I am using a Ki-pro s905D (as a main box) and a Mini-MX s905x (bedroom) for years now, and i am thinking about upgrading.
An obvious choice would be an S922x box, perhaps an Odroid-N2 or a GT-king, i hear good things for both.
But i have to also consider the final cost which will be more than 120 euros (with shipping) for the GT-King, even more for the N2 with an emmc.
So i am thinking perhaps i should get a NUC. Considering the NUC7PJYH with a Pentium J5005 that looks very promising, and will cost me 170 euros (i already have the ram and ssd needed).
Can you share your experiences with an S922x or a recent NUC compared to the old s905 boxes?
Thanks for the reply chrisund123,
I definitely will not upgrade to a s905x2-x3 box, i think they are not a serious update compared to the s905x i have.
But buying from China is out of the question for now, because of corona-virus shipping delays (2 months+, sometimes never), plus the customs cost and delay. The prices i mention are from shops in the EU.
A GT-king bought from Greece costs €150-160, hence the thought for the NUC (€170).
What i would like to know, is how a recent NUC performs with Coreelec, compared with all the amlogic boxes.
I bought some screen protectors from AliExpress a few weeks ago and they arrived in the usual time frame (2 weeks), obviously your mileage may vary but it seems like Corona isn’t putting the brakes on things quite as much.
The other considerations are customs taxes you may face, I’ve never had any issues when buying from China with it delays and extra charges, but your system may be a lot different.
If you’re getting an NUC will you be using LibreElec? CoreElec is exclusively for amlogic. LibreElec supports x64 architecture
Yes, foolish of me i had the impression all jeos distributions supported x64 arch.
Now this might be good enough reason to stick to amlogic lol.
PS, had ordered a few electronic parts (power supply boards etc) from various sellers in china on March-April, ALL of them are still undelivered (60-75 days+), even got refunded for some of them.
Won’t do it again unless things normalize…
You can search in AliExpress with the option ship from and choose an European country. Just received a device last Thursday that was bought the Monday before.
A NUC is always going to be the more versatile. Out of the box you have multiple OS support, with mult-boot too, they often have both expandable RAM and storage that goes way beyond most TV boxes, are probably generally more reliable and stable with the OS’s that are supported and offer not only a greater range of connectivity with such things as number of USB ports, video connectivity, and more up to date tech (USB 3.0 for example).
But a NUC is almost always going to be more expensive and may not be at the leading edge, especially with Intel, who seem hell bent on not wanting to support things like HDR on lower end specs (at least the last time I read articles they didn’t). A NUC will always use more power, even if not a great leap to make bills hugely more expensive and they can come with fans that some won’t like. In terms of an OS such as Android, whilst it can be used on x86, I think it fair to say that it still works and performs better on ARM platforms.
I would say that many NUC’s are going to come from established brands and as such will have greater support base and when it comes to warranties, offer far better peace of mind (check out Odroid warranties to compare). They will also be more powerful in general.
TV boxes are of course cheaper, use less power, are smaller and where your have a specific focus of operation where a TV box can provide it, offer far more value for money. Where you have an option such as CoreELEC for the video enthusiast, then things get even better, They do almost always come from no name vendors (in terms of global recognition) and vendor support is pretty much terrible across the board. Thankfully, independent devs often come to the rescue in terms of Android to provide custom firmwares that fix many bugs that manufacturers can’t be bothered to).
You need to list out in your mind what your priorities are, do lots of research with reviews on website and Youtube etc, where I am sure that you will either come to a firm and happy decision, be faced with too many choices, or not being able to find that one thing that does everything.
So when I was looking for something to complement (if not replace my Vero 4K+), I looked at NUC’s as i had previously been running Kodi on a mini i5 Wintel PC. While the Vero is good, it was noticebly slower than my i5 when running the heavy Titan MOD skin.
Almost pressed the button on an NUC lookalike when I cam across the Odroid N2. Suffice to say the N2 running CE is a no-brainer. It’s just as quick as my i5, runs smoothly and sillently, stays cool, is up for days and is v low maintenance. On top, it supports HDR10 and HDR10+ properly! Quite an amazing combination. Really cannot go wrong.
Thanks for the input guys, after your comments i’ve decided to go Amlogic again.
Specifically for the Odroid N2, since i can connect the internal tuner from the Ki-pro to it, a big plus, thanks to Coreelec team.