Best streaming box

Herr der Verboten said:
What about the mecool

Takealot.com: Online Shopping | SA's leading online store

South Africa's leading online store. Fast, reliable delivery to your door. Many ways to pay. Shop anything you can imagine: TVs, laptops, cellphones, kitchen appliances, toys, books, beauty & more. Shop the mobile app anytime, anywhere.
www.takealot.com www.takealot.com
Click to expand...
Mecool is better and faster than the Mi Box S. Very good buy...

It has the newer generation X905X2 processor compared to the older gen X905L on the Mi Box and the updated Mali GPU has much improved performance. Faster loading times and goodbye 4K lag. It's a 4 year older graphics chip on the Mi.
 
You can pick up one of these in Hifi Corp or Incredible at the same price:

Takealot.com: Online Shopping | SA's leading online store

South Africa's leading online store. Fast, reliable delivery to your door. Many ways to pay. Shop anything you can imagine: TVs, laptops, cellphones, kitchen appliances, toys, books, beauty & more. Shop the mobile app anytime, anywhere.
www.takealot.com www.takealot.com

I got one in December and it does the job, and has a 4.8 rating on Takealot too. It's vanilla Android TV but also faster chips ...

CPU: 2.0Ghz Quad Core Cortex A53 AMLogic S905X2
GPU: ARM MaLi G31 MP2, 850MHz

And yes, it also has a LAN port and WiFi, so you're covered.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
You can pick up one of these in Hifi Corp or Incredible at the same price:

Takealot.com: Online Shopping | SA's leading online store

South Africa's leading online store. Fast, reliable delivery to your door. Many ways to pay. Shop anything you can imagine: TVs, laptops, cellphones, kitchen appliances, toys, books, beauty & more. Shop the mobile app anytime, anywhere.
www.takealot.com www.takealot.com

I got one in December and it does the job, and has a 4.8 rating on Takealot too. It's vanilla Android TV but also faster chips ...

CPU: 2.0Ghz Quad Core Cortex A53 AMLogic S905X2
GPU: ARM MaLi G31 MP2, 850MHz

And yes, it also has a LAN port and WiFi, so you're covered.
Click to expand...
I have the same one. It works very well. I couldn't get HDMI-CEC to work, but that wasn't a dealbreaker & I stuck a 32GB flash drive in it for extra storage. If I could dual boot into Linux, then I would be happy...
 
Foxhound5366 said:
You can pick up one of these in Hifi Corp or Incredible at the same price:

Takealot.com: Online Shopping | SA's leading online store

South Africa's leading online store. Fast, reliable delivery to your door. Many ways to pay. Shop anything you can imagine: TVs, laptops, cellphones, kitchen appliances, toys, books, beauty & more. Shop the mobile app anytime, anywhere.
www.takealot.com www.takealot.com

I got one in December and it does the job, and has a 4.8 rating on Takealot too. It's vanilla Android TV but also faster chips ...

CPU: 2.0Ghz Quad Core Cortex A53 AMLogic S905X2
GPU: ARM MaLi G31 MP2, 850MHz

And yes, it also has a LAN port and WiFi, so you're covered.
Click to expand...
:ROFL:

the same "5/5" ratings for durex latext? TA's review system is hardly a good measuring stick.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
No obviously, so I read the reviews as well ... I just reckon you'd get more value from 100+ personal experiences there than a single experience here.
Click to expand...
But a Typical TA 4/5 "works lekker" isn't really helping. Especially if you go into subjective things like audio. Normally I will look at TA Reviews and then check someplace else.
 
Apple tv nommer uno, Nvidia shield if you want android. the rest are just **** and will give you endless problems regardless of what anyone says.
 
Chromecast if you are happy with the idea of using your phone/tablet as a remote and only do youtube or netflix or other things that run in apps on your phone etc.

Nvidia Shield / Shield Pro if you want to do HEVC / HDR playback locally on the device / home network / streamed

NUC if you need grunt for more than just media playback (any recent minisforum or ASUS minipc should work) - emulation, native games etc.
 
agentrfr said:
Chromecast if you are happy with the idea of using your phone/tablet as a remote and only do youtube or netflix or other things that run in apps on your phone etc.

Nvidia Shield / Shield Pro if you want to do HEVC / HDR playback locally on the device / home network / streamed

NUC if you need grunt for more than just media playback (any recent minisforum or ASUS minipc should work) - emulation, native games etc.
Click to expand...
Which nuc, htpc or mini pcs would you recommend for basic usage and then for more intermediate to advanced?
 
agentrfr said:
Chromecast if you are happy with the idea of using your phone/tablet as a remote and only do youtube or netflix or other things that run in apps on your phone etc.

Nvidia Shield / Shield Pro if you want to do HEVC / HDR playback locally on the device / home network / streamed

NUC if you need grunt for more than just media playback (any recent minisforum or ASUS minipc should work) - emulation, native games etc.
Click to expand...
The latest Chromecast now comes with a remote, and is a fully fledged streaming box i.e. all apps.
 
Herr der Verboten said:
Which nuc, htpc or mini pcs would you recommend for basic usage and then for more intermediate to advanced?
Click to expand...
Genuinely any 2021 model intel or AMD NUC from minisforum will work for basic usage (websites, 4k playback, you tubes etc.) and you can go up in price to get more power.

I have one of these coming (tbh definitely overkill for today's purposes but I can dream about 4k120 10 bit right?) to hang behind my TV so we can play anything from my rig over steam streaming plus local emulation everything up to and including ps3/4 (https://store.minisforum.com/products/hx90?variant=40508846768289)
 
Thanks for all the advice, folks. It's greatly appreciated. If it came down to these two budget products, which one would you guys go for? I'm leaning toward the Ematic because the Mediabox only seems to have 4gb of storage and no Micro SD slot

Mediabox
Ematic
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X