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Home » Streaming Devices » Android TV Box » 10 Must-Have Android TV Box Features For Your Next Device

10 Must-Have Android TV Box Features For Your Next Device

By Tim on January 5, 201939 Comments

10 Must-Have Android TV Box Features For Your Next Device

Android TV boxes have come a long, long way since I started this site back in 2013.

In fact, streaming devices and cord-cutting in general have come a long way, too.

Think about it.

Going back to 2013, the third generation Roku was released in spring of that year. Chromecast came out in the summer. The Amazon FireTV and Nexus Player wouldn’t come out until 2014. The NVIDIA Shield was barely even thought of back then.

Nothing available had reliable 4K streaming. To be honest, nothing back then even had reliable Wi-Fi.

The “Must Have” Android TV Box Features…

If you’re buying another TV box this year. what are some of the specs that you should be looking for?

I’m going to break it down to a list of the top 10 Android TV box features I’d want in my next device, and a couple of bonus features to look for as well.

I’ve got to say, though, that no Android box that I’ve seen so far has all of these features, and the more you add, the more you’re going to pay for them. Pick and choose what’s important to you.

Think of these as a starting point. Or a shopping list.


JUST GETTING STARTED?

Get up to speed quickly with my Getting Started with TV boxes resource page. Check it out here or using the image below!

Android TV Box Start Here


150415-AVR-X2200W_E3-product-right1. 5.1 Audio Passthrough

One of the most requested Android TV box features is 5.1 Audio Passthrough in Kodi\XBMC.

But, what is audio passthrough?

Audio passthrough, simply put, is when you want to send the signal from the player through to another device without actually doing anything to the signal.

Put another way, when a movie is ripped from a Blu-ray or DVD to a digital file, the sound is compressed much the same as the video is. Sometimes, if you have a home theater receiver, you want to have the received process that sound, not your TV box.

If your media file has DTS, Dolby Digital or 5.1 Surround sound, and your receiver can decode that signal, you’ll get much better sound by using the audio passthrough rather than letting your TV box handle it.

The good news is that this feature has been part of XBMC and Kodi for years because Kodi is designed to run on multiple hardware platforms. The bad news is that many devices simply weren’t designed to take advantage of this capability.

Thankfully, most Android boxes today have some sort of audio passthrough capability and many are 5.1 surround sound capable.

Still, if you have a nice AV receiver, you’ll want to ask some specific questions about how the TV box handles different audio formats.

How to earn bonus points: Devices that offer a 7.1 Audio Passthrough without upping the cost

h_265_hevc2. H.265 hardware decoding

Let’s start at the beginning: What is H.265?

H.265, which you’ll also see written as HEVC or High-Efficiency Video Encoding, is a compression standard for video. Think of it as the standards for how to make your raw video files smaller and easier to transmit over a network – like the Internet.

Video files are huge. The average Blu-ray movie is between 10-25 GB in size, and even that has some form of compression on it to make it smaller.

HEVC H.265, in a nutshell, will “chunk” up the picture into smaller segments with less detail in order to get about a 50% better compression efficiency than H.264 and – here’s the kicker down the road – support for up to 8K resolution.

If you want the technical details of how it manages this, there’s a great article on StreamingMedia.com which goes into the details. But be warned, the article gets really technical, really fast.

Why is a hardware H.265 HEVC decoder better?

OK, so we want a HEVC H.265 decoder on our next device. Check. But don’t most of them already have it?

Yes and no. Most Android TV boxes that run Kodi will have some sort of HEVC H.265 decoder. But, it is usually a software decoder, rather than a hardware decoder.

What’s the difference?

It all comes down to speed. In general, a hardware HEVC video decoder will outperform a software decoder every single time.

If you’ve got a brand new Android box with nothing on it, that may not be an issue. But, as devices get older, and we add more stuff to them, there’s more demands being put on the OS. In other words, more programs competing for CPU time….

….and that means less resources available to play your video file using software decoding.

A hardware HEVC decoder beats a software HEVC decoder every time.

Android-Lollipop-Statue-Google-HQ-640x4283. Android 5.1 Lollipop (or higher)

There are a ton of devices that come with Android 4.4 stock, even from some pretty big manufacturers. So why not KitKat?

Think about it this way. When you buy a device, you expect it to have the newest stuff, right?

