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Hi, fellow Canadian here. I can only give you the opinion on the only Android Box I have experience with: my own.

I bought a Minix Neo X8-H Plus (X8H Plus) Smart TV Box Mini PC and Media Streaming Player from Amazon back in March and I am really really happy with it. I bought one that was capable of playing 4K content and this Christmas I got a 4K TV. I think I'll copy the review I did back in April on Amazon and at the end I'll add a few more comments:

>>"I have had this device for almost a week now so I have tinkered with it a bit and I think I have a pretty good feel for its capabilities.
The only drawbacks I find with this device isn't really device specific, it's more due to the OS. Unrooted Android devices won't let you run samba servers so you can share the content of the attached hard drives with the rest of your network (I don't have any macs btw, I think they are an exception).

>>It's a minor gripe really. It still allows me to transfer files from the hard drives to my other network devices with ES File Explorer.

>>I prefer to use my minix via ethernet connection rather than wifi but some apps assume I am not connected to the internet when no wifi connection is established. A minor inconvenience.

>>Overall this is a HUGE improvement over my last device, a WDTV Live. The Minix Neo X8-H Plus is a beast of a machine, I really really like it and it has been totally worth every penny."

Ok, so since my early review I have rooted it (quite simple really) and I have shared the contents of my connected HDDs to my network. I ditched the minix specific kodi version that came with the device and I installed kodi from google play. I also have played plenty of games with my PS3 wireless controller which is fun. Having Nova Launcher installed makes a big difference, the native UI/UX sucks but you can change it without rooting. For some reason the device is still on Kitkat but I don't really care, it's fine with me.

Any questions you care to ask and I'll be more than happy to answer.

I bought a boxee box for about $40 (shipping included in the price) only problem is you need to buy a usb remote. I would also recommend a USB 3.0 32 GB flash drive. All you have to do is root it and put the xbmc files on the USB flash drive.

Boxee Box on eBay

USB Flash Drive I bought

USB Remote

It comes out to be about $80. YOu can definitely find a cheaper remoe but I strongly recommend this one because it best resembles the boxee remote.

If you choose the boxee here is the rooting guide. It is really easy execute.

Tutorial for Root

XBMC Tutorial I recommend you run it off of the USB if you like the Boxee OS and/or have netflix.

EDIT: Forgot to add that it has been running perfectly smooth for me. And the design of the boxee is a bit different and I like the way it sits on the tv stand.

I use a URC-WR7 (http://www.universalremote.com/product_details.php?id=63&s=diy&c=remotes&p=URC-WR7), basically a very nice programmable IR remote. It's a bit bulky, but very versatile.

I also have a Logitech K400 keyboard, but it's a bit annoying. My PC is a bit further and in a cabinet, so the keyboard has issues connecting.

I recently got an air mouse (MX3/generic, http://www.amazon.com/Aerb-Multifunction-Wireless-Keyboard-3-Gsensor/dp/B00K768DHY). I like it the most so far; the keys are very clicky, it's a very good size, it has a few programmable R buttons, it has a keyboard, the air mouse is very good. The only thing I don't like is that you switch from remote-mode to air-mouse-mode, and the switching button doesn't "take" unless you hold it down for a few seconds to lock it in. This is my favorite so far. Highly recommended, and very cheap to boot.

Oh yeah, I also have a Rii. It hasn't been very reliable for me, although when it works it's good. It's cumbersome as a "remote" though.

I installed the Netflix Windows 8 application and XBMC.

I then installed OblyTile and created a custom large button at the Start menu/tile interface for XBMC (needed to customize the tile with the XBMC logo, but wasn't tough). I also added the Netflix tile right next to it, large as well.

I installed Chrome (browser of choice) and created two smaller tiles that were links to bookmarks in Chrome, YouTube and Google Music.

Change the background of the Start/tile interface to something dark with a little bit of a pattern. Looks very clean and crisp.

I use a Logitech K400 right now. I have a Logitech 650 and Flirc I want to finish setting up, but I haven't had the chance to tinker with that aspect yet.

Overall, Windows 8.1 and XBMC + Netflix works really well. The Netflix app is stellar and XBMC keeping XBMC full screen (hitting "\") and just hitting the Windows button to get out of it/go to Netflix is very smooth and user friendly. I prefer it over the Apple TV and my Ouya by far.

And I built it with the very affordable Intel NUC DN2820FYK, which accepts 2.5" HDs.

I bought it and returned it. The air mouse function turns off every time you press a button. Fine if you only use xbmc but I wanted to browse the internet with it. I ended up getting this one and it works great: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00K768DHY

Takes some time to set up but once it's working it's good. I have the number keys set to shortcuts like full screen/tab.

