Forget the AppleTV3, consider the Mele a2000 - A dedicated xbmc box for $70 or less
#1
This device has been mentioned before - but I feel it needs a bit more attention.

Effectively it is a stylish, energy efficient set top box that runs linux and has USB, SATA, WIFI, Ethernet, better than HD resolution.

The box has already been shown to run ubuntu.

The price: around 70 dollars
The problem: no resellers in the US or Europe.

The A2000 is very similar to the A1000 but has more NAND flash memory.

So what we have is a device that is cheaper than the appletv3, faster, better connectivity and more customisable.

Perhaps someone has the means to order a bunch of these at a reduced price and make them more accessible to US/Europeans?

Lots of information can be found at http://www.cnx-software.com/

I think that this product and its brethren have more potential than the rasperry pi, with the Mele there is no need to buy a wireless adapter, remote, power supply, case, usb hub. The Mele would work out cheaper, have standardised hardware, more RAM, faster CPU and a nice form factor
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#2
I found a seller for the a2000 who also has an interest in getting the device ported to linux.

http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/546...alers.html

the cost is US $89.89 including shipping.

i am gonna order one now - delivery will take ages though

There is a picture and some other useful links on that page
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#3
Anyone know how fast this thing is?
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#4
3 times faster than a Raspberry Pi at its default clock speed of 1.2GHZ
It is apparently overclockable to 1.5ghz but noone has tried yet.
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#5
If it can run xbmc ill give it a go, since it runs linux that shouldnt be a problem?

What sort of audio does it have?
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#6
dont know about audio although it has a digital out.
it doesnt run xbmc yet - it barely runs ubuntu properly at this time but there are a bunch of devs working on it both that and also on an opensource GPU driver that will allow hardware acceleration. Openelec guys are working on openelec for the raspberry pi which is also ARM, albeit an older instruction set.
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#7
mmmmm, ARM.
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#8
Seems like there's a plethora of new tiny HTPC machines coming out on the heels of the Raspberry Pi's success.

Would love to see some sort of a review on which ones will be the best value for money as I don't want to drop $400 on a HTPC that can run XBMC. Not only that, but I am also looking for the least amount of power consumption as possible and these computers certainly seem to foot the bill.
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#9
Bumping this, just bought the Mele A2000, and am going to be planning on putting Linux and then XBMC on it. Has anyone heard anything on the development front or have XBMC fully running on theirs yet?
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#10
(2012-05-04, 04:51)tastypotato Wrote: Bumping this, just bought the Mele A2000, and am going to be planning on putting Linux and then XBMC on it. Has anyone heard anything on the development front or have XBMC fully running on theirs yet?

Please let us know how u go, if u can get Linux It u should be able top get xbmc on it.
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#11
I just picked up the Mele A2000 for a project I am working on. I will report back when it arrives, maybe do a un-boxing. I'll pretend like it's some high end hardware.

Anyone have any links to ongoing development or hacks for the A1000 or A2000?
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#12
I have the A2000 since two days now, it looks very nice and it 'works' immediately out of the box, but the Android stuff is just horrible.
So I also can't wait until I can get XBMC running on it :-)
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#13
(2012-05-05, 10:34)ronzelver Wrote: I have the A2000 since two days now, it looks very nice and it 'works' immediately out of the box, but the Android stuff is just horrible.
So I also can't wait until I can get XBMC running on it :-)

1, have you got linux installed on it yet?
2, have you got xbmc on it yet?

please give us your results!
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#14
(2012-05-04, 17:46)frieten Wrote: Please let us know how u go, if u can get Linux It u should be able top get xbmc on it.

So far it hasn't even been shipped yet... I'm going to contact the seller and see how far down on the list I am.
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#15
any news on this? I will probably buy one too, as soon as its confirmed that ubuntu and XBMC will run on this device at one point (unfortunately I'm not of a big help porting it myself...).
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Forget the AppleTV3, consider the Mele a2000 - A dedicated xbmc box for $70 or less3