Has anyone bought one of these Google Media Players?

[giddyup]

I bought a cheap one (different model)from Ebay a few months back for around $30, and whilst it works pretty good for that price, I find that the black colour tend to be very pixellated when I play movies via a flash drive. I was considering upgrading to this Android 4.0 Media player which is around $60, hoping that the picture would be better than the cheaper model The Android 4.0 also has Wi-fi, but I'm not sure what this actually enables me to do on my television. The Android box is pictured on the left at the bottom, the cheap one is on the right. Here are the specs for the Android:

NEW Google Media Player WiFi TV HDMI Android 4.0 1080P HD Smart TV BOX Mini PC

Description:

- Model:X2

- CPU:Boxchip A10 1.5GHZ

- RAM:DDR3 1GB

- GPU:built-in MAIL 400(support 2160P)

- Storage Capacity:8GB

- OS:Andriod 4.0

- Networking way:WIFI and wired LAN(static IP\DHCP\PPPOE)

- Video output:HDMI(3840×2160 full HD output)/Audio (AV)

- External Storage:USB(max 32GB)/SD (max 16GB)

- Language:Chinese,English...(sixty language)

-Video`Format:TS/M2TS/TP/TRP/MKV/MP4/MOV/AVI/RM/RMVB/WMV/VOB/ASF/FLV/DAT/MPG/MPE,etc

- Subtitles Format:SRT/SMI/SSA/ASS,etc

- Audio Format:MP3/WMA/WAV/OGG/FLAC/MKA,etc

- Picture Format:JPEG,BMP (24 bits),GIF(static),PNG(not transparent

background),TIF

- Others:Support FLASH 11,HTML5 online to browse the web,word,web pages,online movies, video calling,YPE,such as SMN millions of application software for your choice.

- Support external flying squirrels,camera,Somatic Game,wireless mouse and keyboard,etc

- I/O:USB*2,Power Supply*1,RJ45*1,HDMI*1,CVBS*1

- Support ios/android cellphone and pad.

Package Included:

TV HD Network Set-top box * 1

Remote Control * 1

Power Adaptor * 1

HDMI HD connection cable * 1

AV Cable * 1

Manual Instruction * 1

Edited June 29, 2013 by giddyup

[Langsuan Man]

Google Media Player

Where are you finding this device ? Since it is not listed under the Devices handled by the Google Play Store I question it's legitimacy. Just because it has the Android logo doesn't make it a Google product

[giddyup]

Google Media Player

Where are you finding this device ? Since it is not listed under the Devices handled by the Google Play Store I question it's legitimacy. Just because it has the Android logo doesn't make it a Google product

I just see them for sale on Ebay. I know nothing about it's legitimacy or otherwise. I only show it as advertised.

Edited June 29, 2013 by giddyup

[verywierd]

I have one of these - "MINI Full HD 1080P USB External HDD Media player With SD MMC card reader HOST OTG support MKV H.264 RMVB DVD MPEG". Works great, good playback quality from USB Hard Disk and flash drive for MP4, AVI/Xvid, MKV, MPG files. Plays MP3 and JPEG too.

Dimensions - 63mm x 60mm x 13mm, bright blue casing in advert, other colours available.

Approx. US$33.48 (depending on vendor) from AliExpress. Do a search on the site for "media player".

Edited June 29, 2013 by verywierd

[carken]

I am very uneducated in shipping aspect of eBay and other website purchases. I have often thought that the shipping costs and then the duty charged would make most inexpensive electronics very expensive. i.e. the $30 dollar item has $60 dollars in shipping costs then $30 duty to pay bringing this inexpensive device to cost $120 total. Am I way off base here .... are there other really cheap ways to ship door to door from USA to Thailand? Would really appreciate any info available so I understand the ins and outs and costs of buying then shipping USA/Thailand. I've seen many electronics I wanted but stayed away because of my uneducated presumption that it would be cost prohibitive.

[giddyup]

I am very uneducated in shipping aspect of eBay and other website purchases. I have often thought that the shipping costs and then the duty charged would make most inexpensive electronics very expensive. i.e. the $30 dollar item has $60 dollars in shipping costs then $30 duty to pay bringing this inexpensive device to cost $120 total. Am I way off base here .... are there other really cheap ways to ship door to door from USA to Thailand? Would really appreciate any info available so I understand the ins and outs and costs of buying then shipping USA/Thailand. I've seen many electronics I wanted but stayed away because of my uneducated presumption that it would be cost prohibitive.

Shipping free on a lot of goods from China and never paid duty yet on low cost items.

