[PantsOnFire]

Just a short query.

Juggling whether to get a pi2 or firetvstick for kodi.

(The amazon stick is only £25 right now on amazon).

Apart from obvious differences (stick is WiFi only, pi2 has Ethernet), how does Kodi performance compare regarding heavier skins and artwork aplenty?

Not really concerned about video playback performance, I know they're both great for high quality 1080p. ---I'm just more concerned about general UI speed, navigation, skins. (Aeon Nox, eminence, Arctic:Zephyr, FireTV skin).

----I'm coming from an early 1stgen atom cpu (Intel atom 330) dualcore. Where rendering thumbnails in particular is the slowest aspect.

[MediaPi]

notice how long the artwork takes to download. The speed is poor compared to the RPi in my opinion. It shoudn't cost more than £40-£50 depending on what you already have for the Pi, you could get a £4 remote of ebay which will be comparable to firetv remote.

also out of no where popcornflix got 3d iso working on the Pi, its a platform trying hard to utilise the raw power, so its getting fine tuned all the time and you got dedicated openelec build. save yourself the headache and the time wasted on waiting for stuff and get the Pi2 over firetv especailly for kodi only purposes

it'll pay itself back over the long term through better enjoyment and less frustration, my two cents
edit: if specs matter to you RPi2 is quad ore whereas firetv stick is dual.

[natethomas]

MediaPi's answer is fairly accurate. I'd typically recommend the Pi over the FireTV in any circumstance in which you don't care about Netflix or some of the other content that's behind DRM. If you want Netflix, the stick is the way to go.

[PantsOnFire]

Guys, thanks for the help

You've persuaded me into the pi2 route really. I'm quite happy to set it up. I was already halfway there, persuaded by the Ethernet port on the pi but to know it performs better is piece of mind.

This should make a fine media portal for the living room TV.