Ever wondered why we simply sit back and allow overpriced TV cable/satellite content providers to decide which channels are dished up to us? The reality is that 90% of what we get is usually garbage! But this is the 21st century and high speed internet (usually via FTTH) is the norm now in most built up urban areas. With so many streaming services (Netflix, YouTube etc.) to choose from, are we not simply stuck in a 20th century mindset?
It was time to take a deeper look into this and see if one could completely cut the cord. So decided to purchase a fairly cheap, "no name" brand Chinese made Android TV Box (online for just under $40) and set about to see if I would be able to fully rely on this instead.
Here is what I ordered:
An Android 13.0 based TV Box - X88 Pro 13 - Ultra HD 8K
1. 4GB RAM and 64GB ROM.
2. Fairly Average Quad Core Rockchip RK3528 Processor
3. WiFi + Ethernet Port + Bluetooth + 2 x USB ports
4. HDMI + SPDIF + AV Audio output
5. Memory Card Slot
6. Remote Control and Mini Wireless Keyboard
Connecting the Device to a TV via the HDMI cable was easy and powered it up after connecting it to a Sound Bar via SPDIF. Having connected the device to the WiFi, logged into a Google account and then inspected the various Settings/Options. All of this took only a few minutes. Fired up the pre-installed Chrome Browser and started testing a video on YouTube. This was appalling as the video quality was poor and was flickering and doing some other weird stuff. So uninstalled the Chrome Browser (was able to get rid of it completely by using the “Uninstall” option in the Settings/Apps section) and then installed a full featured Firefox browser as well a light and fast Duckduckgo browser and tested both of them with the same video on YouTube. This time I was getting excellent quality without any issues at all.
So the 1st test (Video via a browser) was successfully completed. Clearly the Chrome Browser was not up to par so I installed and tested Firefox, BrowseHere & Duckduckgo with good results. If one simply needs a basic Browser without too many bells and whistles, Duckduckgo is probably going to be your best option as it was fast and uncluttered. If however you need a proper TV Browser, with support for a remote control, would suggest BrowseHere which is an excellent light weight yet purpose built browser (by the TCL Group) a version of which is pre-installed in their Televisions, thus well suited for an Android TV Box. This is what I decided to eventually permanently use!
Next step was to UNINSTALL or DISABLE a number of totally useless and unnecessary apps (one often hears that these cheap Chinese boxes are probably shipped with malware. Not wanting to take any chances with questionable apps pre-loaded onto the device, I decided to remove or disable them). More about that later. Untrusting of the pre-installed Google Play Store too, I uninstalled it and downloaded a new Google Play Store APK instead. I went a step further and installed a network monitoring app (PCAPdroid) and took a close look at the internet traffic. Once satisfied that this device looked fairly clean and was not trying to “call home”, removed it and then installed MalwareBytes as well as Smart TV Secutity (eset) and did a full scan. The result was a clean bill of health. Being satisfied, and not wanting any unnecessary clutter, uninstalled both of them.
With that done and feeling fairly satisfied, installed YouTube and was very satisfied with the responsiveness of about half a dozen Live News Broadcasts from France24, ABC, CBS, and SKY News etc. Was able to get a very decent resolution with no flicker or delay at all. Live News Broadcasts would be a Breeze.
Next was to take a high Resolution Movie and copy it into the 64GB ROM and view it with VLC which I installed from the Google Play Store. Moving files from a USB Memory Stick proved far too cumbersome with the rather useless pre-installed File Manager, so installed the popular File Manager + app instead. Frustratingly it was not available on the Google Play Store, so I had to use another App Store (Aurora Store, but I could have also downloaded it from the APKMirror site. VLC worked like a charm and there were no issues at all watching a movie, however I did find live streaming on VLC a bit unstable, so only use it to watch internal media files.
Now I started to focus on the entire look and feel of the built in
launcher page. It was pathetic and totally cumbersome. Moving Icons
around was pointless because when switched off, it simply would
return to a default position again. Nor would it allow me to change
the background colour let alone introduce a desktop theme or
background image at all. I could move some icons to the top of the
screen (Favourites), but they too would sometimes simply disappear.