The Logitech k400 is still my go-to. I use the remote if I feel lazy and want to use one hand.

I use yatse when I stream media to my tablet and when I have my tablet in my hand already.
For guests and pstvl I use This


It controls my android device running xbmc, my lg sound bar for volume, and turns my vizio tv on and off. Has a few quirks but I love it. And it looks and acts like a typical remote so conversion to a htpc has been easier.

Well I'm on the same boat on you, but ASUS just released this pretty awesome device, I'd recommend waiting it out and seeing if it's possible to run Openelec on it.

I used to love my MCE remotes, but nowThe Sony RMVLZ620 mixed with a Flirc is the best solution i've found. The Sony has IR learning and macros, while the flirc lets you easily program all the buttons to any keyboard shortcut imaginable.

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-RMVLZ620-Universal-Remote-Control/dp/B00385XUG0

The Amazon FireTV is essentially a mini computer, just like the OUYA, that you can run XBMC on. http://www.amazon.com/Fire-TV-streaming-media-player/dp/B00CX5P8FC


In my opinion (and the popular opinion I think) is that the FireTV is a much better value for an XBMC box than the OUYA. It only costs around $30 more, but it is so much more powerful it'll be able to handle just about anything you throw at it mediawise. The heaviest of skins can be a tad laggy at times (I had to switch off Aeon MQ5, but some people say they run it fine) but it handles Aeon Nox for me flawlessly.

Synology is a brand that makes NAS systems. They are a bit more expensive than competitor brands (and much more expensive than building one yourself), but they have unrivaled reliability and easy of use.

I use an Android app to run an FTP server on the FireTV so that right now, using a non-NAS setup, I can leave my USB hard drive plugged into the FireTV and be able to transfer over new media wirelessly (rather than unplugging, transferring, replugging, and remounting the drive). This won't be a concern once I have a NAS system setup since everything will be accessing the storage wirelessly (or through an ethernet connection) at that point.

1. As others have said, a celeron NUC is more than powerful enough these days for high bitrate 1080p video playback. It will almost certainly not fair well with next gen software-decoded h.265 content. You need a beast for that stuff. Fortunately, hardly any of that exists.
   
   
2. Since you are using Kodi on your Note 2, you don't need transcoding, so it doesn't really matter how strong the CPU of the server is. Your Note 2 is performing the video decoding.
   
   
   I've got the DN2820FYK running OpenELEC. I pretty much never need to restart it. Here's my setup:
   
   4GB DDR3L RAM
   
   Xbox 360 Remote
   
   Rosewill MCE Remote for after I got sick of the 360 remote not having a stop button.
   
   Getting an SSD is overkill, but I like it because it ensures the NUC is quiet and boots about as fast as possible. All of them are small enough. Here's one with decent reviews that's especially small.
   
   
   As far as noise goes, I've never personally heard the NUC. I live in an apartment though. It's possible if you put it in some kind of sound deadened room, you might hear it, if you've got really good ears.

Intel NUC with 64GB SSD and 16GB RAM mounted to the back of the VESA hole of my TV, running XBMC by default, this ubuntu machine also couples as my steambox.

I run a FreeNAS 4TB ( ZFS ) array on the backend, I have a dedicated sabnzbd, sickbeard, couchpotato, subsonic server hosted on an i7 mac mini running Linux + KVM hypervisor. Each host has their respective mounts on the NAS mounted locally VIA NFS, everything is thrown in a 'download' directory before its picked up by post-processing scripts in order to organize the library and I only keep 1 copy.

Oh, and this Keyboard // Mouse Combo ROCKS

The coolest thing about my setups is the Reverse Proxy in my DMZ, I'm able to serve up my Sickbeard, CouchPotato, Subsonic and Sab web interfaces to the internet so I can access them anywhere with a pretty tight level of security.

Does anyone else use CouchPotato's IMDB automatic RSS scanning // download feature? That's cool too.

Both of those are horrible deals. They're not bad boxes, but you can get MUCH better hardware for $150 USD.

Get an Intel NUC and add some RAM and a USB boot drive: http://amzn.com/B00HVKLSVC

That will be the best bang for your buck.

For cheaper, I would recommend ODROID-U3 or an OUYA.

So I thought it over and it dawned one me that I could just get a wireless keyboard and mouse. I guess I could have spent less and got the remote but I figured if my keyboard or mouse ever craps out for some reason I can use the wireless ones. I also chose this because I am impatient and and if it doesn't work for some reason I can bring it back to the store and not have to deal with the hassle of shipping. I looked around at a few places and I came across this. It was on sale for $29.99. I liked that I could have a decent sized keyboard and it had the mouse option all in one. It works quite well. I do want to thank you though for giving me the idea!

