• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Android Media Devices

Oh I can't wait. I really want one of these things. I am having such a hard time deciding which ones.
 
ShepsCrook said:
So it looks like mine is going to arrive earlier than expected so I might have reviews for both coming soon.
Click to expand...

Got the e-mail this morning, mine is delayed. The reason is the item is very much in demand and they are currently out of stock. Oh well......
 
Ok, so I had 2 packages at my door when I got home. So I'm playing with them both right now and so far so good.

Here's some info.

The MX1 has Android 4.1.1
It's custom launcher is CRAP, so I wouldn't bother using it, however it does have the stock launcher.

The Minix Neo 4 has Android 4.0.4 and appears there's no auto update at this time. (However there is a download link on Facebook for the firmware update)
The custom launcher is better than the MX1 but I still wouldn't bother.

The Minix does come with an IR remote which albeit is nothing spectacular, however it does work.

Both seem to install and load XBMC alpha 3 just fine and can browse to my network shares. Both are currently loading a massive list of media which will take some time.

Internet browsing is fast on them, wireless signal is not impressive compared to a laptop or phone wifi, but I wasn't expecting much based on reviews. However they both downloaded updates and apps quickly.

I forgot my wireless mouse/keyboard dongle so I can't just use both devices at the same time without swapping adapters for another mouse and keyboard I have. Currently I'm testing with a Logitech Wave keyboard and a Logitech MX Laser Mouse (notebook version).
 
Last edited:
New update:

Both devices are running Android 4.1.1:

MX1 is running Finless 1.5 1080P Android 4.1.1 rom.

Neo G4 is running the stock 4.1.1 rom. (Side note, this does have a dual core 1.6ghz processor)

I have a working version of XBMC that does play 1080P content (it has more hardware rendering capabilities than the stock version).

I'm averaging around 65-70Mbps for my wifi connection through 1 wall, 10 feet from the access points.
 
What's the difference between the iMoto MX1 vs MX2? I don't see any difference.
Same cpu, ram/rom. same wifi/ hdmi.

If these things play 1080p mkv over wifi, it makes the Raspberry Pi outdated.
 
J Macker said:
What's the difference between the iMoto MX1 vs MX2? I don't see any difference.
Same cpu, ram/rom. same wifi/ hdmi.

If these things play 1080p mkv over wifi, it makes the Raspberry Pi outdated.
Click to expand...

One is plastic the other metal. Stated up thread.

Without stating the bit-rate, saying 1080p doesn't mean much. If you gut the file, then anything can stream 1080p.
 
So I've been playing with these for a couple days and I will say this, they do work nicely after some tweaking.
 
ShepsCrook said:
So I've been playing with these for a couple days and I will say this, they do work nicely after some tweaking.
Click to expand...

So, can they handle ISOs? And do either of them support 5.1 or greater sound formats? And how is the gaming? Have you tried one with a controler, like for a PS?
 
I have not tried ISO's yet, nor have I tested 5.1 surround sound yet. The LED monitor and LCD TV that I've tested do not have 5.1 surround sound. However my home theatre does so I'll be testing that soon.

It played Angry Birds with a mouse just fine. I went to try ShadowGun last night and I could not get past the menu as it would not recognize mouse clicks. I also do not have a PS controller however... I might have an alternative that I can use come to think of it. A USB Logitech game controller.
 
Can you try running Aeon Nox or Aeon MQ3 or MQ4 in 1080p for the XBMC skin and see how smooth it runs while navigating a movie library?

Also can you try high-bitrate video like streaming BluRay with 20+ Mbit bitrates?

These are the things I'm curious about before I buy one of these.

Thanks
 
SirMaster said:
Can you try running Aeon Nox or Aeon MQ3 or MQ4 in 1080p for the XBMC skin and see how smooth it runs while navigating a movie library?

Also can you try high-bitrate video like streaming BluRay with 20+ Mbit bitrates?

These are the things I'm curious about before I buy one of these.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Absolutely, I've already tested Aeon Nox and there is a slight lag while switching between movies. My movie library is 1000+ movies so of course there will be some lag in my mind. But I will test it a little more, I'll even try to get a youtube video recording of it in action after I have it fully tweaked.