Would you buy a brand new PC with windows 8? Or a new Mac with Mountain Lion?

No. You’d expect (rightfully) for them to have Windows 10 or El Capitan on them.

A newer operating system has all of the bug fixes and performance improvements, not to mention support for the future.

So what does Android 5.1 Lollipop offer specifically over Android 4.4?

  • An entirely new programming library (Android Runtime) that lowers startup time, saves disk space and handles memory better than its predecessor
  • Support for OpenGL ES 3.1 for better 3D and 2D graphics rendering
  • Material Design for a better, more modern interface
  • Audio input and output through USB devices

I can’t stress enough, without getting too technical, that the important thing on that list is the first one: the new ART Android RunTime. It gives devices with the sames specs real-world performance increases over the same device running Android 4.4 KitKat.

If you plan to have keep your TV box for any length of time, future-proof it as much as possible by making sure it has at least Android 5.1 or higher.

Refresh-Rate-difference4. Dynamic Refresh Rate Switching

What is Dynamic Refresh Rate Switching?

I want you to try something. The next time you’re on your PC or laptop, go into the Display Settings and change the resolution.

Did you see where the screen went black and then came back on? When that happened, the computer changed how fast it was re-drawing (refreshing) the image on the screen.

The “magic number” for refresh rate is 60Hz. That’s the point where the human eye no longer sees any blinking.

What does this mean for you? Well, Kodi’s interface can natively run at 1080p and 60Hz, so the menus will look flawless. The problem is when you play a video file that has a refresh rate other than what you’re set up to view.

If you run a 24Hz movie file on a 60Hz display settings, then it’s going to look terrible.

Here’s the kicker: every video file can have a different refresh rate, and you may have to manually change the settings for each one.

It all depends on how the video file was encoded.

Enter Dynamic Refresh Rate Switching.

What Dynamic Refresh Rate Switching will do is to adjust the refresh rate automatically between the source and the TV. That way, if you have a 24Hz source and a 50Hz TV, it will automatically sync those so that you can get the best picture possible. If you want more specific information, head over to Noggin’s post on the Kodi forums.

On the software side, this is handled within Kodi using the “Adjust Display Refresh Rate” and “Sync Playback to Display” settings. But, what about the hardware?

If you have an Android TV box that will automatically change the output as well, it gives you even more options – most importantly, the ability to do this outside of Kodi.

If you have software (Kodi or any other media player), hardware (your TV box), and a TV that will automatically switch refresh rates on the fly, you’ll never have to worry about changing your video playback options every time you start a new video.

FOTA5. OTA (Over The Air) Firmware updates

Here’s one of the biggest mistakes I made when buying my first Android TV box: I didn’t think of how I’d update the device.

I mean, who thinks of updating a brand new device?

You should. And I’ll tell you why.

The first Android TV boxes are technology hacks. The same goes for a Raspberry pi. They’re a weaker’s dream come true, but a nightmare for a non-technical user.

To update the firmware you had to download an image file and a special USB burning tool, then boot the device into restore mode – usually by sticking a toothpick into a small hole in the back of the device while simultaneously turning it on.

Seriously….who wants to do that?

OTA firmware updates, which are sometimes called FOTA (Firmware Over The Air), changes all that.

The OTA update app which will check to see if an update is available. If so, it downloads it and installs it, just like your phone or PC would do.

Easy peasy.

Shockingly not every manufacturer does this.

If you want to save yourself a lot of headaches down the road, you’ll make OTA firmware updates a must-have feature for your next Android box.

Tennant-3D-glasses6. 1080p 3D

I’m going to make a confession. I hate 3D movies.

But, enough of you reading this site have been interested in it that I’ve included it on this list. If it’s something you like, then read on. If you’re like me and don’t care about 3D at all, I won’t feel bad if you skip on down to the next item.

Sony introduced a new file format called MVC: Multiview Video Coding. It is a variant of the H.264 video compression standard which basically captures two video streams (views) at the same time. When you put those two streams together, your eye is tricked into thinking the image is in 3D.

When done right, this is a really cool feature…if you’re into 3D movies.

Again, I’m letting my bias show. Sorry.

