[l3z1]

Hello,

I am looking for a tv box for my living room. I plan to use it to:
* run Kodi
* use a torrent client to films to an external hard drive
* watch online videos using a browser app (mainly for my parents)

I am currently considering buying one of these:

1.Minix X8-H Plus: A very popular option that has very good reviews

2. TRONSMART MXIII PLUS S812: a much less popular option but this device seems to share all the specs with the first one, while costing about a third of the price.

Is the first option worth the extra money? Are there any better alternatives?

Thank you for your help in advance!

[shabuboy]

personally,I would not use any of those if all 3 cases can occur simultaneous all on same device.
- you watching a movie via Kodi from USB drive
- Torrent client downloading a file to USB drive
- Parents streaming via a browser from USB drive

I would recommend a NAS to storage your media and torrent client.
Then those devices you mentioned for media player + laptop via browser streaming from NAS.

Start here, sticky thread on first page
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=94268

[l3z1]

personally,I would not use any of those if all 3 cases can occur simultaneous all on same device.
- you watching a movie via Kodi from USB drive
- Torrent client downloading a file to USB drive
- Parents streaming via a browser from USB drive

I would recommend a NAS to storage your media and torrent client.
Then those devices you mentioned for media player + laptop via browser streaming from NAS.

Start here, sticky thread on first page
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=94268

That wouldn't happen simultaneously, these are the three things I would want the device to be capable of doing.

A NAS is basically any computer I'd stream videos from, right? I wouldn't want to hold a computer at home for that sole purpose only, I'd be more comfortable with having some hard disk for that frankly.

I didn't understand why I need a laptop but I really thought that I could just use one of these devices (or a different one you'd recommend) to watch w/e content: be it through Kodi or from a hard disk.

Edit: I read the post you recommended and I actually am not that sure to which category I belong.. And as to the NAS vs Hard drive issue, it just got me more confused.. This set up should be used by my parents most of the time, I do not want to make things complicated..

[nickr]

Chromebox.