-simple remote, and a cheaper and less useful version of Amazon’s. And it takes AAA batteries. I hate using companion remote apps on my phone, but I’ll use Android TV’s a lot.
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