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Firestick alternatives

Anths79 said:
Yeh can't wait.
I had the sk1, it was fast but not a lot faster than the shield so kept that. Also had the homatics box r 4k plus, its a decent box for the price £60-£70 on aliexpress and excellent with audio passthrough, just the firmware on 14 with overheating lets it down. Very unlikely to get anymore support from homatics.
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The sk1 does everything I need but I am always interested in something more powerful.
I always make a least 2/3 back when I flog my devices as I keep everything so I don’t see it as money down the drain.
The Homatics android 14 update also broke the coreELEC CPM build for DV FEL support so that was another reason for users to rollback to 12.
 
Aristotle said:
The sk1 does everything I need but I am always interested in something more powerful.
I always make a least 2/3 back when I flog my devices as I keep everything so I don’t see it as money down the drain.
The Homatics android 14 update also broke the coreELEC CPM build for DV FEL support so that was another reason for users to rollback to 12.
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I'm still using the shield pro, its a hard one to beat.
 
Anths79 said:
I'm still using the shield pro, its a hard one to beat.
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Yeah I don’t think you will ever see a certified device like that again but it is a gaming console so was always going to be powerful at its price point.
Also running ATV 11 is less restrictive than these newer lower end devices running Google ATV 14.
I may eventually move to mini pc for VOD but for now will stick to android if it doesn’t come to restricted.
Apple TV has way too many caveats for me.
 
Aristotle said:
Yeah I don’t think you will ever see a certified device like that again but it is a gaming console so was always going to be powerful at its price point.
Also running ATV 11 is less restrictive than these newer lower end devices running Google ATV 14.
I may eventually move to mini pc for VOD but for now will stick to android if it doesn’t come to restricted.
Apple TV has way too many caveats for me.
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Yeh most newer devices don't have the specs. Mecool are bringing out a certified box with the s905x5 next year. I really like the ugoos devices really powerful but on aosp, the wife still uses netflix so i will still need the shield as its a lot faster than netflix on the tv.
I did have a nuc but find an android box is a lot easier to get on with and support dolby vision.
 
Anths79 said:
Yeh most newer devices don't have the specs. Mecool are bringing out a certified box with the s905x5 next year. I really like the ugoos devices really powerful but on aosp, the wife still uses netflix so i will still need the shield as its a lot faster than netflix on the tv.
I did have a nuc but find an android box is a lot easier to get on with and support dolby vision.
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I just think high end spec devices are niche but that SoC has great performance and is used the Ugoos am9 mid tier device.
I get some still need certified for official streaming options but google may be starting to make devices more locked down but it’s just a wait and see scenario.
The lack of DV support is one of the reasons I won’t switch to mini pc just yet.
 
I did think about the am9 but feel it is a step down in speed from the shield, but it does support the new h266 codec and av1 which the shield is lacking in.
I'm not sure the way google will go regards to sideloading so best to stick to an aosp device if buying any new boxes at the min. Plus most people on here don't need a certified device.
 
Anths79 said:
I did think about the am9 but feel it is a step down in speed from the shield, but it does support the new h266 codec and av1 which the shield is lacking in.
I'm not sure the way google will go regards to sideloading so best to stick to an aosp device if buying any new boxes at the min. Plus most people on here don't need a certified device.
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I think the SoC in am9 is more about its Ai features and upscaling abilities.
Great if you watch old low resolution content or low resolution iptv streams.
I prefer to have more power because I run Kodi with widgets.
CoreELEC is great and it will let you run DV on non supported DV displays but I would rather not have to dual boot back and forth.
As for google who knows what they will do but I never use certified devices anyway.
But they do control AOSP and it’s future.
 
I've seen people mention X88 Pro X5M previously. Anybody has one of these and how is it compared to a firestick 4k /4k max?
 
Anyone try this box has decent speck
MECOOL KM2 PLUS DELUXE Netflix and Google-certified Android TV Smart Box are powered by S905X4-J Quad-Core A55 CPU with AV1 HDR, 4GB DDR4 RAM + 32GB eMMC storage, Dolby Vision + Dolby Atmos, Dual band WiFi 6, Gigabit LAN and Bluetooth 5.0 . Runs on the latest Android TV system Android 11. Built-in lots of content and entertainment from the Android ecosystem, including 4K Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Disney Plus, etc, delivering a world of content the whole family can enjoy.
 
linesman66 said:
Anyone try this box has decent speck
MECOOL KM2 PLUS DELUXE Netflix and Google-certified Android TV Smart Box are powered by S905X4-J Quad-Core A55 CPU with AV1 HDR, 4GB DDR4 RAM + 32GB eMMC storage, Dolby Vision + Dolby Atmos, Dual band WiFi 6, Gigabit LAN and Bluetooth 5.0 . Runs on the latest Android TV system Android 11. Built-in lots of content and entertainment from the Android ecosystem, including 4K Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Disney Plus, etc, delivering a world of content the whole family can enjoy.
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Its seems like a decent box but the s905x4 is getting old now, i would be aiming for a s905x5m at least. If ya need certified there is always the xiaomi mi box s 3rd gen but only has 2gb ram, I have tried that, its quite snappy navigating around the menus etc but takes a couple of seconds to reload home screen when you exit out of apps.
If ya don't need certified there is the new ugoos sk4 running s905x5m with 4gb ram also has Dolby vision.
 
Ugoos Sk4
IMG_7423.jpeg
 
Anths79 said:
Its seems like a decent box but the s905x4 is getting old now, i would be aiming for a s905x5m at least. If ya need certified there is always the xiaomi mi box s 3rd gen but only has 2gb ram, I have tried that, its quite snappy navigating around the menus etc but takes a couple of seconds to reload home screen when you exit out of apps.
If ya don't need certified there is the new ugoos sk4 running s905x5m with 4gb ram also has Dolby vision.
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All really depends on your budget
 
theres an interesting android box being sold by mirza, a dutch company.

interesting in the respect that it is being pushed by zapx who seemingly also have some interest in mirzas streaming capabilities.

it seemingly has its own built in app which can be linked by mac to anyone running a server using zapx.
 
lamblamb said:
theres an interesting android box being sold by mirza, a dutch company.

interesting in the respect that it is being pushed by zapx who seemingly also have some interest in mirzas streaming capabilities.

it seemingly has its own built in app which can be linked by mac to anyone running a server using zapx.
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Got a link to the box Mr Lamb.
 
lamblamb said:
theres an interesting android box being sold by mirza, a dutch company.

interesting in the respect that it is being pushed by zapx who seemingly also have some interest in mirzas streaming capabilities.

it seemingly has its own built in app which can be linked by mac to anyone running a server using zapx.
Click to expand...
Looks like it has the Amlogic s905x5m CPU and the Mali-G310 GPU that the Onn 4k plus has.
Should perform slightly better than FS 4k max.
Looks like it is running AOSP 14.
Expensive for the specs
 
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