The trouble is, that it is hardware-intensive and not many manufacturers get it completely right. Even the heavy hitters in the TV box arena (Shield, FireTV, Chromebox and Nexus Player) don’t support MVC 3D. At the time of this writing, only a couple of smaller manufacturers have any form of MVC 3D functionality.

Even those that do support it, don’t implement it completely. There’s a running thread on the Kodi forums where different Kodi TV boxes are tested for 3D compatibility using a whole host of different criteria. I highly recommend you check it out.

HDMI-27. HDMI 2.0

Why is this important?

Do you want UHD 4K video at 60 frames per second? Then you’re going to need the extra bandwidth of HDMI 2.0

Now that I’ve got your attention, finding out if a device has HDMI 2.0 usually takes a little bit of digging.

Most device manufacturers will put a lot of emphasis on specs that are relatively minor, in my opinion. They’ll proudly flaunt that their TV box has Bluetooth 4.0, Miracast or (gasp) WiFi. At the same time, they’ll leave out important details like what HDMI version their device has.

HDMI 2.0 was released in 2013 and has one major improvement over the more common HDMI 1.4: bandwidth.

Those 4K signals take up a lot of bandwidth – to the tune of around 10Gb per second. In theory, HDMI 1.4 has that capability, but it pushes the limits of the technology. HDMI 2.0 increased the capacity to a maximum of 18Gb/second, which is more than enough for 4K UHD at 60fps.

The bottom line is that you may not be streaming a lot of 4K content right now, but with more people trading in their 1080p TV’s for 4K, the content can’t be far behind.

usb_3_a8. USB 3.0

I’m constantly surprised by the number of devices that still have USB 2.0. And not just TV boxes….but mainstream laptops and desktops too.

USB 3.0 was released all the way back in 2008. It had effective speeds over 10-times faster than USB 2.0. And if you wanted to use it for charging, the USB 3.0 port almost doubles the power handling capability from USB 2.0.

So why isn’t everything USB 3.0?

Not everything needs it, to be honest. If you’re hooking up a mouse, keyboard, SD-card adapter, microphone, speakers or any number of devices where pure speed isn’t a factor, you can get by just fine using USB 2.0.

But, if you’re hooking up an external hard drive….say to stream movies from…..then you’re going to want to have at least one USB 3.0 port on your device.

If you don’t, then you’ll still be stuck on slow USB speeds which will affect the quality of your videos.

dual-band traffic diagram_new_v29. Dual-Band Wi-Fi and\or Gigabit Ethernet

Having a fast USB 3.0 connection is great for streaming videos if you’re playing from a hard drive connected directly to your Kodi box, but what about if you’re streaming from a Network Attached Storage (NAS), another computer or even from Netflix?

That’s where you’re going to need some seriously fast networking hardware.

It’s the old “weakest link” analogy. Your network is only going to be as fast as the slowest component in the chain.

I don’t know about you, but when I look at the maximum speed of a network adapter, either wired or wireless, I think that I’ll never use that much bandwidth in a million years.

But, there’s more going on in my network than just that one device. I have four smartphones, three tablets, a laptop, a Chromebook, a wired desktop PC, two wireless printers, various smart devices, oh, and three TV boxes on my network at any given time.

My bandwidth gets eaten up pretty quickly.

It’s important to beef up your wireless devices, and not just in terms of raw throughput. They need to be smarter, too.

What is dual-band Wi-Fi, and how can it help?

A dual-band router contains two wireless radio adapters – 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Many of them will be able to transmit on both bands (frequencies) at the same time.

One of the reasons that there are two different frequencies is that 2.4GHz and 5GHz signals will bounce around your house in different ways. A 5GHz signal can carry more data and will be faster than a 2.4GHz signal, but it doesn’t go through your living room wall (or any other solid object) nearly as well.

Having a dual-band router and network adapter helps to compensate for network slowdowns by shifting the signal automatically to the frequency that is under less stress or has less interference from outside sources.

Alternately, if you have the option, using wired Gigabit Ethernet can give you consistent throughput without having to worry about interference or signal degradation.

Either way, make sure that you’re using the same speed networking components on everything. It’s no use having an 802.11ac router if you’re TV box can only handle 802.11n. It’ll work, but you’ll be limited to the much slower 802.11n speeds.

Kodi 16 Jarvis10. The latest stock version of Kodi

I’ve always been a “latest and greatest” kind of person.

