NVIDIA Shield TV and Xiaomi Mi Box shown running Android Oreo at MWC

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

At Mobile World Congress this year we saw a huge amount of Android device unveilings. We saw the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, the Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact, the Asus Zenfone 5 and 5Z, and a lot of other devices as well. What we didn’t see much of were announcements for improvements to existing devices. In the case of the NVIDIA Shield TV and the Xiaomi Mi Box, though, they were both shown off running the Android TV Oreo update.

We saw what Android Oreo would look like on Android TVs at Google I/O nearly a year ago, but with no timetable of when to expect the update to reach the first Android TV-enabled set-top boxes.

A video showcasing how the new update looks

At MWC, we finally got to see the new update in action on the NVIDIA Shield TV and the Xiaomi Mi Box, two of the most popular Android TV sets. Complete with a new UI and the newest features of Android Oreo in tow, the update was highly anticipated. Previously, the update was only available on the Nexus Player, which hasn’t been available for purchase for well over a year now.

With Android TV, Google Assistant is already integrated on Xiaomi set-top boxes. Now we have announced that we will be working with @Google to bring all the capabilities of Google Assistant to life on Xiaomi smartphones. Do look forward to an amazing user experience! pic.twitter.com/GEUpo8fLE8 — Wang Xiang (@XiangW_) February 26, 2018

Another view of the Mi Box hooked up to the TV can be viewed here, or you can watch a video overview of Xiaomi’s booth at MWC which shows off the box in action.

It’s great to see updates in the works for both devices, especially the NVIDIA Shield TV which launched in May of 2015. It’s a nearly 3-year-old device, and thanks to its Tegra-based chipset the hardware is controlled by NVIDIA who can continuously update it without relying on a third-party to provide drivers like is the case with Qualcomm and MediaTek devices.

As for the Xiaomi Mi Box, the device was promised to quickly receive an update to Android Nougat shortly after launch, yet an official update to Nougat has yet to arrive for the device. There’s a beta build available, but quite a few things are broken so it isn’t suitable as a daily driver for many people. Xiaomi’s lateness in delivering updates to the Mi Box has soured our opinion on the device, but an update to Android Oreo may salvage some of their standing here.