First off, lets start with how this package arrived. The packaging was actually quite nice, with it arriving in a solid white cardboard box with a lot of information printed on it. The front of the packaging showed the actual device, the fact it can be used as a media centre etc. The sides of the packaging had some more information, with one side showing the fact it had KODI pre-installed, another showing that it has Gigabit internet support and another side showing that it supports 4k, which is pretty impressive.
Inside the actual packaging, you are greeted with some accessories. Alongside the actual box itself, you get a remote which is plastic, but feels solid. You also get a USB-Micro USB adaptor, a HDMI cable and the power cable. The included HDMI cable is really useful!
As for ports, it has a HDMI port, Ethernet Port, Two USB ports, an AV port, an SD card slot and a Micro USB slot/ OTG port as its called on the box.
Next up we have the actual software. Upon booting it says 'Google TV', Not android TV and then comes up with a 'Android' screen. Checking the settings, it has android 5.1.1 lollipop, which is a small bit dated now that Android 6.0.1 is out for Android TV. It does have a pre-installed launcher, which is pretty good and easy to use for a TV launcher. Since it is Android you can go to the play store and install another launcher such as Nova if you so wish!.
The box does come pre-rooted, which is really good. There are a few pre-installed apps as well, such as two games, TV cleaner (which thankfully can be uninstalled) and the main one, Kodi. This bx was my first time ever using Kodi, and I have to say its amazing. I was able to watch a lot of episodes of series that I like watching etc and it was just a really useful feature to have on the box. You, of course, can also download other streaming apps such as Netflix from the playstore and choose to watch series on them. I had to connect my mouse and keyboard to the actual box, as it was just getting very award to move around with the remote, however my mouse and keyboard worked perfectly with the box. What was kind of weird though is there are two settings menu, a stock android settings menu and an android TV type of one.
Performance wise, its smooth. I played a few games such as Asphalt 8, Need for Speed, Real Racing 3 etc on the box and they all played smoothly with little to no lag. I did notice however that the wifi connectivity was pretty iffy, and it would show that I have full bars but when I launched an internet app such as the play store or netflix it would show that I do not have any connectivity, which is pretty strange.
I did have to use the box as my main computing device for awhile as my Macbook's HDD had died, so I used it to type up reviews, communicate with friends etc and it was surprisingly very usable. I didn't really expect it would be able to communicate like that.
Overall, this box is.. different. It is more like a box that just has android on it, rather then a Nexus Player type box which has full Android TV, maybe the Settings menu shows this and the Android TV variant of the settings menu was pre-installed afterwards as an APK. The play store is also like a Normal Android variant and not like the one on my Sony Android TV, and it has a notification shade, something which normal android TV boxes do not. My guess is that they just added 'Google TV' as a boot animation to the box. However, it is a good android box and I really wouldn't say 'Do not buy this'. I would have to recommend it to anybody who is looking for a cheap yet good android box. It is better then other competition out there at this price range!
If you want one, then click here!
Related
Hope this is the correct location for this thread for this, I apologize if it isn't.
I am trying to connect to an apple TV device (to display my tablet on a projector wirelessly) and all the apps I have found only allow me to show videos, pictures or music. I would like to have it mirror my screen. I tried the mirror screen button and I can't get it to recognize the apple TV device.
Is this function not available for android users (my friend with an Ipad can quickly and easily connect to it and it shows his desktop and his browser when accesses the internet) or do I need to be rooted or is there a specific app that I"ve overlooked?
Thank you so much.
Sithlyone said:
Hope this is the correct location for this thread for this, I apologize if it isn't.
I am trying to connect to an apple TV device (to display my tablet on a projector wirelessly) and all the apps I have found only allow me to show videos, pictures or music. I would like to have it mirror my screen. I tried the mirror screen button and I can't get it to recognize the apple TV device.
Is this function not available for android users (my friend with an Ipad can quickly and easily connect to it and it shows his desktop and his browser when accesses the internet) or do I need to be rooted or is there a specific app that I"ve overlooked?