Where the media is located is not much of an issue. If it is available on the LAN, then XBMC can be pointed to it, and it will catalog it all.


If you just need some SD capability, you may want to check out /r/linux_devices.



For the record, I don't think there is much to do with the bxox that won't turn on. But if you can get the other one to boot to a game, instead of the modded firmware, you may want to try soft-modding it.



As far as my recommendation, I have had my Aspire Revo 1600 since about 2008, and it has never failed me. I have a USB surround sound adapted for it, and a usb dongle for a remote control. It easily handles HDTV streaming. I installed an internal WiFi card as well. It handles XBMCbuntu Beautifully. I bought mine for $200 back when it was new.



If you are going to have old hardware laying around anyway, why not just recycle that? Or is it too bulky to have in the living room?



If you do want to buy a new device? What is your price range?



After doing a quick search, here is one option that might work for you: http://www.amazon.com/Companion-802-11n-Ethernet-Official-Sponsor/dp/B0088IGPM8

I've been quite happy with the FAVI Entertainment Smartstick. It's a remote control sized keyboard and touchpad mouse. It's RF so line of sight is not an issue. It works with most devices that support an external USB keyboard/mouse.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0090BTY8Y/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B7I8HZ4/

throw 2gb ram in that, buy a power cord, msata ssd or USB flash drive, and an IR USB device (like FLIRC) and you've got a pretty nice setup for under $250. I recommend installing OpenELEC, which is basically XBMC wrapped up in a barebones linux distro.

Agreed, absolutely love mine.

You may also consider looking at the Chromebox -

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-CHROMEBOX-M004U-ASUS-Desktop/dp/B00IT1WJZQ

A little bit more processing power, less money for an out the door setup. I don't have personal experience with them, but wiping the stock system and installing XBMC seems to be pretty trivial -

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=ASUS_Chromebox

This is the HTPC build that I put together about 6 months ago which comes in pretty close to the $300 mark at current prices; though I'm confident some of these were on sale when I bought. I have all my media on a separate unraid box which streams to this one.

• M350 Case $43
  
• Celeron G1610 $41
  
• ECS H61H2-TI Thin ITX $75
  
• CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 $46
  
• MyDigitalSSD 60GB MSATA SSD $60
  
  = $265
  
  These are items that I already had but it's only fair to account for them too
  
  
• laptop power supply $8
  
• Logitech k400 keyboard/mouse $24
  
• Media Center remote < $20

I bought this remote/dongle combo several years ago. I got it because it was the cheapest I could find, but it works surprisingly well. It works well enough that I don't see why anyone would buy the more expensive remotes. You can even control your mouse with it.

I've used openelec and XBIAN. So far XBIAN has been the best for me. I bought this remote some time ago when it was a bit cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0090BTY8Y/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I think you might be able to find something better.

Logitech K400, very handy compact keyboard with touchpad.

I think there is a newer version of this though - I recommended this to a friend and when I saw it I noticed the F# keys are switched:

Instead of mine, which has F1-F12 normal and you have to hold [Fn]+[F#] to access the media features, the newer versions have the F1-F12 keys as the[Fn] alternative and the top row is by default the media keys.

This is very handy since the kids keep hitting wrong buttons, and I can't remember what it is but I think it's F8 and XBMC gets muted, and there is another button that toggles fullscreen and that keeps getting hit after I get it back to fullscreen.

On the newer version you don't have to worry about that because you would have to hit [Fn]+[F8] to actually get F8. So it's a perfect HTPC keyboard now if you buy one.

I bought THIS. I use it exclusively with openELEC and when I hooked it up my router was about 40 FT from my box.

THIS is running on my Raspberry pi openElec box that is right now about 15 feet from the router (on a different floor)

I haven't tested the range on either, but both work great.

ZOTAC ZBOX-ID41-U (used)

Crucial 64 GB SSD (used)

[Crucial 4GB DDR3 Memory] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KB21KA/ref=oh_details_o02_s01_i00)

Seagate 1TB External HD

Total Money Spent: $357.48

Using my laptop in another room to rip blu rays straight on to this external HD over wireless network, also to do the compression. Works great!

I've got this and a flirc. It's not as fancy as a Logitech, but works really well. You can lock the volume controls to a certain device, so even when using TV, Blu-Ray, HTPC, you can still change the volume and mute without pressing the button for your receiver.

FireTV $99 or less. Runs XBMC 13.1 quite well in my limited testing. Getting it set up to replace the Amazon home screen is a bit fiddly, but probably well worth the effort.

Yes, exactly that. Just about everything renders as expected and looks great on the big tv screen. Getting around in some apps can be kind of a pain with just the remote, though. I got a Logitech K400 to remedy that and can run pretty much anything I sideload.

