[Geeba]

The biggest issue I have with the R-Pi* is power..... I need something with a proper power on/off button... not just ripping the USB out or switching off at the wall socket, it ruins the flash cards. I currently have a mixture of old ION based PC's, a WeTek which all can be bought very cheaply and I still rock an old Xbox as well which the kids use as its completely indestructable!

I get asked a lot about what hardware to buy and I dont really have a clear answer anymore... Pi isn't a cheap option really as by the time you've bought everything its not as cheap as a £30 board... the cheap Android boxes feel exactly that... cheap! the WeTek can feel sluggish... the ION PC is the best, but old now and the fans can be noisey..

I'm in the market for an upgrade now and have no idea what to buy.

[gsmtech]

The biggest issue I have with the R-Pi* is power..... I need something with a proper power on/off button... not just ripping the USB out or switching off at the wall socket, it ruins the flash cards. I currently have a mixture of old ION based PC's, a WeTek which all can be bought very cheaply and I still rock an old Xbox as well which the kids use as its completely indestructable!

I get asked a lot about what hardware to buy and I dont really have a clear answer anymore... Pi isn't a cheap option really as by the time you've bought everything its not as cheap as a £30 board... the cheap Android boxes feel exactly that... cheap! the WeTek can feel sluggish... the ION PC is the best, but old now and the fans can be noisey..

I'm in the market for an upgrade now and have no idea what to buy.

Don't buy anything if you can wait for a bit, see what the S912 new gen SOC's turn out to be like. They are coming to market now.

[Ned Scott]

The biggest issue I have with the R-Pi* is power..... I need something with a proper power on/off button... not just ripping the USB out or switching off at the wall socket, it ruins the flash cards. I currently have a mixture of old ION based PC's, a WeTek which all can be bought very cheaply and I still rock an old Xbox as well which the kids use as its completely indestructable!

I get asked a lot about what hardware to buy and I dont really have a clear answer anymore... Pi isn't a cheap option really as by the time you've bought everything its not as cheap as a £30 board... the cheap Android boxes feel exactly that... cheap! the WeTek can feel sluggish... the ION PC is the best, but old now and the fans can be noisey..

I'm in the market for an upgrade now and have no idea what to buy.

http://www.msldigital.com/collections/all-products

[Geeba]

http://www.msldigital.com/collections/all-products

Looks like some nice kit Ned... but then you're already over £60, and what bits work with OpenElec/Kodi etc. without having to get under the bonet?

[trogggy]

http://www.msldigital.com/collections/all-products

They look neat enough, but you could probably run a pi 24/7 for 3-4 years for the cost of one.
I plug them in and leave them alone.

[Ned Scott]

http://www.msldigital.com/collections/all-products

Looks like some nice kit Ned... but then you're already over £60, and what bits work with OpenElec/Kodi etc. without having to get under the bonet?

IIRC, everything works out of the box with OpenELEC/LibreELEC, OSMC, and Xbian.

[Ned Scott]

http://www.msldigital.com/collections/all-products

They look neat enough, but you could probably run a pi 24/7 for 3-4 years for the cost of one.
I plug them in and leave them alone.

True. I just leave my ARM boxes on all the time. They idle down anyways.

[Geeba]

Whats the thoughts on the new Wetek Play2? I had the pre-order email this morning... I own 2 of the older WeTek's and they're ok if you use them as Android/Kodi devices but if you install them as pure Kodi devices they do 'chugg' a little...

https://wetek.com/shop/wetek-play2?utm_s...1e41368194

They appear to have the Amilogic SOC, but looks like the older version...

[Ned Scott]

It's basically the WeTek Hub with more RAM and a built-in tuner. If you don't need the tuner then you might not need the Play 2 (though you might want the additional RAM. It won't make a big difference for Kodi, though).

The entire S9xx series is the current generation. There are different versions of the SOC, and Amlogic's naming is confusing. For example, the S905X is a slightly weaker CPU, but has some other ability for a different situation (I can't remember it at the moment). Both the "normal" S905 and the newer S905X are meant for slightly different things. Then there's the S912, which is just barely coming out and focuses more on raw CPU power.

The Sx05's are typically the "media capable" but less expensive SoCs. So you can have the S812, which has a slightly stronger CPU than the S905, but the S905 has more video abilities. As you might guess, the Sx12's are the ones that focus more on raw CPU specs. For Kodi the most important factor is the video abilities.

The S8xx and S9xx series are both a huge step above what the original WeTek Play and OE edition had, though. It was actually the other way around, where the older Play/OE were better under OpenELEC/LibreELEC, and were slower under Android. The Core/Hub/Play2 much faster and are very usable under both Android or OE/LE.

I think http://cnx-software.com has some good write-ups on how they compare.

[Geeba]

Cheers Ned some good info there, I'll have a read-up.. looks like the hub could be the go!