Thank you so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went through this path before and let me tell you...It's not worth the trouble try to mirror your phone to your Apple TV. I found a really solution is to get an Android TV box (just like your phone) and plug directly to your TV and you have Android device on your TV. The device is very compact (as small as a usb stick) but running Android 4.4 quad core and what ever you can do with your phone, you could do the same with TV box. You also could use your phone/tablet/wireless keyboard or wireless mouse to control the Android TV box. So you don't need to use your phone to stream/mirror any more because your TV is now your phone...basically...or you could download apps (many to choose from) from playstore to stream video/pictures from your phone to TV if you still wish to do so.
buhohitr said:
I went through this path before and let me tell you...It's not worth the trouble try to mirror your phone to your Apple TV. I found a really solution is to get an Android TV box (just like your phone) and plug directly to your TV and you have Android device on your TV. The device is very compact (as small as a usb stick) but running Android 4.4 quad core and what ever you can do with your phone, you could do the same with TV box. You also could use your phone/tablet/wireless keyboard or wireless mouse to control the Android TV box. So you don't need to use your phone to stream/mirror any more because your TV is now your phone...basically...or you could download apps (many to choose from) from playstore to stream video/pictures from your phone to TV if you still wish to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply, however I'm not attempting to connect to my TV or my personal projector so I can't install my own device to it.
Is there a thread already discussing this out there? I couldn't find one.
Are there any other options?
Thank you
Is your Apple TV connected to your projector?
buhohitr said:
Is your Apple TV connected to your projector?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is.
Sithlyone said:
It is.
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Click to collapse
Maybe you don't understand what's Android TV box, it's exactly like your Apple TV, but it's running Android 4.4 O/S which is exactly like your cell phone and it comes in 2 different size. First size is small like Rogu or Apple TV, second size is as small as an USB stick. The biggest different is it acts just like your phone. It plugged directly to your projector. So when you turn on the TV box you will see Android on the screen with youtube, browser, Facebook, Gmail, hotmail,contacts, calendar, map, gps, google drive cloud storage etc...it can connect through your home wifi or direct ethernet. Search youtube for "Android TV box" once you have this, you will cut Netflix, Hulu plus, Amazon prime, because it will provide you with the LATEST movies/TV show in HD quality for free. So at the end you don't need your phone anymore to push content to your projector, the Android TV box can do exactly what your phone can do, but you also have option to push content from your phone to the TV box in order to display on your projector too...as a bonus. You also can use your phone/tablet to control this box if you don't want to use its remote. In short, its like you connect your phone directly to the projector but you still have your real phone to make calls.
buhohitr said:
Maybe you don't understand what's Android TV box, it's exactly like your Apple TV, but it's running Android 4.4 O/S which is exactly like your cell phone and it comes in 2 different size. First size is small like Rogu or Apple TV, second size is as small as an USB stick. The biggest different is it acts just like your phone. It plugged directly to your projector. So when you turn on the TV box you will see Android on the screen with youtube, browser, Facebook, Gmail, hotmail,contacts, calendar, map, gps, google drive cloud storage etc...it can connect through your home wifi or direct ethernet. Search youtube for "Android TV box" once you have this, you will cut Netflix, Hulu plus, Amazon prime, because it will provide you with the LATEST movies/TV show in HD quality for free. So at the end you don't need your phone anymore to push content to your projector, the Android TV box can do exactly what your phone can do, but you also have option to push content from your phone to the TV box in order to display on your projector too...as a bonus. You also can use your phone/tablet to control this box if you don't want to use its remote. In short, its like you connect your phone directly to the projector but you still have your real phone to make calls.
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Click to collapse
You were right, I didn't know what an android box was. Thank you.
With that said I still don't if that will work for me. The projector is not my personal item and the apple tv is not mine either, they are used by many of us. If ipads and iphones can't connect to it then your solution (as good as it is) won't fix my problem.
Will the device connect to ipads/iphones?
Sithlyone said:
You were right, I didn't know what an android box was. Thank you.
With that said I still don't if that will work for me. The projector is not my personal item and the apple tv is not mine either, they are used by many of us. If ipads and iphones can't connect to it then your solution (as good as it is) won't fix my problem.
Will the device connect to ipads/iphones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You be the judge!! Everything is possible with Android!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShukqM6TxQY
So i had the AFTV up and running for about 3 weeks and there are some great things but few annoying issues are out waving all pros in my view. I only use it for xbmc as media center. I am curious to hear how other are using and feel about it.
Pros
1) Really great hardware and Spec for $70 which is what i paid and it is hard to find anything out there with these spec, plus remote for this price.
2) xbmc is super fast so are other update, everything loads up fast.
Cons:
1) The amount of storage capacity that is actually available for usage after installing few things is 3.5gb and i don't have single game installed.
