[hpka]

The thread title I wanted to write was:
I was sent a "fully loaded Kodi box"/"free movies and TV" Android box for a product review, so I remembered the recent blog post from the XBMC Foundation, and made the problems with this kind of thing very clear in my video and text review, and asked the sellers to stop.

I do Amazon Product Reviews. I get sent a lot of products to review, and this particular one caught my eye. It was a "fully loaded" Android box with Kodi, that promised "free movies and TV". A month before I had read the post on Kodi.tv entitled The Piracy Box Sellers and Youtube Promoters Are Killing Kodi where the XBMC Foundation clearly ask for this practice to stop, and why. Take a look at the product links and titles to see why I firmly think this was exactly the sort of thing that post was asking stops:

Amazon.ca Title: MXQ PRO® T10 Quad Core 1080P Android TV Box Fully Loaded Streaming Media Player with many Free Moive and TV ,bulid-in Lastest KODI(XBMC),Android 4.4 Kitkt, CPU Amlogic S805, 1.5 GHz
Amazon.ca Link: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01C3ZDKS8
Amazon.com Title: [UPDATED VERSION] MXQ PRO® T10 Quad Core Android TV Box Fully Loaded Streaming Media Player with many Free Moive and TV , bulid-in Lastest KODI(XBMC), Android 4.4 Kitkt, CPU Amlogic S805, 1.5 GHz
Amazon.com Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01879W9XQ
Amazon.co.uk Title: [NEW Release 1080P Version ] MXQ PRO T10 Quad Core Android TV Box Fully Loaded Streaming Media Player with many Free Moive and TV ,bulid-in Lastest KODI(XBMC),Android 4.4 Kitkt,1080P, CPU Amlogic S805
Amazon.co.uk Title: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01879W9XQ

So, deciding in no small part that Kodi has done more for me than this Android box ever will, I shot a video review that clearly shows the problems this box has right out of the packaging, and the broken addons, and that it's "free movies and TV" addons hardly seems legitimate...

I then uploaded the review to those three Amazon links:

Link to the Amazon.ca Review: https://www.amazon.ca/review/R1CBGFXM8ZEHZ1
Link to the Amazon.com Review: https://www.amazon.com/review/R7B4JAE1ZVBZ1
Link to the Amazon.co.uk Review: https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RZG2L7YR8IGWA

... and onto YouTube:



And I added this text review:

Title: A TV Box with Android 4.4 and alright hardware, but violates the wishes of the makers of Kodi, and many addons broken as shipped

Well here we have an Android-running TV Box box that you can connect to your TV. It's got a wifi antenna on the back, Ethernet too, two USB ports, HDMI port, a 3.5mm port and optical out as well. The IR remote that comes with it seems like a simple clicky version, I quite like it, seems to have every button you could want, there is even a button for Kodi.

I loaded it up and after the ~15sec intro movie (that comes on every time you boot, even if you turned it off from the remote and restarted it from there) you get a "10ft interface" launcher. The largest button is for Kodi, but there are also a few other online video service apps preinstalled (e.g. Netflix). A look in the all apps list shows a lot of apps pre-installed, and the Play Store. A flick through the settings shows that you need to enable Ethernet manually, you can't just plug it in. Still, generally OK there.

If we look in the title of the product on Amazon, it mentions Kodi, so let's click on that biggest launcher button. When you start it for the first time, you're immediately asked if you want to enable add-ons by a short, simple question dialogue. Likely you'll and everyone else will chose Enable, even if you just want to see what add-ons they are. After enabling, Kodi loaded with the add-ons (took about 20 seconds), and then promptly started notifying me that several of them were marked as broken and should be disabled. I'll be honest, I was annoyed that my brand new TV Box is already telling me parts of it are broken. Still, thinking this was the "latest [version of] Kodi" as the title of the product stated on Amazon, I was even more bothered to see yet another prompt asking to update Kodi itself.

Heading over to the add-ons list in settings, I saw many, many add ons that appeared to help me get free TV and Movies, but those services didn't seem to be legal, above board services. It should be noted that there are a lot of legal services you can get that will work perfectly well on Android boxes like this and some of them have Kodi add-ons, but this particular product seemed to be giving it's favourite non-legitimate ones... and Kodi itself is telling me some of them are broken even when the device is straight out of the packaging.