I update software and device drivers religiously and I’m always checking to see what the new features are and if they’re something that I can use.

So I just don’t get it when people turn off automatic updates – especially for something as vital to your Kodi box as KODI!

Team Kodi developers put a lot of time and effort into creating the best media center possible. They’ve taken feedback and requests from the official Kodi forums and turned that into cool new features for us to play with.

If you don’t update Kodi on your Android TV box, you’ll miss out on all of these future updates.

Aren’t the Custom Kodi Builds better?

A quick Google search for “custom Kodi builds” returns about 400,000 listings, more if you search for “custom XBMC builds.”

I mean no disrespect to any of the amateur developers out there who are contributing and improving to the Kodi platform. The community exists because of them, and they deserve a lot of credit for keeping it going in their spare time.

But when someone creates a custom version, that version becomes splintered off from the main program.

Think of it like getting off the highway and on to an access road that runs along-side of the main road. That access road may get you to the same location eventually, but it will definitely be slower because there’s more people using the main road. It might even take you someplace entirely different that you don’t want to go.

When I test a device, I’m using whatever custom version the manufacturer installs, as well as the latest stable version of Kodi that I download from either Google Play Store, or Kodi.tv.

I’m a reviewer. That’s my job to test everything.

But on my own personal devices….you better believe that when I’m sitting down to watch a movie that I’m using a stock Kodi installation.

Bonus: Hyped up features to avoid

There are so many really cool things coming down the pipe right now. But there’s also some questionable stuff too.

Here’s a short list of things that I’d caution most people to avoid right now. Two of the three items on this list are great but, for most people, buying them right now is just going to be a waste of money.

10-bit-chart10-bit color

There’s a difference between 10 bit video encoding and 10 bit color. We’re talking about the latter one.

10 bit color will be able to show more variations in color than 8 bit. Basically, the three primary colors (red, blue and green) will have 2ˆ10 or 1024 different variations in hue, meaning over one billion possible variations in color.

Awesome, right? Well…..

Your Blu-ray player won’t actually support that many colors so you’ll never actually see any 10-bit content on it. Techhive put it best when they said this:

So where’s the hype? No matter what your HDTV can do, you’re probably never going to see any 10-bit content on it. Neither broadcast HDTV nor Blu-ray support deep color. If a studio released a movie on Blu-ray with 10-bit color, that disc wouldn’t work on any existing player. It would, in effect, be a whole new format incompatible with any current disc player.

File 10 bit color in the “maybe later….” category.

7.1 Audio passthrough

Same goes for 7.1 Audio passthrough.

If you’ve got a kick-ass home theatre system with 7.1 speakers and a dedicated room to watch your movies, let me ask you a question:

Are you really watching your movies on a TV box?

I’d bet you’re not. If you’ve got that crazy a set-up, you’ve probably got better (i.e. more expensive) equipment. Decent 7.1 speakers cost anywhere from $600 to upwards of $3000.

If you’ve got that kind of system, my next movie night is going to be at your house.

Just sayin’….

windows-10-logo-windows-91-640x353Dual-Booting to Windows

If I had to pick one TV box feature that was complete and utter hype – this would be it.

Dual-Booting to multiple operating systems on one device is unnecessary for 99% of the people who would buy the device.

It’s great if you’re trying out a new OS, or if you’re trying to save money by having one device do multiple things.

But in all seriousness, you are going to get much, MUCH better results from having one box to run Android and one box to run Windows, if you absolutely need two devices.

But I’d also argue that you don’t need two boxes anyway. Pick one system and run with it.

The Verdict

So what do you think?

Do you have any other must-have TV box features? Anything you think should (or shouldn’t) be on this list?

Let us know in the comments below!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. kadajawi says

    February 14, 2016 at 8:13 am

    Saying that 10 bit is a hype and people don’t need it is… daring, to say the least. I have many files that are 10 bit. Yes, the source may not have been 10 bit to begin with, but 10 bit encodes save plenty of space to achieve the same quality, when it comes to things such as sky or animated content. Not everyone needs 10 bit support, but many people will be surprised when their content won’t play. It is much more common than you think.

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      February 14, 2016 at 10:00 am

      I agree, but you’re talking about 10-bit encoding which is different than 10-bit color. 10 bit encoding will save significantly more space than 8 bit encoding, and you don’t need any special hardware to take advantage of it.
      10 bi color is showing more variations of color on the screen.