2) Recently noticed wifi and wired connection issued, unable to connect or connected with a problem. Try rebooting AFTV many times but didn't work until i rebooted my router. All my other devices were working fine except AFTV.
3) unable to view sideload apps under apps menu.
4) unable to actually shut down the box, beside unplugging the power supply
5) Remote is great but gosh it would have been awesome if it was an universal remote that would control your tv with basic functions channel and volume button instead of voice search.
6) Unable to actually use the USB as external storage, my AFTV out of the box from amazon had 4.85gb free space from (5.49 gb) and the box it self has 8gb. Yes i know you can increased your storage after you have rooted your fire tv and i have rooted but amazon has just put one too many blocks for average user.
7) Forcing auto updates to AFTV and not letting user decided if they want to update or not.
8) i am always scared something will go wrong with AFTV since so many folks have managed to brick the fire tv and there is no way to fix it.
Personally for xbmc i love my Raspberry Pi B, sure it slower and not sexy as AFTV but never has to worry about bricking it and i have this running in my living room running for over 1 year with any issues except i may have to reboot is once or twice a week cuz some addon takes for ever and i just don't have patient. It plays 1080 and 3d movies flawless once you run this things on 8gb USB 3.0 with 0 cache setting.
If Amazon goal was to use the AFTV just for there echo system than this leads me believe with future firmware updates they will remove the ability for user to side load apps. Anyone else see this as possibility?
Thank you
I have a Fire TV, a Flirc, and a vintage MX-500 universal remote clone.
The Fire is un-rooted, have OTA turned off, and I have side-loaded FiredTV, Firefox, Adobe Flash, and Kodi with 1Channel, IceFlims, and Genesis. (Two out of the three I don't even use.)
Pros
2) I've had many streaming devices. This is far and away the best hardware.
Cons
1) Did I read another post by you that the box is actually complaining about running out of storage?
EDIT: Nope. Wasn't you.
2) If you can't resolve this as a network or setup or ISP issue, I'd be concerned that your box might be defective.
3) FiredTV.
4) Flirc for sleep/wake. The majority of streaming devices are expected to stay on and either go to sleep or deep sleep. That way they wake up instantly and can accept (unauthorized) OTA updates.
5) I'm sending back a Harmony 650. But if I hadn't already had what Remote Central says is one of the best they'd ever tested, I might have kept it.
6) True. But not a show-stopper for me.
7) Turn off OTA updates. This isn't unique to the Fire TV.
8) Only happens when you dink with it. :cyclops: Not really a con though, is it?
I have a Pi B. I also have a Neo X5 and just gave my sister a Roku 3. The performance of those devices pales significantly when compared to the Fire TV. IMHO. Of all the devices I've had over the last several years, barring any defects, all were functional but useability on some was questionable. The Fire TV stands head and shoulders above the crowd in performance. Now if Amazon would only get their head out of their posterior and sell a more open device maybe "with special features," I think they'd take the market by storm. It's already their #1 selling item.
I know the unit wasn't designed for this, but in theory can a Fire TV or even Fire TV Stick be used to just play back locally stored content?
I'm on the fence to get one of these for my home use (especially seeing it run Kodi/XMBC), but if I could use it for work presentations or backyard projectors, I'd be sold in a heartbeat! To be clear, these are situations in which there is no WiFi signal or device streaming to it... rather, I'd like to have locally stored media that it can play back in either Kodi or the Android version of VLC. Having a nice little device and remote seems far simpler and enjoyable versus hooking up my honking laptop to do those things.
Thoughts?
I was going to just pick up a Stick today for the $24 sale price and figure it out myself, but it appears I was too late. Am I better off with something else?
It should work as a local player with apps like MX Player, Kodi and VLC. Just that the stick has a few gbs of storage that can be used to store movies and to add movies you need to do it wirelessly or through adbfire. The Fire TV box can use HDs which can help with having the movies there. But if a portable player is what you want just use your phone with movies in a microsd, install mx player or Kodi and use a HDMI to microusb cable. That way you always have your player with you and only need that 6 dlls cable.
solorzano_felipe said:
It should work as a local player with apps like MX Player, Kodi and VLC. Just that the stick has a few gbs of storage that can be used to store movies and to add movies you need to do it wirelessly or through adbfire. The Fire TV box can use HDs which can help with having the movies there. But if a portable player is what you want just use your phone with movies in a microsd, install mx player or Kodi and use a HDMI to microusb cable. That way you always have your player with you and only need that 6 dlls cable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might want to double check that.... In theory you are correct, but in personal experience no internet means no loading of the home menu, meaning can't run anything at all. This may have changed or there may be a way around it, not 100% sure.
