My Thoughts About MXQ Pro p201 and solutions to problems

[FreddTV]

I've used these cheap android TV Boxes to help my family and friends lower their cable bills. Combined with an HDTV antenna (50-mile range) and high-speed internet it has been enough for most people to do away with cable.

That being said these boxes have some issues/oddities.

• They do not seem to work well on WiFi- It really prefers an ethernet cable. If its quite a distance away I would recommend buying a wifi repeater with an ethernet jack and plug it into that. The repeater will cost as much as the box but you don't have wires spanning the house.
• My personal box loses the date and time - If I find that a particular show's season doesn't show up and it did before, it is an indicator that the date and time are off.
• One box seemed to loose all the KODI settings - It even lost the skin and add-ons. I reinstalled the skin and restarted the box and it was back to normal.
• The first box I ordered came with root privileges- Every box since has been stock. Kingroot doesn't work on these boxes. I can't figure out how to root it. I would like to change the boot animation but can't figure it out non-root.
• Google Device manager won't allow me to lock the device remotely!- It will initially shut down the box but if you unplug it and plug it back in its fine. Periodically a lock screen will appear but if you hit escape "poof!" no more lock screen.
• KODI Installation Kept freezing one box- I uninstalled Kodi and reinstalled it with the same settings exactly and it hasn't had any issues since. Just weird!

Has anyone modded the antenna?

Looks like people have done it for the stick devices. Just wondering if anyone has done a box. Wondering if I removed the internal antenna and soldered this http://amzn.to/26VCTJk in its place would that work?

Older TV no HDMI
My coworker has an old tube style tv and not looking to upgrade anytime soon. When the box was connected to the TV via A/V composite cable there were many wavy lines. Bought this little device http://amzn.to/1Tode1Q and it worked like a charm. Had to power it from one of the boxes USB ports.

That was longer than I intended... a few parting questions.

• Anyone have any luck rooting this device? Or maybe has a rooted rom they can send?
• How about a solution to changing the boot animation without root?
• Still trying to figure out how to change the boot logo that says MXQ Pro on startup. Can't figure it out even on my rooted device.

 

[mikedt]

Can tell you, you definitely can't change the boot animation without root. Also with them, many can be fluky and buggy as well, like the clock losing time, along with high infant mortality and often DOA, due to lack of QA and R&D by the anonymous Chinese makers.

 

[FreddTV]

Do you know of a better device in the same price range?

 

[mikedt]

Not really, because these MXQ, MX, M8, etc, etc, are all cheap commodity devices, all from unknown manufacturers, and what's available seems to change from week to week.

FYI I bought a cheap Android based LED DLP projector last week, which is pretty much the same Android TV box type thing, except it's built into a projector with speakers. http://www.jmgo.com/p2/index.html (Chinese only)

Four observations with it straight away.
1) The clock loses date and time, until it's synced from the internet or set manually. Same as your "MXQ Pro p201".
2) WiFi range is poor. Sound familiar? Although I'm not about to start fixing external antennas and drilling holes in it.
3) Bluetooth range is very poor, like the BT headphones or whatever has to be almost on top of it. The BT from my Macbook or Oppo phone, works anywhere in the apartment.
3) The included Android version only has Chinese, NO English. Absolutely no chance of flashing a different ROM, because it's customized and modified for projector use, with things like display keystone adjustment in settings. Not bothered about trying to root it.

Although what I bought it for, primarily for watching movies and TV shows from external USB hard-drives, and for showing PPTs to homeschool students from the Macbook using HDMI, it's OK! The fact it's Android rather than an proprietary OS, meant I could sideload VLC(Videolan) as the stock media player sucks! And Chrome as well, because otherwise it doesn't even have a browser. Although it did come with WPS (Kingsoft) Office pre-installed.

I'm in China, so if something like this actually is a real lemon or dies completely, can just return it locally for exchange.