It was clear that I needed to find an Android Launcher App. Here would come my 1st real challenge. All of the highly rated Launcher Apps on Google Play failed to work properly, if at all. I nearly found myself locked out of the device entirely because the device got stuck with no icons on the screen and no ability to gain access to uninstall the failed Launcher. Luckily I managed to get everything back to the default launcher and could access everything again. Now started to do some research and it became clear that there was not going to be anything of use on the Google Play Store. Instead had to download an APK file and manually install a launcher App. In this case, settled on the Emotn Ui App which gave me exactly what I was after. Something fast, efficient and uncluttered. Took quite a while to set it up exactly as I wanted, but the result was truly excellent and VASTLY superior to the unimpressive Launcher the product shipped with. There were even 4K animated wallpapers if one needed them too (I don't).
Another issue was that the Remote Control is fairly limited. It was necessary to connect a USB mouse to the Device for the entire configuration process. Although this particular TV Box came with a Wireless Mini Keyboard (which certainly speeded up entering detail into the browser), the remote on it's own was very limiting and frustrating to work with. I will continue to use the device with a mouse connected. The Mini Keyboard with it's multi coloured back light is quite fun to use, but not the greatest solution either. With that said though, trying to use the on-screen keyboard was rather painful so downloaded the LeanKeyboard app from the Play Store instead. The mini keyboard was helpful for any text entry, specifically whilst using the Browser or Internet Search.
After two weeks of of use, the question was quite simple: Could I use an Android TV Box and dump my Cable/Satellite provider? The answer for anyone with a fair knowledge of Android (able to modify/change the default), is absolutely YES! One can get to chose what channels and material you want to view and don’t need to pay for it. All the streamed media during testing was FREE CONTENT! Whilst there were a few annoyances (too many ads on the YouTube app, but easily avoided by rather using the SmartTube app instead), it was easy to access everything I needed. Best advise I could give would be to avoid loading Content Providers apps completely and rather rely on using a browser like BrowseHere (with it's built in add blocker) instead. Most of these apps are simply pushing advertising and are more disruptive than helpful. Will I continue to keep using this device? Yes. Will I dump my old 20th Century system? Absolutely. This product has met my expectation!
Will the average "Joe" be able to set all of this up themselves? That still remains to be seen as the factory installed setup still needs a lot of refinement. There no doubt will be customers out there who will be disappointed or frustrated. But the hardware is not the problem, the issue is that it appears that most of these Chinese brands ship with rather inferior, questionable and buggy apps that, with a bit of effort, can be uninstalled or disabled and then replaced. With that said, I did however have to connect the X88 Pro13 to my PC and use ADB AppControl software to force remove many of the pre-installed apps. I was not really convinced they did not possibly contain malware either. They don't exactly make it easy to simply uninstall them! Fortunately unlike some of the well known brands, this device was not Blocked nor Restricted in any way. All of the above were easily achieved without having to jump though any hoops nor tamper with the Operating System at all!
Resources:
Update :
- A Year later and I am still very satisfied - Now using the OnlineTV app to access many International TV Channels, this as I have used this software successfully on my PC for a number of years. It is an efficient and easy way of gaining access to many quality channels without having to bother setting up a VPN etc.. This German based company has been around for many years (The solution cost €30 as a one off & no annual or any other additional fees). Although OnlineTV is designed for PC and Android Smartphone users, managed to install it on the Android TV Box without too much effort.
- After some experimentation, I have disabled both the Google Play Store and Google Play Services apps (they really are resource hogs on a TV Box) and replaced them with the Aurora Store. Aurora is the most popular Google Play alternative and has less restrictions than Google (i.e. Google frustratingly restricts App downloads to specific hardware categories). Immediately I also noticed how speedier & responsive the Device is. Although I now need to manually check for Android and App Updates in the Aurora Store, It's well worth the effort and the boot up memory requirement dropped by over 200MB too.
No comments:
Post a Comment