[cameltrakker]

I have a Noontec Media player V7 II I purchased at Big C Nakhon Sawan about 1200 bht. I also have a WD(Wester Digital) TV mini media player that cost about 3000 Baht from the states at Tiger Direct or Jr.com, but these guys don't ship to Thailand

[recycler]

I ordered an Ouya, 99 US$ it's an Android based game console that runs XBMC media center, I run XBMC also on an Xtreamer HTPC on Linux as a media center XBMC is very easy to use and it runs on all platforms and is very good in a network.

[muratremix]

These are not media players nor google media players. Beware, most of them run on 720p resolution and upscales to 1080p which makes your 1080p movies worthless.

Also, A10 chip is very old, slow and outdated. There are plenty of quad core media players on internet starting from $70.99 usd.

They are basically an android tablet without touch screen, used by mouse/keyboard on TV. Don't expect a fully featured media player experience from them. Prefer real media players like Realtek 1073/1185/1186 chipset or Popcorn / Dune media players.

[impulse]

I've been using an APACER AL460 Media Player for about 2 years now. Has 2 USB inputs and an Ethernet., with HDMI out.

Plays great from USB chips, portable hard drives (2.5" powered by USB) and external Hard drive (3.5" powered from the wall). I have played from ethernet as well, but that went away when I changed my home wifi configuration and I'm too lazy to figure out how to get it back.

I have read pretty mediocre reviews for the unit, but I love it. It is now obsolete, and I hear the newer units are zoomier. I paid about 2700 baht for it at Fortune Town. I was looking for a WD Media Player, but could not find one at that time. Today, they're all over Pantip and Fortune Town.

It is just a media player. No games, no bells, no whistles, no mouse. But it plays media very well with a remote control almost exactly like you'd find on a DVD. I rarely stump it with a video format that plays on my computer or Android. Once in awhile, I get a bad downloaded file, and once in a rare while, I get a format that will play on my PC or Android, and not on the APACER.

I play through a 1920x1080 Toshiba TV.

[giddyup]

These are not media players nor google media players. Beware, most of them run on 720p resolution and upscales to 1080p which makes your 1080p movies worthless.

Also, A10 chip is very old, slow and outdated. There are plenty of quad core media players on internet starting from $70.99 usd.

They are basically an android tablet without touch screen, used by mouse/keyboard on TV. Don't expect a fully featured media player experience from them. Prefer real media players like Realtek 1073/1185/1186 chipset or Popcorn / Dune media players.

All I need is something that I can play downloaded movies via a flash drive. It doesn't need to have too many bells and whistles.

[Finlaco]

Import Duties

Best avoid FedEx or DHL as the both automatically add the Import tax, If the shipper uses normal postal service (registered) then its up to Customs to find the package and tax.

Thats my experience.

[beb]

I bought an LG TV at Tesco last week and they gave me one of those boxes as part of the package. The tv I got is a smart TV though and frankly I haven't really found a reason to use it yet. I can play movies from my computer wirelessly through the TV as well as plug a usb into the back and watch that way.

I need to sit down and figure out if this thing will actually do anything of value or not I guess.

[giddyup]

Import Duties

Best avoid FedEx or DHL as the both automatically add the Import tax, If the shipper uses normal postal service (registered) then its up to Customs to find the package and tax.

Thats my experience.

Most of the cheap media players come from China and the postage is usually free or minimal, so it's not going to come Fedex but the cheapest way possible. Customs isn't going to worry about import duty on an item that costs $50-60, at least they never have with me.

[rotary]

Is this like ROKU or Apple tv?

[mrbojangles]

These are not media players nor google media players. Beware, most of them run on 720p resolution and upscales to 1080p which makes your 1080p movies worthless.

Also, A10 chip is very old, slow and outdated. There are plenty of quad core media players on internet starting from $70.99 usd.

They are basically an android tablet without touch screen, used by mouse/keyboard on TV. Don't expect a fully featured media player experience from them. Prefer real media players like Realtek 1073/1185/1186 chipset or Popcorn / Dune media players.

I am going back to the UK next week on business and am about to buy the following, as my media player is now outdated. Can you tell off the following spec if this is any good?