I'm writing and posting my reviews on www.androidandi.com also.
 
ShepsCrook said:
Absolutely, I've already tested Aeon Nox and there is a slight lag while switching between movies. My movie library is 1000+ movies so of course there will be some lag in my mind. But I will test it a little more, I'll even try to get a youtube video recording of it in action after I have it fully tweaked.

I'm writing and posting my reviews on www.androidandi.com also.
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks so much! I've got an ~850 movie library so I'm definitely interested in your findings. A video will be great, looking forward to it.
 
SirMaster said:
Awesome, thanks so much! I've got an ~850 movie library so I'm definitely interested in your findings. A video will be great, looking forward to it.
Click to expand...

And just to let everyone know, my site www.androidandi.com WILL be giving away a MINIX NEO G4 soon, the contest has not started. I'm currently extremely busy trying to get the site up and running and all pages created, making sure everything works. Feel free to spread the word anyway, but the giveaway hasn't started.

Right now on the list is to test:
1. Skins in XBMC
2. High Bitrate HD Content
3. Plex
4. Gaming with Controller
5. 5.1 Surround Sound
6. Test BDMV and VIDEO_TS files

Anything else for the list?
 
Last edited:
the only thing stopping me from buying this thing right now is the fact that I have over 200 Blu-ray titles in direct rip (main movie) folder format (BDMV) and I highly doubt I'll be able to watch them over wi-fi. A shame, really. I'm looking to get rid of the cumbersome and noisy Athlon 64 x2 4200+ HTPC for something like this that can play over 16TB of my movies off a Windows 2011 Home Server tower. I also have over 500 DVD, also direct-ripped into VIDEO_TS folder format.

Would this thing be able to play BDMV and VIDEO_TS folder anyways? DRM's gone, thanks to DVDFab, so that won't be a problem.
 
Azhar said:
the only thing stopping me from buying this thing right now is the fact that I have over 200 Blu-ray titles in direct rip (main movie) folder format (BDMV) and I highly doubt I'll be able to watch them over wi-fi. A shame, really. I'm looking to get rid of the cumbersome and noisy Athlon 64 x2 4200+ HTPC for something like this that can play over 16TB of my movies off a Windows 2011 Home Server tower. I also have over 500 DVD, also direct-ripped into VIDEO_TS folder format.

Would this thing be able to play BDMV and VIDEO_TS folder anyways? DRM's gone, thanks to DVDFab, so that won't be a problem.
Click to expand...

I will test this for you, but you're wasting a lot of space with your library. Why not use Handbrake and convert those DVD's to MKV or MP4, same with the BDMV files. My library is 1000+ movies and I haven't counted how many TV episodes, MKV, MP4 and a couple others in other formats, files ranging from 500MB to 20-24GB and it has been able to play them. But, I don't see why XBMC couldn't play your VIDEO_TS files at least as long as it was set up properly in a directory.

All of this is served from my Open Media Vault NAS/SERVER from 16TB of storage over a 10/100/1000 network
 
ShepsCrook said:
I will test this for you, but you're wasting a lot of space with your library. Why not use Handbrake and convert those DVD's to MKV or MP4, same with the BDMV files. My library is 1000+ movies and I haven't counted how many TV episodes, MKV, MP4 and a couple others in other formats, files ranging from 500MB to 20-24GB and it has been able to play them. But, I don't see why XBMC couldn't play your VIDEO_TS files at least as long as it was set up properly in a directory.

All of this is served from my Open Media Vault NAS/SERVER from 16TB of storage over a 10/100/1000 network
Click to expand...

Believe it or not I thought about using Handbrake (and DVDFab) to convert movies to MKV just last week, but my computer keeps shutting itself off during mid-encoding. It's an old Phenom II 720 x3 that's been acting up lately :-P

I use Windows 2011 Home Server because Open Media Vault and FreeNAS doesn't recognize the AMD Hudson D3 chipset on an ASRock A75 Extreme board. It won't see any of the drives, let alone install itself.

I'll figure it out. Probably bring home my work laptop every night until I'm done, lol. It's a better computer than my aging Phenom. Second Gen Core i5 and all that.
 