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Built-In-Multi-Touch/dp/B005DKZTMG

A very quick search I found this. I'm sure you could find a better deal if you took a little more time.

So far this has been my favorite. The mouse side of things is fairly responsive, the arrow keys are placed in a good spot to use as the primary method of navigation in xbmc. The back space key, ideally would be one step higher up. But it's still not too bad.

I think the biggest downside for you would be lack of keyboard lighting. Otherwise I love the thing. And it's only $15.

That said, I have another similar looking one. And it's terrible. The keys are stiff, and the reception is outright terrible. I swear it struggles at anything over a distance of four feet. So avoid the black one, and go for the white if you're interested.

DN2820FYKH runs XBMC (I've been using XBMCBuntu on this one) just fine. This is the celeron NUC. I put 8gb of ram in it and a standard sata hard drive. No built in Bluetooth on this one though, so I use a little USB Bluetooth dongle and a replacement Amazon FireTV remote. Works awesome.

Logitech k400 us what I use its awesome it has a touch mouse and keyboard and its a nice size mini

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005DKZTMG?cache=31091e2d8cf8f4b61df481f545f8ea00&pi=SX200_QL40&qid=1409911189&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Also the remote on gbox mx2 works flawless on xbmc Linux. I'm no pro at all this but I hope this help s

I use this hdd dock with a 2TB HDD with my rpi (raspmbc). The performance is decent for scrolling through my large library and perfect performance for playback.

http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-BlacX-eSATA-Docking-Station/dp/B001A4HAFS/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1394941488&sr=8-9&keywords=hdd+dock

I prefer the Asus Chromebox. It is 69$ more than the Amazon Fire TV but it has much better specs:


-Intel Haswell architecture instead of ARM CPU (good difference in term of performance)

-16 GB SSD internal storage instead of 8 GB

-Ethernet 10/100/1000 instead of 10/100

-Intel HD 4000 instead of Qualcomm Adreno 320

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-CHROMEBOX-M004U-ASUS-Desktop/dp/B00IT1WJZQ

Well I have the cinema experience addon, and would need something that could handle all that as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-DN2820FYKH-Celeron-N2820-support/dp/B00HVKLSVC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412438368&sr=8-1&keywords=intel+nuc+celeron

That's the one?

You wish you had a remote for your computer? Why not just get a remote and IR receiver?

$7 USB IR Remote on Amazon

Can you find one in stock at that price? Amazon has them sold out for a month an half and any other vendor has them jacked up the price.

Also, there are more than one older model that doesn't come with ethernet, the next two cheapest don't. After that you're looking at over $250 for just the NUC not including ram etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Next-Computing-Black-BOXDCCP847DYE/dp/B00B7I8HZ4/ref=pd_sim_sbs_pc_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=1NVP58ED253BMYQ45ASD

and

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Next-Computing-Thunderbolt-i3-3217UDC3217BY/dp/B0093LINT2/ref=pd_sim_sbs_pc_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1NVP58ED253BMYQ45ASD

Pivos Xios

Currently $98 on Amazon.

Android TV Box with its rudimentary remote:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JDCO22I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Remotes:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B9996LA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003UE52ME/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have this one. Only suggestion I can give you is get a wireless keyboard Http://www.amazon.com/MINIX-Streaming-Processor-Airmouse-included/dp/B00Q4NEUS0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1422153049&sr=8-2&keywords=minix&pebp=1422153077229&peasin=B00Q4NEUS0

Very. You just have to burn Raspbmc or OpenElec (different XBMC distributions for the Pi) to the SD card, plug in a wifi dongle (I use this one), boot the thing up, and everything just works.

Logos + 100 pack of sticker paper? It isnt free but you could make around 200 stickers for $17.99 plus shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0088IGPM8

I've seen them for as low as $89.99 on newegg.

Edit: The GBox 2 or OUYA would work too.

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Media-Remote/dp/B005FMLZQQ/ref=dp_ob_title_vg

I'm looking at that one. The biggest thing I'm worrying about is being able to re-program the buttons. I'm going to be switching out of programs and emulators launched from XBMC on full screen with no mouse or keyboard so I need a button I can program ALT-F4 too

I know about the failure rate etc (most of it seems to be on 3TB drives)

Does anybody know how this compares to this:
Seagate Expansion 5TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0

it's only $15 more...

CuBox that you are talking about is $109 when you get Wi-Fi. This is a dual core cpu with 1GB of RAM.

OR just get the Amazon Fire TV for just $99 which has a quad core cpu and 2 GB of RAM. Wi-Fi is also included with no additional cost.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CX5P8FC?pc_redir=1408756760&robot_redir=1

Why get this CuBox over the Fire TV?