Hi Noggin,
Thanks for reply.
I was probably not as clear as I should have been, when I say Android OS upgrade I meant version, so Android OS version 4.xx to 5.xx to 6.xx
My phone is a Moto which cost £115 has had two Android OS version upgrades so far.
(2016-09-12, 09:54)Jeffers24 Wrote: [ -> ] (2016-09-12, 09:47)gsmtech Wrote: [ -> ] (2016-09-11, 21:20)Jeffers24 Wrote: [ -> ]Interesting, will Beelink provide an update to the OS on the Beelink Mini MX111 to Android 6?
I highly doubt it, from what I have seen the Beelink devices get something like 2 - 3 OTA firmware updates when they are first launched then nothing following on from that. MinIMX got 105L, 106L and 107L firmwares nothing after that, they didnt seem to add any kodi specific features. But the good news is from what I've seen is the Android build is pretty stable on the beelink devices. Saying that the early MiniMX devices were not even Beelink branded by'n is a plain device wth MiniMX stamped on the case. the MiniMX III was the first device to appear with beelink branding.
For the best Kodi experience your better off using LibreElec builds, personally I have Android on the NAND and I LibreElec Kszaq build on SD card, so i can choose which OS to boot up into Dual Boot in other words. So again these budget devices might not be for everyone, if your not capable or not willing to do a litttle bit of research and doing a bit of very basic technical work like being able to copy files using SAMBA shares, copying files to SD card etc, then maybe these devices may not be suitable for you. The OpenElec and LibreElec Kodi builds these devices are reliant on a couple of devs who put out their own time and effort to making the builds notably Alex at amlinuxmedia and Kszaq at LibreElec forums, theres also builds appearing on Freaktab which are ported from other manufacturers boxes Minix and Tronsmart for example.
It might even be that your needs are so basic that you can use the Android OS that comes preinstalled on the boxes and install Kodi or the android optimised fork by Koying SPMC directly from Google Play. Kodi is preintstalled on these boxes but it's not the latest version so it's better to install the latest version from Google Play.
Thanks for excellent response.
I have the Beelink Mini MXlll and I am very pleased with the performance. As you suggested I immediately deleted the Kodi it came with and installed from the play store.
Is there a reason why most if not all Android TV box suppliers do not upgrade the Android OS??
Unlike my phone for example which has had two OTA Android OS upgrades with no problems.
A lot of phone manufacturers also dont provide regular updates it's only really the big manufacturers that have the resources that provide the updates, Google, Samsung, Motorola, SONY, LG. Even amongst these Google only provides updates for 18 months, Samsung are really bad at providing updates extremely slow at releasing them and even then tend to bodge things up.
Android TV boxes are made by small companies, they dont have the resources, staff, funding etc, to continually provide software updates. A lot of these manufacturers have already moved onto newer models of devices to sell by the time newer android updates are available, they work on sales in numbers of new devices not ongoing support of older devices. Depends on your usage as well, if you only want to use a device for Kodi and video playback, do newer android versions provide any benefit ? I've already said, the LibreElec versions of Kodi are superior to android so for kodi that is the preferred platform. For gaming and apps you may see benefit with newer android versions, but only if the builds are stable.
This is why when buying a budget device you need to do your research and realise the compromises. There are several manufacturers that sell devices really cheap devices with very poor, unstable software, they do not provide updates, sometimes the android builds they provide are very buggy and unstable. Which is why you should avoid new to market devices like the current Android 6 , S912 and S905x devices, until you know that they are stable. Not all devices are bad, but it takes a reading and research to pick a good one.
(2016-09-12, 11:16)gsmtech Wrote: [ -> ]This is why when buying a budget device you need to do your research and realise the compromises. There are several manufacturers that sell devices really cheap devices with very poor, unstable software, they do not provide updates, sometimes the android builds they provide are very buggy and unstable. Which is why you should avoid new to market devices like the current Android 6 , S912 and S905x devices, until you know that they are stable. Not all devices are bad, but it takes a reading and research to pick a good one.
Yes exactly. Brand new, bleeding edge = trouble in AML Android land.
(2016-09-12, 10:58)Jeffers24 Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Noggin,
Thanks for reply.
I was probably not as clear as I should have been, when I say Android OS upgrade I meant version, so Android OS version 4.xx to 5.xx to 6.xx
My phone is a Moto which cost £115 has had two Android OS version upgrades so far.