      Reply
  2. rob says

    February 14, 2016 at 6:47 pm

    Thanks..great info for noobies.

    Reply
  3. Luis says

    March 13, 2016 at 6:38 pm

    So, Which android box has all these features? I’ve been doing some research on which box to get. I want to upgrad from my fire stick. Any recommendations or info on new android box releasing soon?

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      March 27, 2016 at 3:59 pm

      Hi Luis. Thanks for your comment! Unfortunately, nothing out right now covers all of these features. The NVIDIA Shield comes close. But, I did publish an updated list of my recommended TV Boxes which take these “Must Have” features into account. Check it out!

      Reply
  4. TONY MODZ says

    March 24, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    your an expert I’m lost and confused just tell me what to buy and from whom(i like fire tv ,cromecast is ??not sure of apple ect

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      March 24, 2016 at 9:39 pm

      Hi Tony. Thanks for your comment. I hope you’ll understand if I don’t tell you to run out and buy an Apple TV. 🙂

      Still, there are a lot of options in the Android sector. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, the new Fire TV is a good option because you get their video service, which now includes Doctor Who, which I’m excited about.

      Chromecast’s are great for a cheap streaming device or a secondary unit, but I don’t think they are a good choice if that’s the only streaming device you have.

      That leaves TV boxes, which, thankfully, someone created a guide to the best TV boxes for 2016. Enjoy!

      Reply
  5. hawki says

    April 14, 2016 at 11:25 am

    2 things, Bluetooth aptx would be great, do any boxesboxes have this built in?

    Also, as far as firmware updates , can u recommend and TV box manufacturers that are good at supplying firmware updates?

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      April 14, 2016 at 7:45 pm

      Hi Hawki. Thanks for the comment. Yes! I would love to see Bluetooth aptX in a TV box, but I think we’re going to be waiting for a while on that one. Not even the NVIDIA Shield has it. For anyone wondering about Bluetooth aptX, Basically it allows for high quality streaming music over Bluetooth. Check out their “How it works” section of their site for more info.

      As far as firmware, you’ve got a couple of manufacturers that are good: MINIX and Zidoo come to mind immediately. The Shield and Nexus Player have the benefit of updates right from Google. In my reviews, I’ll usually state how easy or hard it is to find the firmware updates.

      Reply
      • Hawki says

        August 4, 2016 at 8:06 pm

        Thanks for the reply. After researching, I have seen little Bluetooth dongle type things with aptx built in. So I guess find a box, get the dongle.

        One last question, I can’t for then life of me find a simple android tv selector website where I start at ALL tv boxes (mother all but many) that then has a filter.

        Example – a site that starts with 1000 tv boxes. I then select android, not shows 900, wifi ac drops to 200, dual band drops it to 100……etc, etc…

        Have u seen a site like this? Amazon or ebay does let me choose “wifi”, but this is technology – give me tech specs!

        Reply
        • Tim Wells says

          August 10, 2016 at 7:29 am

          That would be a great feature! When this site started three years ago, I had a table that you could filter and sort however you liked. At the beginning, there were only about two dozen TV sticks and TV boxes, so it was easy. But it quickly got out of date because new devices were coming out everyday.

          I’d love to have a selector like you describe, but it’s a bit beyond my means. 🙂

          Reply
  6. DazzaB says

    April 28, 2016 at 8:18 pm

    Would you recommend “RVEAL” TV box?

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      April 30, 2016 at 9:05 am

      Hi Dazza. Thanks for the comment. I haven’t had a chance to try out the RVEAL box, but I’m usually wary about a device that costs $300. For that price, you can get an NVIDIA Shield which is an extraordinary streaming device. The RVEAL looks to be similar specs to the Tronsmart MXIII (and many, many others) which costs $70….not $300. The choice is yours, but I think you have better things to spend that extra $230 on, right? 😉

      Reply
  7. RUBEN CINTRON says

    May 6, 2016 at 9:39 am

    Have you see the new z68 tv box or tested?

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      May 8, 2016 at 12:49 pm

      Hi Ruben. I haven’t gotten a chance to test it. It’s one of the older RK3368 devices, so the new Amlogic S905 boxes like the MINIX NEO U1, Zoomtak T8-Plus or the Beelink MXIII will give you much better video performance in Kodi.

