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Need reviews of Android TV's

O

OM2

Android Enthusiast
I've recently come across some Android devices with HDMI output
These let you put Android on your TV

I can't find many reviews anywhere
Just wanted to know if anyone here could comment

- Are there any well known makes? (As opposed to from eBay)

- I've seen Android 4.0 ones - but all of these need a mouse and/or keyboard
- I've seen Android 2.3 ones - these come with a remote - but it's Android 2.3 and not 4.0!!
- Does anyone know of a 4.0 on with a remote?

- Some of the ones with remotes I've seen are cheap horrible remotes you get with cheap DVD players - I'd like something small

- I've seen a video on youtube with a sales rep showcasing a remote that had gyro control - but couldn't get the name of the company!!

- Apart from eBay (and Amazon) are there any other places to buy from (in the UK)?

Thanks!


OM
 
So I see your in the same boat. There are a few things that I have found out.

1. These devices have little coverage but there are a few reviews out there.
2. The remotes are crazy. All are bluetooth and all require some kind of through the looking glass setup. Your never sure how its going to work till you try it. But there is hope in the form of a remote app on your phone. Keyboard and mouse seems the right deal for now so get a combo.
3. EBay and amazon are the two locals for the purchaces that I would trust.
4. This is huge! Almost all the current devices use the allwinner A10 chipset. This same chipset can be had in the low end 7" tablets found at fry's electronics, best buy, Wally and amazon. They all seem to have separate HDMI and USB ports so you can hookup the USB KB/m to it and the HDMI to your TV. They output 1080p. I am heading out today to snag on up for 100 bucks at my local store and try it out. If it doesn't work out then I'll take it back but right now I have no reason to think it won't. I'll let you know. The plus side is it doubles as a tablet so I can use it for double duty. Downside no built in Bluetooth but there are a few dongle out there that work so that is a plus. Again I'll report my finding tomorrow.
 
There are two common chipset vendors for Android TV - there are more but ignore them they aren't worth it.

Amlogic and Allwinner

For Allwinner devices in the UK check out Rikomagic they do the HDMI stick and have a set top box too plus a forum for community development, you can also boot linux via SDcard on Allwinner devices.

For Amlogic see Sumvision Android set top boxes in the UK. Though if I were you I would hold off and wait for the Pivos XIOS DS to go on sale in the UK this will be a better supported model than any of the others on the market.

For controlling them well I find a good quality mouse is the best thing to get like a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 6000, it's fast accurate and quicker to use then the air mouse/flymotes often supplied with these devices and faster then using the fiddly mini keyboards too.

As to Allwinner vs Amlogic, well the Allwinner is cheaper and has a faster GPU but it can have compatibility issues with BBC iPlayer app, Amlogic doesn't have any issues with that but Android 4 feels slower on it however it also can run XBMC one of the best media center applications.
 
@reddragon72 if u could give feedback that would be great

the cost of just an android stick:
 
@next121: that's awesome :)
oooh... spoilt for choices
not sure which to go for
i saw a video on youtube - they showed the factory where they make the cheaper version
i thought i must have missed the boat - seems as though this is kinda new tech out there?

QUESTION: do u know if they suffer the app space problem? i.e. u can only install on the rom space available? and even if u have app2sd, this doesn't help as some apps love to sit on the android device

not sure if this has changed for android 4.0, but otherwise the only way round it is to root the device and then u can force almost any app to sd

let me know if u know

thanks
 
I couldn't say one way or the other as I havent run into any issues with installing on either but the Amlogic boxes do really need an SD card as the amount of flash memory varies that comes built in for app storage.

The Allwinner devices come with 4GB flash memory which appears as an SDcard to Android OS. The actual SD card slot appears as extSD under mnt folder.
 
Didn't even know that there are Android TV's. I think I am going to read more about this subject and if I find something new, I will let you guys know.
 
ok... i've decided to give the chinese a try and will buy one from ebay

there are 2 types that i'm confused about:

1. Allwinner A10 1GHz Cortex-A8

2. A10/ 1.5GHz Cortex-A8

A10 = 1Ghz or 1.5Ghz?

They all seem to have the same duplicate tech specs
Would appreciate an opinion

Thanks
 
They are all the same the A10 scales up to 1.5Ghz though I've not see any sticks at 1.5Ghz thats usually tablets running at that speed.

What they might be doing is combining the CPU/GPU speed so saying 1.5Ghz, the CPU running at 1Ghz and GPU at 500Mhz. Some others might be overclocking the CPU to 1.5Ghz on a stick which probably isn't a great idea.
 
Ok here we go.

1. the tablet is working great so far for the TV side. The TV sees it and sets to 1080P

2. I am having streaming issues. Anyone want to tell me what to use to stream movies from my Windows Home Server? I have MX player loaded and it sees the videos but never plays them. I copied one MKV(X264), AVI(DivX), and WMV(VC-1) and it plays them all without an issue on the phone, but streaming is broken.

3. Tried XBMC but nothing works. It was a prebuilt build for Allwinner chips but none of the sub menus work so I can't get it going at all.

4. Plex sucks.... I don't want to run a seperate app on the server just to stream stuff.

5. Netflix works good, but I think the netflix app for android doesn't do HD. It is not as sharp as the PC on the same screen. Also the sound is a split second ahead.

6. using the phone as a remote is simply awesome!!! I'm using an app that runs through the WIFI in the house so I can setup to control the music from anywhere!! Andy on Andy is great... get your minds out of the gutter!!!! Right now I am trying to use joystick center to setup a wiimote for use on games. To cheap to buy a sixxaxis.

7. Most games seem to run just fine but I have not installed the heavier ones yet. I have a sneaking feeling they will all fail though, but that is fine. Ouya will be here one day.

I'm sure more will come as I am only half way done with my testing.

The one killer for me right now is the streaming.... there has got to be a way to do it.
 
Allwinner chipsets are not supported by XBMC only Amlogic chips are. It's hoped in the future that Allwinner will give XBMC team access to the hardware so they can enable hardware decoding for video.

Plex does suck, they don't want people to use Android TV they want their users to buy GoogleTV's instead and use the Plex client they are making for that.
 
I read on the XBMC forums that Allwinnner has now devoted a dev to the cause!! We should see support in the coming month or so.

So I am using a tablet now with a cracked screen, the Mid-7042(long story but I bought three of them and one kid already cracked a screen by dropping it out of there backback in the driveway so I'm thinking of just removing the screen), and the only issue I have is that the screen is on all the time glowing. So now I am hunting down info to see what happens if I remove the screen. I'm thinking that since it is a standard 1gig allwinner setup that one of the other roms may work on it.

One major issue I have found is that google earth doesnt work just blanks out to the desktop. Also the stupid olympics app does the same thing.

Also the droidmote app suddenly stop working. It was working great and I plugged in a mouse for playing a game and now it wont work any more. reinstalled and still nothing. looking into that one.
 
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