a little update: Well I have been having fun & games with this little box, managed to flash OpenATV 5.3 I had a little difficulty getting the USB to flash same as many other posts in the zgemma section, the USB I used I know will flash as Ive used it many times before so I went through the hddguru low level format process followed by a Windows full format before loading the image but the box passed by the USB & continued to boot without flashing despite my trying to trigger the ATV flash process by pushing the power up button on the front...?!
SO... I prepared the USB again only this time before loading the 5.3 image I decided to look inside the image folder & rename the "noforce" file to "force" then loaded the image onto the USB...This time the box detected the USB & began to flash without the need to push any button other than turning the box on! I have seen so many posts regarding USB's not flashing....changing image file from "noforce" to "force" before loading onto USB is another trick to try if you have USB flashing problems.
Continuing on with building the image I hit a number of other small issues such as plugins vanishing from the menu's after rebooting the box, to resolve I removed the plugin then installed again so far it hasn't happened again but it's odd that a plugin can show in the menu's list one minute then several restarts later it vanishes..!?!
Plugins, slyk1hd & softcams added, finished adjusting settings to how I want them, having a small problems getting timeshift to work but will look at that again later, using MGcamd & added line to newcamd.list in user/keys as normal & restarted cam, line is active & channels clearing fine.
One thing I noticed was I have had to overcome a few niggles while performing the install, these niggles are the same ones that have been covered many times in the zgemma section & I can now see that the vast majority of problem posts are not box related/box specific, by this I mean the zgemma has suffered some negativity as a result of the high level of activity & problem posts on the zgemma forum, I can confirm most of the issues I have encountered while making image's for both my new Edison mini & my 2nd gen zgemma's have been the same issues & are not a fault of ether box...user knowledge is key here not blaming the equipment because its cheap!
1st thoughts on the Edison: I wasn't impressed with the build quality of the box & the fact that it crashed almost before I got started working with it didn't fill me with confidence, the front panel looks & feels nasty, box has brushed metal effect on its plastics & Edison embossed on the top panel that kinda looks OK, the remote I have already begun to hate as it looks & feels like the cheapest of Chinese toys...simply horrid to me but the Mrs likes it...pffft.
In the few hours I've been working/using Edison mini & only having the zgemma H2H combo to compare it with in specification terms the Edison mini combo is very similar in it's performance, boot speed, channels switching, button response times are virtually the same although the Edison may have the edge in time taken when updating EPG & running service/channel scans etc.
Too early to say for sure which box I prefer as I'm sure the Edison will grow on me so its now time for the Mrs to have a play & see how the Edison mini compares to the zgemma H2H....