Solorzano, the idea is to have a dedicated player, not use my phone. That's why I originally dismissed the idea of a Chromecast... Sometimes I set up these boxes at fundraising events and hand all the hardware over to someone else to project. I'm often handling other technicalities of the event, or not even on location once they play it! I've been using my laptop to feed the presentation until now, but I'd rather not dedicate my laptop to the cause each time.
I'm actually leaning more towards one of those Kit-Kat quad core media boxes from china for this reason. They have USB ports (multiple ones!) and are much faster than the Fire TV Stick, maybe even faster than the Fire TV Box, for half the price. Only catch is that I won't be able to stream Amazon content if I ever wanted to do that at home (looking to make this a dual-purpose work and home purchase), but I think its a better suited device for everything else I want to do.
Thanks guys!
I posted a similar question elsewhere here, one responder stated that if you have Firestarter installed then you can go to that home screen and use apps, even though you can't go to the standard FireTV home screen. I haven't tried it yet, I'm not home where my Stick is.
Regarding a "standard" Android box, I have a Matricom G-box Q, I can watch Amazon videos with it using the Amazon Instant app. It basically takes you to the Amazon Instant home page (I have this defaulted to use Chrome), then when you select a video just choose the Amazon Instant app for playback. I seem to remember it was a little weird to install, something like: I installed it, I ran it, and then during the first run it asks if you want to install the app again, if you do it seems to work.
Terry T, yes with firestarter you can get to kodi. You can also go to the settings manage apps way of launching provided parental control is not on. The pin is verified on Amazons server. However, assuming you at least have wifi with an internet outtage you can also launch Kodi with firestarter, wukong remote or Apps Shortcut for FireTV. These methods bypass the parental PIN number
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Thanks guys! Next question: If I go with the Stick version, which lacks expandable storage or USB storage, is there a relatively easy way to load files onto the internal memory? For example, if I need to play a specific mp4 file at an event, can I sideload it over Wifi at home first, then show up the event and play it with kodi?
Yes, sideload ES File Explorer. You can cut or copy (long press, then the file is selected and options are at the bottom of the screen) from either a shared drive on your network or from a cloud source like Dropbox to the Stick. You will have to tell Kodi or whatever video player you are using where you saved the file.
I looked for an hour this morning looking for Tab S4 communities I could bother with my noobie questions - I've already posted twice here - but haven't found much. Even the Samsung communities aren't specific to the tab S4. I'm not a "developer" in the strict sense of the word - I have an account here related to a couple of android apps I'm on beta for. So I hope you'll bear with me. If there are any other good Tab S4 forums out there, please point me to them!
I'm a home user. I've mostly replaced my laptop with my tablet. About the only things I do anymore on the laptop are taxes, purchasing airplane tickets, and managing my library with Calibre. I'm a light tablet user of Microsoft Office, heavy on banking/bills, books, video, web browsing, and games. My previous tablet was a 64gb Tab S2. I traded up for the memory and speed. The Tab S4 gets me nominally to 656 gb (256 gb + 400 gb card). I probably have a terabyte or so of data, so not quite able to cut the cord, but 90% of the way there.
So I've read a lot about DeX, but still don't really understand what it is and why people use it. I don't have a keyboard yet (but can see that most of the cases for the Tab S4 on Amazon seem to include them). Can someone post a primer on DeX, what it is, how people use it, and how you use it yourself? Maybe eventually this could go into a guide-post? Why do people talk about it as a game changer?
I'm going to be posting a similar question on the S-Pen.
Thanks,
Joe
I think your best bet is to take a look at a few videos on DeX on YouTube. Here is one below but there's quite a few out there.
Basically it's to give users who are familiar with Windows a similar experience on Android;at least one of their goals. If you are pretty proficient with Android, you probably won't use it. I played with it but don't think I will use it much.
So I've played with DEX.
My thoughts are mixed. I crashed it twice in the first 5 minutes I had it up.
Thoughts on Dex after two weeks with the tablet:
I'm using an Insignia USB-C to HDMI+Type-C Power+USB-A adaptor, with a wired keyboard connected to the USB input and a bluetooth mouse. The adaptor works, but I ocassionally get pop-ups that it is charging slowly with the original lightning power supply & charge cable.
