(2015-09-06, 01:57)colinr Wrote: [ -> ]OK, thanks, I have seen that guide but I dismissed it as the HP model I'm looking at was not listed there.
the wiki page says it applies to all Haswell-based ChromeBoxes, including the HP:
Quote:This page was originally written for the ASUS ChromeBox, but all of the information is valid for the HP, Acer, and Dell Chromeboxes as well. The hardware is virtually identical: the Acer has a slightly different form factor; the HP model has only 1 dimm slot (vs the 2 the others have); the fan of the HP is also a bit louder than the others (with the Asus being the most quiet); the Dell models have an 802.11 AC wifi module, whereas the others only have 802.11 abgn.
(2015-09-06, 04:31)ianuk2005 Wrote: [ -> ]I'm sure openelec can be installed on all chromeboxes. It should massively outperform the atom, over 2x performance CPU wise not sure about the onboard GPU but I imagine it's also significant. I'd be a little wary of the HP chromebox vs the Asus, I did read of some noise issues compared to the asus which is an important factor for me.
I'm still looking (I'm very indecisive/picky) but so far I think i'm settling with the MSI Cubi at £99 or less barebones. It has the broadwell architecture so should run slightly cooler/quieter with a moderate improvement on CPU/GPU performance, also has ac wireless which is a nice touch. All in sub £150 with 60gb + 4gb ram and apparently runs windows flawlessly unlike the chromeboxes if you want boot options.
The ChromeBox wipes the floor with any Atom-based device, excluding the new Braswell-based boxes, both in CPU and GPU performance; Kodi performance is likely better as well.
If available for a similar (or better) price, the MSI Cubi Broadwell Celeron boxes are an excellent option also. Overall, it's ~10% faster than a Haswell ChromeBox. For OpenELEC/Kodi, they are essentially identical. The Asus Chromebox is slightly quieter however
(2015-09-06, 05:14)Matt Devo Wrote: [ -> ]The ChromeBox wipes the floor with any Atom-based device, excluding the new Braswell-based boxes, both in CPU and GPU performance; Kodi performance is likely better as well.
If available for a similar (or better) price, the MSI Cubi Broadwell Celeron boxes are an excellent option also. Overall, it's ~10% faster than a Haswell ChromeBox. For OpenELEC/Kodi, they are essentially identical. The Asus Chromebox is slightly quieter however
Quieter than the MSI? I assumed with the lower power consumption of broadwell the MSI would be slightly quieter. It's so hard to find real use benchmarks for noise levels per device.
(2015-09-06, 05:28)ianuk2005 Wrote: [ -> ]Quieter than the MSI? I assumed with the lower power consumption of broadwell the MSI would be slightly quieter. It's so hard to find real use benchmarks for noise levels per device.
I had them both sitting on my desk running OpenELEC doing video testing, the Asus is quieter than the MSI (esp under load), though both are quiet enough under normal usage as to be mistaken for fanless. I sold the cube as it offered no real advantage over the ChromeBox (outside of official/proper Windows support) and was encumbered by UEFI firmware (and I didn't feel like porting coreboot to it)
(2015-09-06, 09:22)Matt Devo Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-09-06, 05:28)ianuk2005 Wrote: [ -> ]Quieter than the MSI? I assumed with the lower power consumption of broadwell the MSI would be slightly quieter. It's so hard to find real use benchmarks for noise levels per device.
I had them both sitting on my desk running OpenELEC doing video testing, the Asus is quieter than the MSI (esp under load), though both are quiet enough under normal usage as to be mistaken for fanless. I sold the cube as it offered no real advantage over the ChromeBox (outside of official/proper Windows support) and was encumbered by UEFI firmware (and I didn't feel like porting coreboot to it)
I am suprised i thought the MSI would be quieter. I think im going to get the MSI anyway as its cheaper in the UK with 60gb/4gb than an ASUS if the noise is the same under general GUI use and 1080p playback.
The PS3 remote works, you will need a wired keyboard/mouse to get it paired initially and that can be somewhat of a pain, but once its paired as long as you enable a setting that puts bluetooth to sleep when you arent using the box, your batteries should last quite a long time on the remote. I have one Chromebox and two Pi2's all running Kodi with PS3 remotes, love them.
I just missed out on the Chromebox that I was watching on eBay, went for £92.00 + £10 P&P, I've set my limit at about £100 + extra for controller.
Laptop Direct are selling it new for £140, possibly P&P to add to that.
I almost ordered a Intel NUC with Celeron N2820 from eBuyer, however, I've seen a few reviews which say that there are problems with that particular CPU (buggy) - it was only £102 including 4GB RAM.
I don't know what I should be looking at now, my budget is a strict £110.00 delivered, excluding the controller
Does look quite promising, however, it mentions LAN, but not WiFi, also it's a slow delivery time, I'm going home Thursday night so I would like to take it with me then.
