I really get fatigued sitting in my chair playing steam games, I almost pulled the trigger on one of these the other day with the intent of installing moonlight, and sunshine to stream to my TV. Anyone have any opinions? I saw there's 2 versions, does it make sense to get the pro version? Can I use my PS5 controller on it?

Edit: Thanks for all the input everyone!You all have given me a lot to mull over, much appreciated.

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[–] JakenVeina@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The SteamLink experience within the Shield has only gotten worse over the years, and a LOT worse recently. Examples include:

The app often fails to launch big picture mode, or launches it, but without focus, requiring me to go walk to my desk in the other room to fix it.
Connecting to a PC with a game already-in-progress no longer puts the game in focus immediately, again requiring me to walk over to the desk and fix it.
The app is prone to having the video completely freeze within any of the Steam UI, requiring a disconnect and reconnect. Like VERY prone. Like, it'll take 5 tries at connecting and reconnecting to actually make it into a game.
Some games that used to be able to play well remotely now have an unplayable amount of input lag.
The app will occasionally get drop to si gle-digit framerates within a game, for which the only fix seems to be to completely reboot the Shield.

As a media player, I'm still overall happy with the Shield, and I know there's a rather large community of custom OS enthusiasts for it, but with the degradation of Steam's performance, and the slow addition of ad gabrage in the home UI over the years, the Shield is NOT sensible for a new purchase.