      Reply
  8. Timmy says

    August 6, 2016 at 6:29 am

    Hi Tim, thanks for such an informative piece. Just wanted to let you know that you’re awesome.

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      August 10, 2016 at 7:02 am

      Haha. Thanks. Maybe its just because we have the same name.

      Reply
  9. Andy says

    August 18, 2016 at 2:18 pm

    Hi Tim,
    Just wanted to comment that your guides have lifted my Kodi experience to a whole new level, well written and easy to follow and your jargon buster and explanations make it not only informative but interesting and understandable to us not so tech savey peeps . I have had a few android boxes over the last couple of years and they have now been relegated to various other rooms around my house as I stumped up for a shield. This is an awesome bit of kit. Any chance you can do a tutorial on the best set up and config for these boxes? I get a feeling I’m not getting the best out of it although what I am getting is still amazing.

    Reply
  10. Richard Juen says

    September 4, 2016 at 11:30 pm

    Hi Tim. Thanks for all the great information. I am finally ready to cut the cable cord and am leaning toward the Nvidia Shield for my main tv. It is a 2015 Samsung 4K and the Amazon Prime app works great on it. I still don’t understand if I will be able to get the network stations with the Shield and Kodi or will i have to also get a digital antenna? Thanks.

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      September 5, 2016 at 6:03 pm

      Hi Richard. Thanks for your comment. I’m glad you like it.

      You can get local channels, but you’ll have to get an antenna. Personally, I use a combination of HDHomeRun and a Mohu antenna. I get most of the local channels (HD as well). But, if you’re old enough to remember how antenna’s worked in the old days, the same limitations still apply. The signal isn’t strong enough to go “through” things, so it’ll have problems with hills, mountains, really bad weather, etc.

      On the plus side….it’s 100% legal and free.

      Reply
  11. Larry Moore says

    September 8, 2016 at 12:17 pm

    Enjoyed reading this article although much of it went over my head. I have a OTT box with kit kat 4.4 and everything works great until I try to call up some site, e.g. Channel 1. In other words, it doesn’t connect. The settings indicate I am connected but it just doesn’t work. What am I doing wrong? I have spent considerable nutlets hours trying to access content but I am so frustrated I am ready to consign the Androis box to the basement shelve for retired items. P.s. Congratulations on your excellent site and on the well written articles.
    Larry

    Reply
  12. Doug S says

    September 22, 2016 at 6:39 pm

    Other than the NVIDIA SHIELD where are the USB 3.0 units? I only use it for streaming from a HDD and want USB 3.0, Can you recommend one?

    Reply
  13. Corne Esterhuizen says

    November 20, 2016 at 12:06 am

    Good day. Thx for the tips…..found it very informative…..though i whished i found this site earlier. I recently bought my first TV box and as there are so many to choose from, i just went with the approach of going for the one with the highest spec hardware, latest software and the lowest price. But i realise now there is more to it really. I got the Beelink GT1 and i still hope that my purchase was the right one. I had a Mede8er before and the thing that im still struggling with is to have one device that will do everything. The main 2 things i want is to watch movies and listen to music, but i dont know if im doing something wrong as i still end being dissapointed when listening to music. My Marantz av receiver when listening to music still sounds waaay better when i stream music through it directly via my NAS than through a media player or tv box…..even if i use passthrough. How is this possible? Am i totally missing something? I hope you might have an answer for me. Thx again for all your information and tips.

    Regards Corne

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      December 3, 2016 at 4:58 pm

      Hi Corne. Thanks for the comment and question.

      First of all, I’m really jealous. A Marantz receiver is on the top of my wish list when I set up my new living room. To be honest, if you’re streaming music, I would stick with that. A Home Theater Receiver is going to have a much better audio processor than any TV box I’ve seen. Even using a passthrough, which should, in theory, pass that audio signal directly through to the receiver without modifying it probably won’t sound as good.

      Let me qualify by saying I’m no audio expert by any means. But my guess is that each of the components in between your excellent receiver and the audio file it is trying to play won’t be as good as the receiver’s components. If there’s anything that’s not up to par, it will introduce some imperfections\static\noise to the playback.

