Metasploit Android: Difference Between Meterpreter and Shell

Hello,

I am wondering what's the difference between the two metasploit payloads meterpreter and shell to attack android devices? In every tut I've read they are using meterpreter. Why aren't they using shell? Or what is the functionality of the shell payload? Is there any kind of documentation to read about that?

Many thanks for your help.