Also a lot has to do with smoke, mirrors & bright lights aka Marketing.
Why upgrade the OS, when you can bamboozle and badazzle a bunch of media player (non Kodi member) Newbs with Fancy new Tech marketing terms and bigger OS numbers so you can shift the next shiny new Box.
After all the Newbs want to be on the bleeding edge of development for fear of getting left behind, regardless of the fact that any brand new AMLogic Android OS release is chokka full of bugs and usually does not work properly with Kodi anyway!
(2016-09-12, 11:20)wrxtasy Wrote: [ -> ] (2016-09-12, 11:16)gsmtech Wrote: [ -> ]This is why when buying a budget device you need to do your research and realise the compromises. There are several manufacturers that sell devices really cheap devices with very poor, unstable software, they do not provide updates, sometimes the android builds they provide are very buggy and unstable. Which is why you should avoid new to market devices like the current Android 6 , S912 and S905x devices, until you know that they are stable. Not all devices are bad, but it takes a reading and research to pick a good one.
Yes exactly. Brand new, bleeding edge = trouble in AML Android land.
(2016-09-12, 10:58)Jeffers24 Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Noggin,
Thanks for reply.
I was probably not as clear as I should have been, when I say Android OS upgrade I meant version, so Android OS version 4.xx to 5.xx to 6.xx
My phone is a Moto which cost £115 has had two Android OS version upgrades so far.
Also a lot has to do with smoke, mirrors & bright lights aka Marketing.
Why upgrade the OS, when you can bamboozle and badazzle a bunch of media player (non Kodi member) Newbs with Fancy new Tech marketing terms and bigger OS numbers so you can shift the next shiny new Box.
After all the Newbs want to be on the bleeding edge of development for fear of getting left behind, regardless of the fact that any brand new AMLogic Android OS release is chokka full of bugs and usually does not work properly with Kodi anyway!
Never have truer words been said!
(2016-09-08, 20:58)ant_thomas Wrote: [ -> ]I paid £18 for an S905 1GB/8GB box and it is amazing for the money.
Running Kszaq's .007 Libreelec and I feel it is better than the RPi3, UI performance is much better. I'm even considering one in place of my Chromebox.
Due to Kszaq's (and other's) development efforts it is a great Kodi/Libreelec option.
I don't have any 4K TVs so that part isn't really a concern for me. LiveTV playback is fantastic with good deinterlacing performance.
Hi, just wondering if your device is by any chance an A95X? I'm contemplating putting the LibreELEC on mine. How is the HD audio passthrough working?
(2016-09-13, 12:31)banditbanger Wrote: [ -> ] (2016-09-08, 20:58)ant_thomas Wrote: [ -> ]I paid £18 for an S905 1GB/8GB box and it is amazing for the money.
Running Kszaq's .007 Libreelec and I feel it is better than the RPi3, UI performance is much better. I'm even considering one in place of my Chromebox.
Due to Kszaq's (and other's) development efforts it is a great Kodi/Libreelec option.
I don't have any 4K TVs so that part isn't really a concern for me. LiveTV playback is fantastic with good deinterlacing performance.
Hi, just wondering if your device is by any chance an A95X? I'm contemplating putting the LibreELEC on mine. How is the HD audio passthrough working?
The box the other poster purchased for £18 is probably not the A95X the X has a S905X chip the newer CPU with VP9 support it's also not as cheap as £18 at the minute. The A95 (non X) has the S905 (non X) CPU these were being sold for around £18 when they were on promotion.
Gearbest are currently selling the MiniMX (beelink) 1Gb/8Gb S905 box for £17.76 delivered from their EU warehouse. Thats a fantastic bargain considering these boxes are known to work well with Kzsaqs LibreElec builds. 2gb/16Gb is probbaly better but for basic needs at this low price it's spot on.
(2016-09-13, 13:59)gsmtech Wrote: [ -> ] (2016-09-13, 12:31)banditbanger Wrote: [ -> ] (2016-09-08, 20:58)ant_thomas Wrote: [ -> ]I paid £18 for an S905 1GB/8GB box and it is amazing for the money.
Running Kszaq's .007 Libreelec and I feel it is better than the RPi3, UI performance is much better. I'm even considering one in place of my Chromebox.
Due to Kszaq's (and other's) development efforts it is a great Kodi/Libreelec option.
