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hpka · 2016-11-18, 20:48

By now I hope we've all read the blog post titled "The Piracy Box Sellers and Youtube Promoters Are Killing Kodi"

I did and remembered it when someone sent me a fully loaded box for a review... well, in fact, lighting has struck for a fifth time!

Previous threads where I've done this before (you'll get the idea pretty quick):

The latest one I was sent:
[Free Wireless Keyboard + Mouse] Trongle S1 Amlogic S805 MXQ Quad Core Tv Box Android 4.4 Kitkat H.265 Wifi LAN Miracast Airplay Hdmi 1g RAM 8g ROM
by J-Deal
Permalink: http://a.co/geNFVnd

And here is what I did to it:

My review (posted on Amazon.ca and in the YouTube description):

Quote:Look this is alright hardware for an Android to TV box, the included keyboard is nice, I can't find anything wrong with it. The problem is as follows...

I fired it up Kodi that was pre-installed... I noticed a lot of icons that wouldn't normally come in default, as-from-developers Kodi were present.

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 described itself as "Comes with XMBC 13.2 Fully Loaded" when I made the recording for this video. I notice the seller has removed words like "fully loaded", "kodi" and "xmbc" between the time I made the recording and the time I uploaded it. Keep in mind that simply removing a few keywords does not change the overall nature of what this box is, and you should really note that my video shows firsthand impressions, true at the time and I believe still true now.

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 this sell themselves with Kodi clearly indicated as being included, and load it with addons. 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. As I said above, that's not just based on the presence/absence of certain words in the description, it's a direct firsthand impression.

So in conclusion, don't buy this fully loaded box, get a blank, stock Android box.

Pro:
* Good hardware

Con (severe):
* Directly goes against the express wishes of the XBMC Foundation regarding the use of Kodi in products which claim to be "fully loaded", and give you a copy of Kodi with loads of addons.

**Memphiz** · 2016-11-19, 10:52

Really nice writeup as usual. I like the fact that they still send you boxes for review. Hope this continues and doesn't hurt your reputation (were it really should add to it obviously Smile

).
Thx for doing this.

**Prof Yaffle** · 2016-11-20, 00:21

Does it help to mark these reviews as helpful? Does it get you more stuff to review, or push you up in some other "trusted" rankings?

I've never really paid much attention to Amazon's rating system beyond the stars...

**PatK** · 2016-11-21, 22:31

Reasonable review, spiced up with a youtube. Just wish you didn't spend over a minute tour in the banned add-ons section other than to mention they are illegal in most countries, and more showing off the smoothness of play of some of the tougher encodes and android features that come standard, speed of the ports, remote limitations and suggestions, upgrades of Kodi or Android if at all possible. Do they even have a web site for support?

hpka · 2016-11-24, 18:30

(2016-11-19, 10:52)Memphiz Wrote: Hope this continues and doesn't hurt your reputation (were it really should add to it obviously ).

I'm surprised that I still get boxes to review at all. I expect they will slow down now that Amazon has made a lot of changes to it's review rules. As for my reputation, doesn't appear to damage it too badly.

(2016-11-20, 00:21)Prof Yaffle Wrote: Does it help to mark these reviews as helpful? Does it get you more stuff to review, or push you up in some other "trusted" rankings?

I've never really paid much attention to Amazon's rating system beyond the stars...

It used to help, but now I'm not so sure because Amazon overhauled it's review system. Also, just on the stars thing, generally, those are meaningless without the associated words. These days, when I'm reading reviews, I look past reviews that don't explain why they are rating what they are. Furthermore, my own reviews very much included, 5 stars should mean "I think you'll like this if you consider it in isolation", it absolutely should not mean "5 stars because [Product X] is better than [Product Y] in my opinion" assuming Product Y is also good. The latter example, is kind of like saying the Surface Book is poor because you like the MacBook Pro.

(2016-11-21, 22:31)PatK Wrote: Reasonable review, spiced up with a youtube. Just wish you didn't spend over a minute tour in the banned add-ons section other than to mention they are illegal in most countries, and more showing off the smoothness of play of some of the tougher encodes and android features that come standard, speed of the ports, remote limitations and suggestions, upgrades of Kodi or Android if at all possible. Do they even have a web site for support?

I'll be honest, this was a focused strike. I spent extra time on addons because I wanted to show I basically didn't make this up. I make it quite clear that plain, unmodified Android boxes are available and that's the way people should go. It's not intended to be a nose-to-tail review (is an appropriate Android box analogy "IR receiver to HDMI port review"?).

If I got a box that didn't have the fully loaded elephant in the room, I would do something like you suggest. This time though, I basically went for the huge problem.