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Full Version: New Android KitKat Quad Core CPU/Octocore GPU TV boxes out in 16 days, thoughts?
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I was about to purchase the MX2 on Amazon for $107 when I realized for the same price in a couple weeks I can go from a 2 CPU/2GPUs to 4/8 for the same price.

I'm about to preorder one of the makes (below), any suggestions as to which one I should buy? I'm wondering which one the community will support the most (if at all) or if I will be on my own. The specs look great, but those looking to buy should know these boxes (as of yet) will not decode DTS/DD, so you may want to wait a bit.

It basically comes in two flavors of 8 GB or 16GB native flash memory.

Also, you will likely need the cost of an additional wireless remote that has a mousepad so that you can take full advantage of the Android OS via USB dongle so figure that into your cost (although Bluetooth is included if you already have a device).

Here are two of the models/types I'm looking at:

Transmort 16 GB version ($120)

Personally, I don't think that an extra $15 bucks for 8gb native memory is worth it. The SD slot is expandable to 64 GB, and for $20 bucks on newegg you can buy a 32 gig SD card.

M8 8 GB version ($105)

Same M8 8GB version for $98 here

Transmort 8 GB version ($105)

One totally newb question, does KitKat have a working torrent client that I can use with these boxes?
Head to freaktab to get an idea on that brand of box, there is plenty of banter on Roms and guys using similar branding..
Thanks for the advice, I actually already saw some of the discussion there and my post draws heavily from it. I think there is some interest, but I can't tell which one will be the one most people adopt.

One drawback for early adopters like me is that I think ROMs are going to take quite a few months to develop for it. Hopefully vanilla android and xbmc will suffice for now.
(2014-03-12, 23:48)Octocore Wrote: [ -> ]Personally, I don't think that an extra $15 bucks for 8gb native memory is worth it. The SD slot is expandable to 64 GB, and for $20 bucks on newegg you can buy a 32 gig SD card.

On board memory is usually faster than external memory...
I assume they all have the Amlogic chips which are not supported for hardware decoding by XBMC gotham. Correct me if I am wrong please.
But if they are supported for hardware acceleration, they pretty nicely priced.
Does that mean that XBMC can't use Amlogic chips for hardware acceleration at all? Or that they are merely not supported but XBMC can still use them? I would love to see some support for these boxes even though I know the community keeps getting burned by cheesy proprietary moves by these companies.

Still, I have built four or five PCs, but I would prefer a tight box with decent specs like these for $100 over building a small HTPC for $200-400. I'm pretty excited for this.
(2014-03-14, 19:58)vab.patel Wrote: [ -> ]I assume they all have the Amlogic chips which are not supported for hardware decoding by XBMC gotham. Correct me if I am wrong please.
But if they are supported for hardware acceleration, they pretty nicely priced.

GPU: 8 cores Mali450

Does that make a difference? I was also looking at some of those boxes, but want hardware decoding.
This forum... is... sometimes... really... slow. Would love to know the difference to see if it supports graphic acceleration, and if not whether it will do it anyway.
(2014-03-14, 19:58)vab.patel Wrote: [ -> ]I assume they all have the Amlogic chips which are not supported for hardware decoding by XBMC gotham. Correct me if I am wrong please.
But if they are supported for hardware acceleration, they pretty nicely priced.

Gotham currently supports the previous amlogic dual core at least. It works for my mx2 box.

So unsure if it's been updated for the new quad core code. The code is opened source.

This was done end of Dec:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=181739

So big thanks to Davilla and pivos. But again that code is based on the previous gen amlogic. Hopefully it's same. I don't know all the differences/details.
(2014-03-25, 18:28)dardack Wrote: [ -> ]Gotham currently supports the previous amlogic dual core at least. It works for my mx2 box.

So unsure if it's been updated for the new quad core code. The code is opened source.

This was done end of Dec:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=181739

So big thanks to Davilla and pivos. But again that code is based on the previous gen amlogic. Hopefully it's same. I don't know all the differences/details.

That's a great news. My questions and curiosity were based on this link from xbmc.

http://xbmc.org/xbmc-13-gotham-august-cycle/

Where they have mentioned "......the implemented hardware decoding does not support AmLogic or Allwinner chipsets........".
Well if they have included the support for Amlogic in the Beta1 and so on, that's just great.
Wait for the minix neo X8 or pre-order the tronsmart Vega

http://blog.geekbuying.com/index.php/201...is-neo-x8/
If you can afford buy a nuc 2820, or an asus chromebox, if it can run openelec, and avoid android boxes... Their firmware - xbmc are too immature Smile
(2014-03-26, 08:44)solamnic Wrote: [ -> ]If you can afford buy a nuc 2820, or an asus chromebox, if it can run openelec, and avoid android boxes... Their firmware - xbmc are too immature Smile

How do you compare the Quad Core A9 processor with Intel Celeron? Which one is better and in what way?
You can do much more things with an Intel Celeron powered machine than with those A9 machines... The celeron is an open PC, runs stable, is trusted and tested and XMBC is much more stable than on the ARM builds.

At the same price, for XBMC use, I wouldn't know a single reason to get an ARM machine over a Celeron one.
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