Specification
* Android 4.2 OS, ALLWINNER A20 (2 X A7 1G) Dual Core CPU , 1GB DDR3, 4GB Nand Flash;
* Internal WIFI ;
* Format :FAT16 / FAT32 / NTFS/ ISO
* WIFI :150M internal 802.11 b/g/n
* 3G: support 3G dongle 
* Blue 3D Movies
* Support U-Disk ,External Harddisk up to 2TB; SD/MMC card Reader up to 32G;
* HDMI & AV output/RJ45/Optical;
* HTML1.4 World/Excel/PPT file supported 
* Support wireless 2.4G Air mouse 
* DLNA: Network media sharing
* MIRACAST

Support 1080P Full HD video decoding& 3D moives& BD ISO





[Langsuan Man]

With the inclusion of a media player on most newer TV's these external media players will soon be obsolete

beb, I wouldn't be surprised if LG gave you the external box because the model you purchased did not have it built in, as do most "smart " TV's

[bkk_mike]

In the UK - I've got one (a GBox Midnight - also Mali 400), but that's actually more for the wife to use to watch mydootv on. (That TV is too old to be "smart", and it's cheaper than attaching a proper computer to it and the dootv people charge extra for the Roku version, but this just runs it from the web page like a PC would) In the UK it also gives you access to things like OnePlayer, etc., and I do have movies on my PC that it can read and play with XBMC. (If you're planning on using XBMC, the XBMC Android developers actually tell people to avoid the Allwinner chips as they're not having a lot of success with using hardware acceleration with that chipset.)

I ordered a different one from China, that I was intending to use in Thailand, but it's never turned up. (Downside of shipping from China is there's probably a higher likelihood of stuff just never arriving), and that was on Amazon marketplace.

As far as ebay is concerned, most US sellers would probably not ship to Thailand, but the ones shipping from China/HK anyway probably would be OK with shipping to here instead.

Nowadays, I'd probably get an Ouya (came out a few days ago). Tegra 3 is a lot faster than a Mali400, and XBMC, although a little nasty to install as it's not on the Ouya store, apparently has no problems with streaming 1080p videos over the network. (Although once you're dealing with that sort of streaming, you probably want to use a wired connection unless you're remote enough that your Wifi gets no interference.)

Edited June 30, 2013 by bkk_mike

[Bazt]

Most new smart tv's will play perfectly straight from your usb nowadays.

[giddyup]

Most new smart tv's will play perfectly straight from your usb nowadays.

These media players are for those that own older model non-smart TV's.

[beb]

With the inclusion of a media player on most newer TV's these external media players will soon be obsolete

beb, I wouldn't be surprised if LG gave you the external box because the model you purchased did not have it built in, as do most "smart " TV's

I can surf the net and do other similar things with the TV I bought so although I think this box gives me more capabilities, I'm not sure they are of any value to me.

I need to explore it further.

[beb]

Just an FYI for anybody looking at these kinds of things. If you have a mac, LG uses a wireless interface that works with PLEX so that you can view movies and pics from your computer through the TV pretty seamlessly without hooking up the HDMI. I like it a lot for simply watching a movie but the interface is basically select, play and pause. I can't seem to fast forward etc. It also plays the subs. Over the weekend I really got into using this feature.

If I was doing it over again, I may have decided to go with a dumb HD TV and an Apple TV box (I use Macbook Pro so compatibility wouldn't be an issue for me). I think that would have given me all the capabilities I really want and, if it all worked properly, more than I can do now. As it is, I have to connect the computer via HDMI to see the desktop. I would prefer to be able to do that wirelessly. The cost of the apple TV device would be more than offset by the savings on the TV.

[giddyup]

I ended up buying this one for $55 plus another $20 for the wireless keyboard.

[astral]

I have the WD HDTV player. Great at home.

It is well travelled going in my bag to plug into hotel TV's

[Chicog]

I have the WD HDTV player. Great at home.

It is well travelled going in my bag to plug into hotel TV's

I like these boxes, especially with WDLXTV installed.

Available all over my network so I can play from it to any connected TV in the house.

[chris2004]

Most new smart tv's will play perfectly straight from your usb nowadays.

My LG smart tv plays movies from my USB fine but how do you adjust subtitles/languages without a media player ?

[giddyup]

Most new smart tv's will play perfectly straight from your usb nowadays.

My LG smart tv plays movies from my USB fine but how do you adjust subtitles/languages without a media player ?

I have a media player but I still can't adjust subtitles. I downloaded the series "Homeland" (excellent BTW) which has subtitles but they are half hidden t the bottom of the screen. I tried using different screen aspects but I couldn't get all the subtitle to show. Is there a trick?

[Chicog]

It would help if you told us the make and model of media player.

[Langsuan Man]

I downloaded the series "Homeland"

It would help if you told us the make and model of media player.

And the source of your download

[giddyup]

It would help if you told us the make and model of media player.

The media player is a no-name brand from China, but I resolved the problem somehow. Fooled around with the output and accidentally fixed it so I can see all the subtitles now.