[gsmtech]

Hi all,

For the last few weeks i've been trying to absorb as much as possible on the current state of cheap boxes for Kodi.

I have an Ouya (before that an Xbox) for using Kodi but i've not reached the point where the hardware isn't cutting the mustard with h265. Looks like S905 based box is what i'm looking for.

So i'm looking for a box that:

- Can play everything I can throw at and output it to a 1080p screen (unlikely to be any 4K content, but must include h265), including playing it at the correct frame rate.
- Can produce audio from all the common audio codecs. I'm not too worried if it's PCM 2.0, passthrough etc, as long as audio plays. The Ouya is connected to a receiver, and this causes infrequent audio cutouts, which are really annoying.
- Snappy interface - i'd prefer 2GB of RAM based on what i've read.
- Not worried about anything outside of Kodi - Libreelec sounds good to me.
- I'd prefer a premade box, over a board. This is not a must, but there must be a solid advantage to going for C2 over the other options - I'm not sure what they are for me.
- I'm not worried about netflix etc and I don't want to stretch to a Wetek or Shield solution.

I've read through most of this thread, but what i'm really looking for is:

- What is the lowest cost solution that will meet the requirements above that others would recommend?
- Secondly, if i'm running Libreelec, is there any downside to having one of these cheap chinese boxes? Should everything just work?

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Beelink Mini MX III (Amlongic S905 rev C SOC) 2Gb RAm / 16Gb Flash - It will happily run Dual boot android OS which gets auto updates from Beelink and Libre Elec off SD Card so yuor getting the benefit of being able to choose wihich OS you want to use, Kszaq owns a MiniMX and tests his LibreElec builds on these boxes. There are also OpenElec build available from Alex/kerber at amlinuxmedia.

T95N Mini M8S Pro is another alternative this also has 2GB RAM but only 8GB Flash.

Odroid C2 becomes ridiculously expensive in comparison to a China S905 when you add the parts to make a equivalent product Odroid C2 Board + EMMC Moduile + Wifi module + bluetooth module + Power Supply + Case + HDMI Cable + Remote control . To put this into persepctive in the UK the Obroid C2 Board alone is 42 GBP + Delivery , this is more expensive than a complete S905 Box from China the 16GB EMMC module alone for the Odroid C2 is almost 30 GBP. I could buy 3 x complete S905 China boxes with 2Gb Ram, 16Gb flash, Wifi, bluetooth, for the same price as 1 x Odroid c2 with this spec...

... Not to mention the one box solution looks a lot neater , the odroid would require USB bluetooth, USB Wifi, tying up USB ports ...

Have a read of the LibreElec S905 Kzsaq threads on the LibreElec forum to get a flavour of which boxes people are using. Mostly for me everything works straight out of the box using LibreElec off SD Card using a Beelink MiniMX v1 (2Gb RAM/16Gb Flash, Libre Elec Kzsaq build 7.005 off SD Card - Samsung evo 32Gb class10). The box is rapid, boots very fast, menus are fast and snappy.