New user looking for Android box recommendations

First of all, sorry for another thread like this, I’m sure there are many. I will try to be as specific as I can.

My requirements -

  • will be connected via HDMI to receiver
  • need lossless audio passthru
  • good cooling
  • oem regular updates for firmware and support
  • known to be stable

good to have -

  • if firmware provided also enables audio passthru in Android
  • easy dual boot (e.g. as found in Ugoos)

I’m new to CoreElec and I’m having difficulty in understanding which to pick from the huge number of boxes all based on same SOC.

I have narrowed down to box based on S905X3 or S922X. Both seem to have same decoding capabilities. There also seem to be many variants of above as well as S905X4 etc which I don’t know if they are supported.

The other question I have is how to find which device is supported. The device tree doesn’t seem to have everything or I don’t know how to look.

e.g. I am looking at this - www.amazon.com/X88-PRO-X3-Quad-core-Cortex-A55/dp/B0894RZJQ3/

But X88 Pro X3 is not listed on device tree page which only has X88 king. There is a thread on it (X88 PRO X3, Choose DTB and Install to EMMC) which says to use generic image but after reading the thread its still not clear if the device is supported or not?

I also looked for Transpeed as I considered this - www_amazon_com/Android-32GB-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/B0815T4B38, but again cannot find them in device tree page.

My questions -

  • is S905X3 vs S922X a big difference when using heavy skins and large libraries? Is the S922 much snappier in daily use? Is it worth the almost $80 premium?

  • does CE allow changing partition size to allocate more space to it, vs Android. e.g. most of these have 32GB RAM which can be used for addon, cache etc since I wont be using the Android partition much

  • who makes a reliable hardware with good cooling etc and support, besides Odroid, since its out of stock, plus after adding needed parts the cost works out same as other Android boxes

  • I am in US and prefer to buy from Amazon if possible due to better return policy and short shipping times. I know Aliexpress has much larger variety so I don’t mind that if needed.

  • can someone recommend a good choice for S905X3 based box (see many choices like X96, H96, Transpeed, X88 and many other brands its hard to tell if they are supported by CE) as well as S922X (Ugoos looks good to me but is close to $160 and not sold by Amazon), or anything else I should be looking at

Thanks

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