We have had CE for VIM3 since 9.2.0 and we have a preliminary image for VIM3L, do you know which engineer said this so we can clarify it with them?
Iām still on the chat. Will ask.
Which of the builds is the one for V3 btw?
Reply:
āYes, CE team can support the VIM3, but we have not firmware now, so we advise you can upgarde it by yourself.ā
I think the confusion is Khadas dont ship Vim3 with CE OS.
It has Android Internal.
You use our Generic Amlogic-ng image with the VIM3 and follow the same process that you would with any other device.
Ok Thanks.
Still undecided on what to do. Iāll wait for a reply from ameridroid, maybe check a local repair lab to see if they can figure something out.
VIM3P will be quite hefty in price as it will also need to go through customs. The VIM3L should be able to handle 4K properly? Any thoughts on Beelink?
Yes, VIM3L manage 4K perfectly and is the option I recommend for you. Avoid Beelink given the HW issues. You can find more information about choosing media playere here: START HERE - Pick the Right Kodi Box (updated October 2019)
There is an old post, from august. Beelink has fw updated. GT-King boxes working fine now.
reached in-depth cooperation with the CoreELEC development team
Thanks guys for all the useful answers.
Reading the [S922X] Bee-link GT King thread has probably convinced me to shy away from it.
newb question: Can CE_Backup I made on N2 be applied to VIM3L? I really donāt like to configure Kodi from scratch.
Yes, should work just fine.
sounds good, thanks.
So I would need to install CE on an SD card as dual boot (and not on the emmc)? Would the N2 card work as is?
With the Vim3 āYesā
Take a Backup using CE settings and copy that Backup to your PC or USB whatever.
Do a fresh burn of CE for the Vim3
The Vim3L will have CE installed to emmc but you can use the the Backup as instructed.
great, thanks.
Latest Update: Iāve exchanged some emails with someone at ameridroid. He didnāt write off a replacement yet.
He asked me to install the N2 Ubuntu image and check if it displays on my tv. I assume itās some test to see if itās a hw or sw issue but not quite sure what it proves, did it anyway.
Now awaiting to hear back from him.
thatās also me 
I had a hard time signing up to the forum and tried to change stuff to make it work, ended up with a different nick. Turns out it didnāt like the email I was trying to use.
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He said they had several customers reporting similar issues and that at least with one of them it turned out to be an issue with the CE image. Then asked that I boot it with the linux image.
First time I tried that I couldnāt get anything to display. He suggested Iāll plug in the hdmi after the blue light turned on. That worked and I got the ubuntu desktop to show.
Though he didnāt ask, I tried to play some vids off a usb stick with VLC. It was choppy with 1080p and pretty much frozen images with 4K HDR/SDR with white speckles blinking on screen. I guess it needs some hw acceleration to play. I thought VLC already does that out of the box.
OK. This is becoming almost funnyā¦
After I reported back to AD that I managed to boot and display with the Ubu N2 image (which I didnāt quite understand why I was asked to), I waited 5 days for a response and finally emailed them again asking what is the next step.
After a few email exchanges back and forth last night, I think I finally understood why I was asked to test Ubu.
The guy at AD has somehow decided that my complaint is that I couldnāt boot the N2 with CE, even though I had explained in detail what the issue was. Thus from his standpoint, if I can boot it with linux=not a hardware issue.
I have repeated the explanation that the issue is with 4K playback at least 3 times in the emails we exchanged last night, but his response keeps being about bootingā¦
From his penultimate response:
"The fact that your board is functioning under that image rules out a hardware issue preventing boot, so this leaves software issues. There is actually a lot of complaining about the video playback performance of the N2. Here is a link to a forum thread discussing N2 hardware acceleration, in particular the need to implement an accelerated X11 driver:
https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?t=36675 "
From his last response:
āA functioning OS rules out hardware defects, at least theoretically, as the board cannot read the instruction set if the architecture is defective. This is why we generally test with the image that the manufacturer has had a hand in the development of or endorses. I am not saying that CoreElec is the issue. If anything it has improved performance somewhat, but the lack of functional and complete drivers is the issue it seems. This does not explain why you are unable to boot CoreElec, which I believe is an image issueā
I had replied yet again that the issue is not with booting. No response yet.
Edit: The confusion with AD was sorted. They offered to send it back and have their tech try to fix it.
Given kostamanās experience (though with HK), I donāt think itās worth my time and the shipping costs.
This thread should really be moved back to the N2 forum where it started. As this isnāt a kodi issue and and may help others who are looking into buying this product.