So I have XBMC running on an HTPC as my main viewing area and it works great. I also have RaspBMC on my Raspberry Pi for my basement TV which works fine but is a tad laggy sometimes..
I'm looking to get something else to run XBMC for the TV in our kitchen and am just wondering what the best option would be. THe Raspberry Pi seems to work fine and is only $35. I know the Ouya can run XBMC for $100 and might have better performance.
Are there other options out there that I should consider or is there a general option for best pick? Just looking for any opinions or recommendations (or anti-recommendations as well).
Thanks.
Zotac D2550ITXS-B-U ~$150
It has worked fine for me.
look on aliexpress and buy one of these android boxes
Amlogic 8726 MX Dual Core Dual Cortex A9 Neon CPU, 1.5GHz
then install the linux xbmc on it
They cost about $60
FireTV just came out today. That can probably run XBMC, userse have already next day ordered it so you'll here something about it tomorrow.
I have that mx box to and just put xbmc on it and still have the android system on it that it came with and it runs fine and players the movies good.
What version of XBMC are you running? Gotham is supposed to be much much faster on the Pi. I haven't tried it personally since a very early alpha build but even then it seemed noticeably better.
Anything with a C10x7U processor.
I vote Intel setups with QPI.
In all seriousness, I do like the Gigabyte Brix with AMD CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6856164009
Plenty of power, good GPU, and a normal HDMI connector etc. Nice alternative to the Haswell NUCs imo (maybe a bit power-hungrier, but Haswell NUCs seem to have their own share of problems atm, GPU drivers etc.).
Does the 8726 mx can do OTA XBMC updates?
I am running Openelec Gotham Beta 5 on Pi. Much better than Frodo on Pi.
i went to the local "flea market" and picked up a zeki android box for $30 installed xbmc and the wizard so far working great
Out of the box I would say Ouya or Intel NUC (Baytrail)
If you have a laptop or other PC hardware that aren't in use then you could always try re-purposing them to be dedicated XBMC-clients - you'd be suprised at how well XBMC works on a lot of older x86-hardware . If live tv and bluray aren't important then you can you can use fairly old hardware.