A couple of weeks ago, I ordered an Android TV box. It has the guts of an Android tablet, but in an Apple TV-like small square plastic box, bristling with ports, like fullsize HDMI, ethernet, and fullsize SD card. $90 through eBay from China.
I hoped to use it as a media center in our entertainment room, since it could play back movies from YouTube and other Internet sites, from flash drives attached to its USB ports, as well as access files over the local area network from our computers.
It arrived last week and pretty much worked as I expected, but with two serious flaws:
- Wireless did not work (I used its ethernet port for setting it up in my office, but our entertainment room lacks an ethernet connection)
- Power adapter was British (I could use its USB ports for power input)
Another problem is that it is not official Android, and so lacked the Android app store (Google Play); the workaround is to go to other online stores or use side-loading. A mini CD was included, but it appeared to be blank; none of my CD drives could read it.
So I am returning it. But the concept is still pretty interesting, so I might try again from another vendor once they ship with the faster Android 4.1. Plus, $90 is much cheaper than the $300 tv box announced by Google.
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