Could just be your windows install that's having issues. That Phenom should be fine for using Handbrake, I was using a Core 2 Duo T5500 as well as used a Phenom X3 with no problem.
 
It did it on several installs. It shuts off when doing high performance tasks like pc games (age of empire online) and when encoding movie formats. It's an unstable system, due for a replacement. I've abused the hell out of it over the last 5-6 years.
 
I've been leaning towards trying one of these things, but I really have a hard time justifying it as long as I'm hearing mixed reviews about 1080 playback. I know they're cheap, but our first kid is on the way so I'm in "ultra save" mode. Due to my larger HDDs coming in for my server (3TB instead of the current 500GB) I'll be hosting all of my media on my server and want to utilize some sort of auto-mount feature for that directory on the HTPC. That way I can remove the current HTPC system which is quite noisy and utilize pretty much anything else that supports Samba or NFS with auto mounting.

I currently have a Raspberry Pi (two in fact) on my shelf with clear acrylic cases, etc. I've been considering trying them since I already own them and a failed test drive wouldn't matter. I'm hoping with enough overclocking that the Pi with XBMC might be somewhat decent. If not, the Miko looks to be one of the most attractive Android based HTPC devices out there. That or the MK808, but I keep reading about intermittent wireless issues with that one... Eh.
 
ShepsCrook said:
I will test this for you, but you're wasting a lot of space with your library. Why not use Handbrake and convert those DVD's to MKV or MP4, same with the BDMV files. My library is 1000+ movies and I haven't counted how many TV episodes, MKV, MP4 and a couple others in other formats, files ranging from 500MB to 20-24GB and it has been able to play them. But, I don't see why XBMC couldn't play your VIDEO_TS files at least as long as it was set up properly in a directory.

All of this is served from my Open Media Vault NAS/SERVER from 16TB of storage over a 10/100/1000 network
Click to expand...

My thing is this: I buy Blu-ray for one reason- quality. I don't want to crunch them down with compression unless I'm intending to watch on a tablet. To save space, one can use MakeMKV to do bit-perfect rips and remove all the menus and extras. That way, you can maintain quality but remove all of the other stuff. I do sometimes enjoy the extras, but I will never watch that stuff more than once.

It would be nice of one is these could handle full-bit rate files at 1080p resolution. Expecting this over wifi is not realistic, IMO, unless it is line of sight.
 
JaSauders said:
I currently have a Raspberry Pi (two in fact) on my shelf with clear acrylic cases, etc. I've been considering trying them since I already own them and a failed test drive wouldn't matter. I'm hoping with enough overclocking that the Pi with XBMC might be somewhat decent. If not, the Miko looks to be one of the most attractive Android based HTPC devices out there. That or the MK808, but I keep reading about intermittent wireless issues with that one... Eh.
Click to expand...

I would say if you already have a Pi, you may as well give those a shot. These are great little devices and after getting a few of the little kinks worked out, they perform their tasks well. These won't be blazing fast and I don't expect them to be (at least until some GOOD quad cores show up as I've heard the GK802 quads are not all that great).

The nice thing is, these will only get better. Right now I'm going through tests with the Neo G4, rooting, removal of useless apps/foreign apps etc to decrease the amount of applications that start up with this. If you're not satisfied with the Pi's after testing them, then read my reviews, and like I mentioned before, I'll be posting some video's and running some more tests which hopefully will help people decide.
 
AQ_OC said:
It would be nice of one is these could handle full-bit rate files at 1080p resolution. Expecting this over wifi is not realistic, IMO, unless it is line of sight.
Click to expand...

Which this is on my list. I own ONE BluRay and that's "The Dark Knight" I'll rip that removing only the "Extras/Menu" and see how these will perform.
 
Just as an update, I've gotten the MINIX Neo G4 to hit a benchmark of 8021 at the moment after rooting, and removing some of the extra applications that were on this thing. This is a boost from around 6900 which was out of the box upgraded to Android 4.1.1.
 
Azhar said:
It did it on several installs. It shuts off when doing high performance tasks like pc games (age of empire online) and when encoding movie formats. It's an unstable system, due for a replacement. I've abused the hell out of it over the last 5-6 years.
Click to expand...