I started using Dex on the fly. Opened Watch ESPN, You Tube, Chrome, and VLC, and boom, system crash. I closed everything and started over, this time I only opened ESPN, and while it was connecting to Live video, another crash. So I stopped playing with streaming video apps.
Running local video (located on my external SD card) with VLC and MX Player was "fine"... As in "Fine is a good word. Put it together with 'wine' or 'dining' and you've really got something." Running at high video quality there were pauses and stutters during playback. Resolution seemed higher than with Chromecast (using VLC -- MX Player still doesn't support native casting).
I also got low-memory warnings a few times while I was playing around with multiple apps / windows. I think I read somewhere that the new Galaxy phones have twice the Ram in the Tab S4. That seems like a missed opportunity for enhanced productivity in a tablet that is supposed to compete with high end ipas and low end laptops.
My only excitement was with Excel. Excel is the main reason I can't fully cut the laptop cord (pun intended). It just is too hard cutting and pasting and moving cells around in Excel to do even light spreadsheets in Android Excel. In DeX, Excel was much more like the Windows desktop experience.
There are only a few other apps "optimized" for DeX (I'mnot really sure what it means to be "optimized" - but such it is), and they didn't seem to have significant improvements over the standard Android experience.
One thing that would take Dex to the next level is if it got the ability to run an extended desktop, like a second monitor on Windows. I've been able to figure out how to bring the TV up as a second computer (leaving the tablet to run stock Android), or in mirror mode (which I'm running now because I started this post on my tablet, and then brought Dex on, and was told I needed to close and lose all open windows on my tablet browser when I opened the browser in Dex). Mirror mode has an interesting feature -- the on-screen keyboard is docked at the bottom of the browser window, and there doesn't seem to be a way to hide it even though I'm using an external USB keyboard and BT mouse.
I think what I'm trying to say is that Dex has some intriguing features, but nothing that is a showstopper. The one feature that jumps out (getting the desktop experience with Excel) isn't enough to make me want to move from stock Android to Dex as a regular choice.
Thanks,
Joe
Greetings,
I'm trying to mirror the screen of my Samsung Galaxy A3 Smartphone (using the pre-installed "Smart View" app) on a Sony KD-49XD8005 TV (using the pre-installed "Screen Mirroring" app) and it just isn't working. More precisely it isn't working anymore, because some time ago it did work. I can't provide many details, sadly, because it was the TV of my sister back then. I got it from her only a few days ago. Just one thing: it was definitely an older Android TV version back then.
I see the TV on my smartphone, but the connection attempt fails after 1-2 minutes. I see that a WiFi-direct connection gets stablished inbetween, then everything disappears.
I've searched on the internet in the hope to find a solution, but it didn't really work out. Most "guides" are rather useless like "restart everything, install the newest updates on everything" and so on. Some articles advice to turn off the bluetooth connection, which I did.
Some articles suggest to use Google Chromecast via the Google Home app, but that's a bit too much for what I wanted to achieve. All the privileges the app wants, all the stuff about adding "rooms" and what not... Casting via the Google Chrome browser was mentioned a few times as well, but I don't see anything related to this on my smartphone.
So from my understanding there are 3 options:
- getting the current setup to work somehow (not very likely, probably)
- replacing the current "Screen mirroring" app on the TV with the appropriate app from one of the current Sony TVs (would be my preferred solution, I think, but not sure if that works)
- installing some third party Miracast screen mirroring app from the play store (any advices?)
Would be great, if you guys could point me into the right direction here... If there is another option, please let me know. Was looking for a complete AndroidTV ROM as alternative first, but there seems not to be one as far as I saw.
Some details:
After the latest update Android TV 9 is installed on the TV. The version of the pre-installed Screen Mirroring app is 4.1.A.0.8 and it apparently originates from screnmirroring.com
Not sure if the missing "e" is a typo or if there was such a domain at some point. Currently I only can reach screenmirroring.com (with double "e") and this website is about an app called "Castto" from SoomApps, so it's something different, apparently.
Before this TV I had a very old one (not even a smart TV) and was using an Amazon FireTV stick 4k on it. Screen mirroring with the stick was working just fine. Also mirroring the screen of a tablet is working fine with the FireTV stick, so it's the TV, that is causing trouble, not the other devices.
Have you tried Chromecasting to the TV? I Chromecast to my 900e from various devices, including a Samsung tablet.