I don't have any 4K TVs so that part isn't really a concern for me. LiveTV playback is fantastic with good deinterlacing performance.
Hi, just wondering if your device is by any chance an A95X? I'm contemplating putting the LibreELEC on mine. How is the HD audio passthrough working?
The box the other poster purchased for £18 is probably not the A95X the X has a S905X chip the newer CPU with VP9 support it's also not as cheap as £18 at the minute. The A95 (non X) has the S905 (non X) CPU these were being sold for around £18 when they were on promotion.
Gearbest are currently selling the MiniMX (beelink) 1Gb/8Gb S905 box for £17.76 delivered from their EU warehouse. Thats a fantastic bargain considering these boxes are known to work well with Kzsaqs LibreElec builds. 2gb/16Gb is probbaly better but for basic needs at this low price it's spot on.
Actually, A95X comes in 2 versions, one is s905 non X which is sold for around the same price as Beelink, the other (with the same name) is built arounf S905X SoC. I have the 905 non X 1GB/8GB... Thanks for the heads up regarding the Beelink though, maybe I will buy one...
Checked, Beelink seems to be out of stock right now...
Ordered myself a Beelink MINI MXIII II (S905X 2GB / 16GB) for £32.
Already got a Shield and passed my old Pi2 onto family so don't really need this. Just an impulse buy to mess around with and keep me from buying more expensive toys.
Will report back when it arrives, shipping from china so who knows how long that will be.
As first thing let me take the chance to thank Martijn for visiting our booth Saturday at IBC in Amsterdam, I had the time to have some nice conversations with him and I had some very interesting new from him regarding the whole Amlogic platform on the new nightlies build that I am going to try today (I just need to recompose myself a little bit, lol, as I arrived home tonight at 2am)
(2016-09-13, 23:32)i_am_jond Wrote: [ -> ]Ordered myself a Beelink MINI MXIII II (S905X 2GB / 16GB) for £32.
Already got a Shield and passed my old Pi2 onto family so don't really need this. Just an impulse buy to mess around with and keep me from buying more expensive toys.
Will report back when it arrives, shipping from china so who knows how long that will be.
Might turn out to be a cracking purchase. Kszaq says he has no plans to build LibreElec right now for the S912 but there is basic support for S905X which is being worked on. So you probably made a good choice going with S905X and not S912 in terms of software support.
The Mini MX series is quite popular and confirmed to be of good build quality with good performance and compatibility with the developer builds of LibreElec. The base android build on these devices is also quite stable, I used SPMC on android for the first couple of months of owning a Mini MX (S905, 2g, 16g) it worked fine. Now I dual boot between Android on NAND, withe LibreElec on MicroSD card. For pure Kodi usage I use LibreElec if I want other apps I boot into Android.
Yesterday I installed LE via SD card method on my S95X (1GB/8GB, S905 non X). Everything went without a hitch ( I used 007 build and the device tree for A95X) and works almost perfect!!! No video or sound issues, passthrough to my receiver works for all the material I tried, including DTS HD-MA. Haven't tried ATMOS though. Will do some more testing and report back.
I had one freeze, It happened while surfing the library and not while playing a movie. The only other thing I noticed is that after switching off it is impossible to switch the device on with remote, and since there is no ON/OFF switch on the device, you have to pull the power cable.
All in all, GREAT WORK! I only wish my NEXBOX came this way from the factory and advise all the other owners having problems with sound passthrough to go the LibreELEC way...Since the NEXBOX A95X S905 non X sells for a really low price this is a great way to get a great player for a very low price.
THANK YOU Kszaq, I'm happy again...
One more thing - as stated I used device tree for A95X (gxbb_p200_nexbox_a95x.dtb) which I can't seem to find anymore at
http://kszaq.libreelec.tv/s905/7.0.2.007/device_trees/ . Maybe one of the files in the directory is the same and just the name is different, but it would be good to clarify this for other owners of A95X going the LE way...
(2016-09-15, 09:37)banditbanger Wrote: [ -> ]One more thing - as stated I used device tree for A95X (gxbb_p200_nexbox_a95x.dtb) which I can't seem to find anymore at http://kszaq.libreelec.tv/s905/7.0.2.007/device_trees/ . Maybe one of the files in the directory is the same and just the name is different, but it would be good to clarify this for other owners of A95X going the LE way...
Any questions like that are better asked (or searched for)
here.