It seems that most of the devices are configured with options that are more similar than dissimilar. Also, the cases for many of the Android TV Boxes were identical. On board storage at either 8 GB or 16 GB. I found three different types of processors, with a number of cores at 4, 5, and 8, respectively. I started (and ended) my search for an Android TV Box on Amazon. There are too many variants of available hardware. Nothing is perfect, and not all apps available from approved (Google) and unapproved sources will work on an Android TV Box, but not all of the available apps will work on Android-powered phones and tablets either. For example: You can install Kodi by downloading it from the Google Play Store, or from the Kodi site.

Apps are available from the Google Play Store, and there are unapproved repositories as well. The Android operating system is basically a pared down version of its counterpart used in Android powered phones and tablets. These boxes all offer convenience, but limit flexibility.Īn Android TV Box offers the flexibility. Yes, some devices can be rooted and hacked, but not without some effort and the potential risk of “bricking” the device itself. Though these devices are totally plug-n’-play, the media sources are defined by the manufacturer. Unfortunately, when you buy one of these boxes, you buy into the manufacturer’s specific ecosystem. Amazon, Google, Apple, Roku, and Nvidia have become major players in building and supplying TV Boxes to consumers. Today, you don’t have to build your own TV Box. My media servers met the current definition of a TV Box, that is, a device that brings media from both a home network and the Internet to a TV. The computers were connected to a TV either by a S-Cable, later by a DVI cable, and now using a HDMI cable. Typically, these boxes used some flavor of Linux as an operating system with XBMC/Kodi and Plex doing the heavy lifting for movies, music, and photo streaming. In the past, I have taken older computers and converted them into media servers.

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