      Hopefully, I can test out that theory in a few months when I pick up my new receiver. 🙂

      Reply
  14. Vic Evans says

    December 27, 2016 at 9:39 pm

    I know this is an old article but I still see so many boxes with 1GB of RAM or less. That may be adequate for running Kodi but I would never have an Android TV box wit less than 2GB or preferably 3GB of RAM and then at least 8GB storage.

    Reply
  15. KEVIN W TRAUB says

    March 2, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    Tim,
    Great article. One question though, is there a box out there that has all of the 10 must haves? If so, care to share?

    Reply
  16. Robert says

    June 24, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    What brand box has all the items mentioned? In addition would to USB-C 4mb memory and 8 core processor 64 bit. Who has one?

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      November 19, 2017 at 11:23 pm

      Now you’re just dreaming. 🙂

      Reply
  17. John Gabriel Otvos says

    October 21, 2017 at 4:49 pm

    Hi folks. I’m new to this streaming debacle. hahaha I see that the original article posted by Tim is over a year old. I assume much of what he’s penned is still current. Panny has stopped supporting the licensing fees for UT so I’m looking at alternatives. I live in the sticks with a low streaming speed of 3.9MBPS tops. Sad eh? 🙂 So if I’m just interested in docs, UT, and movies, but not games. It’s an age thingy! hahaha what device would anyone here in this forum suggest? I’m in Canada. I say that because many boxes are not sold here that are available stateside.

    Reply
  18. Teta Blanco says

    November 9, 2017 at 7:44 pm

    USB Out feature for video and audio. Most modern TV’s internal video decoding chips are so much better than the chips in Android TV boxes, even the 4K ones.

    Reply
  19. Jean Painter says

    January 2, 2018 at 7:12 am

    What about RAM/ROM? How much is recommended and what is it used for?

    Reply
    • Tim Wells says

      March 25, 2018 at 9:40 pm

      I explain that and more in this article.

      Reply
  20. Bertrand GRANDGEORGE says

    January 15, 2018 at 4:54 am

    Have a look at Zidoo boxes: the X10 or X9s cover already quite a bit; my additional requirement would be FLAC passthrough to optical out though…
    https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/allProduct.html

    Reply
  21. Peter says

    April 13, 2018 at 9:07 am

    Hi Tim,
    Just picked up your excellent article, and for me, it seems there’s a lot of confusion with sound passthrough…allow me to ask you this simple question. While looking at android boxes specs, you can see that the majority of them are not compatible with 7.1, or better yet, Atmos or DTS X.

    My question is, if the box can passthough sound over HDMI to your capable AVR receiver, no matter what Android version, Kodi version or box type (assuming it CAN passthrouh), it should work, right? since the AVR is doing the work, why is it that on the specs, of the majority of android boxes are not 7.1 compatible?
    Then, does it means that the specs refer as the decoding capabilities of the box? In other words, while shopping for a box, should I be interested with boxes than can passthough audio (Atmos, DTS X)since the AVR will do the work and not the box itself? Hope it’s clear…thank you!

    Reply
  22. krishnakant says

    May 1, 2018 at 1:50 am

    Thanks a lot sir for sharing your knowledge with us .
    We would welcome if you can share much more core technical aspects on android tv box testing and it features .
    Thanks a lot.

    Reply
  23. Srini says

    June 25, 2018 at 5:20 am

    Thank you very much for the really needed suggestions for those who want to buy an android box. I bought MX10 recently, it has spdif and AV port which only allows 3.5 mm jack with 3 rings but my audio system jack has only 2 rings. Can I install windows OS on this box?

    Reply
  24. Bala says

    July 15, 2018 at 10:36 am

    How can I connect 5.1 connection from mi android box to Sony HT i300

    Reply
  25. Michael says

    January 19, 2019 at 12:32 pm

    Would enjoy more RAM than the 2-4. I’d like to see 6-8 and dual HDMI port, prefer HDMI port than pass through. I have many boxes and like the Nvidia Shield… .. For now. It has some issues. One issue, want full access to Play Store and not work around it. Trivial, but I can dream.

    Reply
  26. Jason says

    February 6, 2019 at 1:15 am

    So, what you’re saying is to custom build a raspberry pi box and set it up with a clean install of the newest stable android.

    Reply

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