[wrxtasy]

Reviews Transferred from the START HERE - Pick the Right Kodi Box thread...

Thoughts on Minix U1 box?
The U1 was my first attempt at getting into Kodi. I purchased the U1 with the matching remote.
I like the apps and the UI that comes with the box, they have their own version of XBMC that seemed more stable on the U1 than my attempts at playing with Kodi.

I set the unit up through the Ethernet port on my 50/50 fiber line and went to the Google store and DL'd Kodi 16.1. I then installed a couple builds but settled on an Pulse build. I really enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately the U1 started misbehaving. I would open Kodi and it would appear for a second and then the screen would revert to the "all apps" screen. I would click on Kodi and it would open for a sec, then back to "all apps" over and over and over until for whatever reason it would finally stay. I cleared cache (I seem to spend more time clearing cache than watching content) and rebooted but the behavior never improved. Someone on the Minix forum told me to just forget Kodi, do a factory reset (which is kind of like the advice of "unplug it and plug it back in) and use the custom Minix XBMC that was provided on the box. I did exactly that.

I played with the provided custom Minix XBMC but had a hard time getting it to recognize my Windows 7 home network.
Now, a little background on the W7 PC network issue….I know its difficult to work with. I purchased a WD player several years ago, one of the first generation, and it would not work with my W7 network at all. I spent probably 80 hours troubleshooting (I became something of a network specialist) and never could get it to work. Fast forward to their third generation player and it worked flawlessly, never a snag. Which brought me to the conclusion that a player could in fact be designed to actually work reliably with a W7 network.
So, anyways I tried to point the U1 at my network and add it as a source. Without going on and on, let me just say that it was a pain. The add source methodolgy just wouldnt see my SMB network, until one time on my twentieth attempt it did, for whatever reason. So finally it loaded the info and scraped the content.

Playback is not a smooth as I would have hoped. Audio/video sync issues and freezes among other things. I would be watching a movie and pause it and when I came back it would start this odd behavior of having the audio drop out every 15 seconds or so for about a second. Very annoying.

I consider this thing to be too buggy.

I have an admittedly older W7 PC on a home Gigabit network with a 50/50 fiber line. Is there a bullet proof Android box that will reliably work with my network, play everything I throw at it reliably and allow a fully functional Kodi experience? I am sending the U1 back and need a reliable palyer. Until this point the Boxee Box and then the WD player was all I needed, now with those being obsolete I need a reliable player.
Help!

So I thought i would watch a movie I just added to my PC and I started the U1 and tried to refresh the library to see the new movie. Its stuck at preparing... and has been for three minutes. This thing is incredibly buggy, I thought Minix made better products. Its not like Im asking it to do much, just friggin read from my PC ten feet away!