This unit describes itself as "Fully Loaded Streaming Media Player with many Free Moive and TV" (sic). The developers of Kodi, the XBMC Foundation, made a blog post on 14th February 2016, titled "The Piracy Box Sellers and Youtube Promoters Are Killing Kodi". In the post, the developers clearly inform the public that boxes such as this, which sell themselves as having Kodi and providing "free movies and TV" or saying they are "fully loaded", have absolutely nothing to do with the XBMC Foundation are in fact hurting them and Kodi itself. For context, Kodi is a free and open source media centre, designed for playing your media files on various devices. It can be downloaded by anyone at no charge and has nothing to do with piracy. Products such as the MXQ Pro sell themselves with Kodi clearly in the product name (and in this case, even on the included remote control) along with their promises of free movies and TV. Those users then wonder why the addons that make this happen break or just don't work as intended or desired, and believe Kodi or the XBMC Foundation are somehow to blame (they are not). Kodi clearly asked for the practice of selling "fully loaded" Kodi boxes to stop, and suggested that they sell their box with unmodified Kodi (among other ideas). They did this before I was offered this device for review, and this post remains at the time of writing. From examining this TV box, I believe it to be exactly the kind of problem device the XBMC Foundation is concerned about.

I can't recommend this product, if I were to do so, I'd be harming Kodi itself, which has brought the field of media centres far forward in its time. Sure the hardware of this TV box seems fine, but it's misrepresenting the major software that makes it happen.

Pros:
* OK hardware
* I like the remote

Cons (severe):
* Directly goes against the express wishes of the XBMC Foundation regarding the use of Kodi in products which claim to offer "free Movies and TV".
* Many add-ons were broken when the device arrived, it should be noted that these add-ons work with, but are separate to Kodi, and Kodi does not make them or come with them normally.

To the sellers of this device, who are selling it as offering Kodi with "free movies and TV" and "fully loaded", please stop.

I was given a sample for an honest review. The above is my honest opinion.

Hopefully this in some way helps. Also, please consider this my way of letting the Kodi team know about this particular product. You do great work folks! Thank you, you've helped me a lot, and I hope this in some way provides the help you asked for in that blog post.

EDIT: Two more boxes arrived, I did it again: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=275940

[Fail$tyle420]

Love it and well said!

[Hudson_Hawk04]

Very well said!

[Memphiz]

thx for this

[keith]

Everyone, in your respective stores click on 'This review was helpful' on the bottom so it gets upvoted as the 'main' review for this item.

Thanks for doing this!

[fatbob46]

Everyone, in your respective stores click on 'This review was helpful' on the bottom so it gets upvoted as the 'main' review for this item.

Thanks for doing this!

Good idea, done!

[User 272336]

Good idea, done!

+1

[Dangelus]

Everyone, in your respective stores click on 'This review was helpful' on the bottom so it gets upvoted as the 'main' review for this item.

Thanks for doing this!

Done!

[hpka]

Everyone, in your respective stores click on 'This review was helpful' on the bottom so it gets upvoted as the 'main' review for this item.

Thanks for doing this!

Firstly, thank you to everyone doing this.

Secondly, if there are other English speaking Amazon stores that this device is listed on, let me know and I'll upload the review (has to be the exact same device). I checked Amazon.com.au but could not find it.

Thirdly, you can vote in other Amazon stores than your local one using your account, just as I can post my reviews internationally (as it happens, I've actually shopped at all three of the ones I posted in, but I don't think this is required).

Edit: Added the thirdly bit

[hpka]

Had a look at each reviews page this morning and sure enough, the video+wall-of-text is the top review on all three. Voting it helpful will keep it there no matter what happens of course:

Album: http://imgur.com/a/C7Xvn

[nooryani84]

This is great! Way to go hpka!

Everyone, in your respective stores click on 'This review was helpful' on the bottom so it gets upvoted as the 'main' review for this item.

Thanks for doing this!

Done! I also downvoted some of the reviews that were positive to the scam.

[hpka]

Kind of hoping I get sent another now (not likely until they forget about this). I kind of enjoyed this whole experience.

[Prof Yaffle]

+1, and a few -1s to level the field

[hpka]

few -1s to level the field

I'll be honest, here, if someone has put effort into their review, I would personally have you just leave them alone. E.g. if someone has spent some time crafting a review, even if they don't share the point of view I've made a big deal of here, just leave em be.

However, there are plenty of 1 sentence or few words reviews that were likely purchased from one of those review buying services, so crack your knuckles and vote those unhelpful.

[wrxtasy]

Nice work here hpka, from someone that actually cares about Kodi.

Added your reviews as helpful and all the other 2 sentence "Paid for Reviews" I tagged as unhelpful.

In fact I'm going to do this to a lot of products with 2 sentence "Paid for Reviews" Fully Loaded boxe reviews from this point going forward.