AndroidTV and other Androis OS boxes

beardybrewer

I posted here last year asking how I could get Kodi and Netflix on the same device and remote. Well, for father's day I got an Amazon Fire stick which I thought I'd mainly use for Netflix. However, it was easy to load the Kodi apk on it via ES Explorer. So now I finally have Kodi and Netflix together!

One drawback, it uses a Bluetooth remote which isn't bad itself but means I can't use it with my universal IR remote. I thought about upgrading to the proper Fire TV which has a USB port so I could control it with a FLIRC dongle and have a wired network connection to boot.

But now, I'm thinking why bother with the Amazon products when there seem to be loads of these Android boxes on the market? Most of them are generic sounding brands, except the nVidia Shield which seems like overkill for Netflix and Kodi (don't care much about games).

Does anyone recommend any particular android box?

iainBB

beardybrewer wrote: »

I posted here last year asking how I could get Kodi and Netflix on the same device and remote. Well, for father's day I got an Amazon Fire stick which I thought I'd mainly use for Netflix. However, it was easy to load the Kodi apk on it via ES Explorer. So now I finally have Kodi and Netflix together!

One drawback, it uses a Bluetooth remote which isn't bad itself but means I can't use it with my universal IR remote. I thought about upgrading to the proper Fire TV which has a USB port so I could control it with a FLIRC dongle and have a wired network connection to boot.

But now, I'm thinking why bother with the Amazon products when there seem to be loads of these Android boxes on the market? Most of them are generic sounding brands, except the nVidia Shield which seems like overkill for Netflix and Kodi (don't care much about games).

Does anyone recommend any particular android box?

In the market myself for one. You got a be careful a lot of these boxes are under powered for kodi latest release. The have small internal hard drives and low android version .

Kodi 17 requires android 5 or higher and large internal hard drive for temp and app storage.

iainBB

16 gig min internal storage

Have a look at this

http://kodi.wiki/view/Supported_hardware

beardybrewer

The two I'm eyeing up I saw mentioned on YouTube reviews and are at the high end side of things. Many of these boxes are 30-40 quid. I'm okay spending €100 as this as my primary set top box and hopefully it will be upgradable for a few years.

I've still lots of research to do but these are what I've turned up so far:

Zidoo® X6 Pro Octa Core Android 5.1 TV Box 2G/16G Dual Band WiFi Bluetooth 3D RK3368 OTA HDMI 2.0 4K*2K H.265 UHD 1000Mbps Streaming Media Player ZDMC(Based Upon Kodi 15.1) (Silver)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B017H3HJV0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2OJRVYXS630S0

Matricom G-Box Q² Quad/Octo Core Android TV Box [2GB/16GB/4K]
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00I0AJFVM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2STUBEL6AWE1D

iainBB

beardybrewer wrote: »

The two I'm eyeing up I saw mentioned on YouTube reviews and are at the high end side of things. Many of these boxes are 30-40 quid. I'm okay spending €100 as this as my primary set top box and hopefully it will be upgradable for a few years.

I've still lots of research to do but these are what I've turned up so far:

Zidoo® X6 Pro Octa Core Android 5.1 TV Box 2G/16G Dual Band WiFi Bluetooth 3D RK3368 OTA HDMI 2.0 4K*2K H.265 UHD 1000Mbps Streaming Media Player ZDMC(Based Upon Kodi 15.1) (Silver)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B017H3HJV0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2OJRVYXS630S0

Matricom G-Box Q² Quad/Octo Core Android TV Box [2GB/16GB/4K]
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00I0AJFVM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2STUBEL6AWE1D

Those two aren't have bad. For the price. They are the minimum spec for kodi 17 but should be fine for a few years.

degsie

To the OP. Fire TV stick supports cec, so if your TV also supports it then you can use your TV remote to navigate menus etc.

iainBB

I pick up a
Minix Neo U1 64-Bit Android 5.1.1 TV Box 2.0Ghz Amlogic S905 Quad Core 2GB RAM

Very happy with it.


Avoid this fire stick just so limiting.

beardybrewer

Ended up picking up a nvidia Sheild on Prime day. I wasn't planning on it but it was marked down to £99 so I figured why not. Will post here about my observations after a month or two. Have high hopes after reading the reviews and even though it didn't include a remote the box has an IR receiver which is meant to be compatible with universal remotes.

mass_debater

beardybrewer wrote: »

Ended up picking up a nvidia Sheild on Prime day. I wasn't planning on it but it was marked down to 99 so I figured why not. Will post here about my observations after a month or two. Have high hopes after reading the reviews and even though it didn't include a remote the box has an IR receiver which is meant to be compatible with universal remotes.

I'm considering one of these, how has it been? Worth it?

beardybrewer

mass_debater wrote: »

I'm considering one of these, how has it been? Worth it?

YES. Holy crap it's so fast. If waiting 5 seconds for videos to start streaming to your tv from a far flung sever in a less-litigious part of the world by beaming signals off a satellite is just too much to ask then this is for you. Everything seems instant. I can start the Netflix app and get to the profile page in seconds. Starting Kodi is instantaneous. The only limit is your network as far as streaming goes and my network is way faster than my last win7 kodi htpc.

The other big thing for me was I was able to program everything to my Harmony 900 universal remote. I also added a FLIRC dongle to the USB port to add additional keyboard commands to the remote which gives me as much contrl as I had with my MCE remote setup.

So basically I finally have Netflix and Kodi together on a single unversal remote. Very happy.