Sounds like an overheating issue with the chip. I didn't realize my main system was going well over 90C during games because the temp would drop rapidly when I was out of the game. Only when I alt-tab'd with the CPU temp active and I happened to be looking at the right spot on the screen I just caught it.

Anyway thermal compound between the chip and heat sink can go bad over time. If the chip is seeing to much heat, the chip will go bad and probably start get more susceptible to heat, so I could see this being a problem later in life and seem ok at first.
 
ShepsCrook said:
Which this is on my list. I own ONE BluRay and that's "The Dark Knight" I'll rip that removing only the "Extras/Menu" and see how these will perform.
Click to expand...

The Dark Knight is a great one to test on because there are some very high bitrates in that movie. If you can get it to play through to the end without shudder and stuff, then we have a winner.
 
So is it safe to say this is better than the Roku box or Raspberry Pi, as a set top box / frontend for Pandora / Netflix?
 
Are you plugging this straight into and hdmi port on the back of your tv's? or are you using a hdmi cable male to female?
 
I'm using the cables/adapters provided for the MX1, however I'm using my own HDMI cable for the Neo G4. Because I do not have easy access to the HDMI ports on the TV/Monitor, I find that using the cables makes this process easier.

I've also tested the Neo G4 with an HDMI to DVI cable and it works just fine, obviously no audio though.

Also, as a little update: I've successfully gotten ClockWorkMod (CWM) working on the Minix Neo G4, rooted it, and am testing the device with the CPU downclocked to 1.5ghz as I've read that people have had more success with stability of the device overall with a lower clock.
 
Awesome news.
The MX1 is performing well. It's a little slow in the browsing of movies using "Showcase" for Aeon Nox but again, I equate that to around 1K movies, XBMC still being a little buggy, and the hardware is a little slow with it.
 
Shep,
Which one are you liking more? The MX1 or the G4? or are they both working the same?

When can we expect the write up on your website about these?
Thanks
 
rudedog89 said:
Shep,
Which one are you liking more? The MX1 or the G4? or are they both working the same?

When can we expect the write up on your website about these?
Thanks
Click to expand...

I'm still trying to get the Neo G4 to some sort of stable point to actually test it sufficiently.

The Neo G4 scores better in AnTuTu, however it has been plagued with lockups and crashes for me. I've been trying every method possible to reflash the firmware, rooted, unrooted, removal of apps, etc.

At the moment, the MX1 is getting my vote over the Neo G4 due to the issues that I'm seeing. But mine could be a one off case.

I'll have a writeup soon though, with or without the Neo G4 running up to par. I've got the draft of the 2nd half of the MX1 review in the works, videos are being completed, and the Neo G4 review is being worked on.

UPDATE:

I've requested an RMA from Newegg for the Neo G4. This is just getting to frustrating with how this device is performing or lack there of.
 
Last edited:
I've had one of these Android TV sticks since Oct. The model I have is the UG007 and hardware wise it is near identical to the MX1. I'm actually running a custom MX1 rom in my UG007 and it works nearly perfect.

More info about these devices can be found on this forum
http://www.freaktab.com/forumdisplay.php?110-Android-TV-Players

A few things I want to point out that no one mentioned yet in this thread.
1. Bluetooth does not work with keyboards and mouse yet. Only for file transfers.
2. Make sure to use a powered usb hub
3. The cpu runs very hot and may be the cause of most freezes and crashes. I've added ram heatsinks to my cpu and now seems to be stable.
4. None of the current devices can play 1080p without studder over the network so its best to avoid streaming over the network unless it's 720p or lower. Even 1080p videos on the device locally will have very slight skips, I didn't find it too annoying.
5. Wifi has some stability and limited range issues. I use a USB to RJ45 adapter so I don't have to use wifi and speeds are much better. This seems to be what other people are doing as well.

Overall with custom roms it is a really awesome and capable htpc. New devices are coming out almost monthly so if you can wait then that's what I suggest and then buy one later when most of the bugs have been worked out and has all features functioning. But if you like to tinker and play, it is definitely worth it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top