Anyone have any experience or thoughts on the Intel NUC Pinnacle Canyon with N3050 Celeron CPU, I can get one of those for £105 + the RAM
I see the opinions in this thread as come down quite heavily on the side of Chromebox, but I think it's horses for courses.
I own several Beelink MXQ S85 (cost me sub £30 from dealsmachine.com - cheap enough to possibly change every year as they improve) all of which I've put on a custom ROM by MediaMan (
http://mbox.co.za/) which add/removes several usefull apps and performance tweaks (eg xbox 360 controller support). They're all in use in bedrooms streaming mostly 720p content (it happy does 1080p on their wired connections) from my server which hosts a shared Kodi mySQL setup. They're also used heavily to stream YouTube and many other streaming services, using either android apps or Kodi Addons.
The biggest instability is almost always the stream source itself, but playing back from my own server they're flawless. Of course in that setup there's no need for proper 24fps support and/or HD audio, ease of use and playback that doesn't require me to constantly fiddle with is the priority.
However, I wouldn't use one in my Home Cinema setup (projector, HD AV amps speakers etc) as the lack of those features is critical. In that context its AV capability first and GUI a distant second, so using dedicated media players is my choice. (eg Dune - using chipsets designed for media playback). That said Android 5, 6 .. should (according to what I've read) open it up more to allow better media playback, time will tell.
So as I said, horses for courses...
(2015-09-07, 11:36)JustAnotherUser Wrote: [ -> ]I see the opinions in this thread as come down quite heavily on the side of Chromebox, but I think it's horses for courses.
I own several Beelink MXQ S85 (cost me sub £30 from dealsmachine.com - cheap enough to possibly change every year as they improve) all of which I've put on a custom ROM by MediaMan (http://mbox.co.za/) which add/removes several usefull apps and performance tweaks (eg xbox 360 controller support). They're all in use in bedrooms streaming mostly 720p content (it happy does 1080p on their wired connections) from my server which hosts a shared Kodi mySQL setup. They're also used heavily to stream YouTube and many other streaming services, using either android apps or Kodi Addons.
The biggest instability is almost always the stream source itself, but playing back from my own server they're flawless. Of course in that setup there's no need for proper 24fps support and/or HD audio, ease of use and playback that doesn't require me to constantly fiddle with is the priority.
However, I wouldn't use one in my Home Cinema setup (projector, HD AV amps speakers etc) as the lack of those features is critical. In that context its AV capability first and GUI a distant second, so using dedicated media players is my choice. (eg Dune - using chipsets designed for media playback). That said Android 5, 6 .. should (according to what I've read) open it up more to allow better media playback, time will tell.
So as I said, horses for courses...
I don't own an MXQ but my experience using android with kodi is terrible vs x86 hardware even on higher end mobiles/tablets. Once you build a large library, have a heavy skin, live tv etc running they start struggling with the GUI. Low budget x86 systems with windows/openelec tend to have smooth responsive GUI regardless of library size, skins and other services running.
Android might be ok for a secondary device but for your main device that get's used more often and by other people they tend to be disappointing.
My experience is the opposite. Maybe its because I just use standard Confluence skin, no pvr and the library is centralised that eases the burden?
It is perfect as a secondary device. Small enough to velco onto back of TV (remote still works bouncing signal off the wall but I also use a rf gyro mouse/360 pads) and considering the price, makes it almost disposable.
Nextgen boxes with Amlogic S905/S912 (HDMI 2.0 + Android 5.1) should improve experience too.
(2015-09-07, 14:22)JustAnotherUser Wrote: [ -> ]My experience is the opposite. Maybe its because I just use standard Confluence skin, no pvr and the library is centralised that eases the burden?
It is perfect as a secondary device. Small enough to velco onto back of TV (remote still works bouncing signal off the wall but I also use a rf gyro mouse/360 pads) and considering the price, makes it almost disposable.
Nextgen boxes with Amlogic S905/S912 (HDMI 2.0 + Android 5.1) should improve experience too.
Yeah out the box with the basics they perform OK. Once I add my full library lighter skins get's a bit sluggish, heavy skins make it worse and the PVR pretty much kills it. The performance just drops the more you do with it.
I'm not sure how much better it performs but the future might be dual booting openelec/android for cheap hardware like the wetek does.
Well I ended up buying the Intel NUC5CPYH and a 4GB RAM module (I already had a spare 64GB Samsung SSD).
I installed OpenElec, which was a simple task, so far it seems to be working fine.
If anyone wants to know anything specific about this machine, feel free to ask.
Thanks for all the help and suggestions in this post.
(2015-09-07, 14:22)JustAnotherUser Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not sure how much better it performs but the future might be dual booting openelec/android for cheap hardware like the wetek does.
Some of us already have a triple boot system running on an AMlogic S805 / C1+ from a single micro SDHC card.
Android / OpenELEC / Ubuntu. OpenELEC is nice and quick on a S805