Buying Advice: New Nexus Player, Mi Box, or AirTV Player?

by Bruce_Wayne8887

Trying to decide on what to buy for our upstairs bedroom. We have an Nvidia Shield TV downstairs. We have an antenna hooked up to it with w haupauge tv tuner. We dont use the tuner much in our apartment but are looking to buy a house so ota tv could be used in the future. We mostly use the shield for netflix, hulu, sling tv/vue/directvnow(via casting)/youtube tv depending on what we are trying.

I know the nexus player is old($60 at walmart) but everyone still seems to love it. Does it do 4K? Not that it matters a ton we don't have a 4k tv. The Mi Box seems to have things or features or apps broken from time to time and it worries me.

Hows the AirTV? I know its made by sling but its essentially a androidtv right? It has 1GB of ram just like the Nexus player does. Any recommendation or other ideas? Id rather get a box over a stick. No way I'd pay $200 for a shield just for our bedroom so I'm looking at $70 or less. The Airtv van be had from slingtv themselves for $50 with 3 months of slingtv plus you get the airtv tuner adapter for ota. The mi box is $70 at walmart and is supposed to come with a $50 credit from sling but I hear some people say its expired. If it worked that would be a great deal.

Fantastins

Mi box appears software DOA. You may get nougat officially, definitely not Oreo. They seem to be interested in keeping up updated but haven't. The software is buggy compared to Nexus and shield. Example it will disappear when it sleeps so to cast again you need to reboot, CEC is wonky at best, DRM enforcement seems strong so Netflix may require a new TV, those kind of things.

The Nexus player is running Oreo now, always quick software support direct from Google. Its bootloader can be unlocked. That don't mean it isn't limited this day, but if you're streaming from official sources like Netflix and only want 1080p support the Nexus is a cheap and solid device. It isn't doing 4k or x265 but Plex can fix that.

Haven't used the air TV to tell you

DopePedaller

Mi Box owner here, I couldn't recommend it. It doesn't have smooth playback. There are tiny micro stutters and jumps and if you want perfect playback this isn't the device for you. It has improved quite a bit from the initial firmware but it's still not 100%.

theholyraptor

I have the Nexus player. Once in a while casting drops out. It generally works how I want it to but I'm definitely not pushing 4k video through it. Its not perfect. Ive read plenty about the Shield having way better hardware and being much more responsive.

WazWaz

I have both, but far prefer MiBox. It is faster and the controller nicer to hold.

I've had no problems with my MiBox, whereas the Nexus reboots if I turn it upside down (crappy power connector?)

Ausernameneeded

I don't know much about AirTV, but I'd suggest a Mi Box. For streaming any app, it works flawlessIy. For the price, you can't beat it right now.

FireTV Box is also great if you don't mind the UI. I'd be interested in the next AppleTV too.

okfnjesse

I have a Nexus player as my primary device in the living room and it's complete garbage. Do not buy. App support is non existent and casting drops sometimes. I have app crashes frequently with Google apps. Play music doesn't allow queuing and is genuinely confusing to use on the Nexus player. In my room I have a Chromecast and it works so well in comparison. Spend extra on anything else.

BiggussDikkuss

Buy a Nexus and enjoy a slow, dated hardware device that cannot even handle modern video compression standards like HEVC. Then invest money in a server just so you can use Plex.

1GB RAM is too little to run a decent snappy Android TV device. You really are resource constrained.

There are a bunch of silent ATV device owner that have no where near the issues some people think they have on various devices.

Every device has problems, for example how about a 26 page thread on NVIDIA Shield random frame Skips: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/990328/netflix-random-frame-skips-2015-after-5-0-2-2017-with-5-1-/

You just have to do research and find out if any problems will affect you personally.

CEC is fine on the Mi Box - its the stupid TV manufacturers not adhering to any sort of CEC control standard that need to be brought into line.

Do not buy any cheap Android at all if you want 100% Apps and device reliability and perfection - that is utopia thinking.