I gave up and bought a shield. Totally worth it for me. The Mibox always had little issues that annoyed me, and the fact they promised Nougat by the end of the first quarter 2017 pisses me off. Defintely tainted my view of the company and would be vary wary buying from them again.

Be careful what you wish for. I got the recent Shield update and it introduced several problems. I should have waited for the stable release but I was anxious to try it so I accepted the beta release.

Don't worry, the 8.0 update is totally "imminient" and its really, real. It's probably the most real update, ever. You don't even understand how real and how soon it is coming.

I gave up on Android TV completely last year as a daily driver media player simply because there are too many fingers in the Android TV pie and too much finger pointing when things go wrong.

Android TV problems include:

• NVIDIA or Xiaomi or [insert 3rd party here], being responsible for the Firmware and Hardware but Google are the ones releasing the OS. This leads to delays when fixing bugs and badly fragmented Firmware releases across various ATV platforms. Frustrated - end customers are the losers.

• on top of that, very poor quality control of Apps being approved for the ATV Playstore. Exhibit A being ES File Explorer, which is more of a Bloatware, Spyware, Adware, Annoyware App these days and has been shown to cause all sorts of issues.

• NVIDIA are currently having lots of fun and games getting Oreo to run smoothly and reliably because of lack of a previous rigorous Google Apps bench testing in the past. This lack of tight control can have long term OS stability problems.

• next problem is even with a Dolby Audio Licence the Mi Box still cannot downmix DD+ to DD only audio to support DD only audio equipment such as SPDIF. The Shield does not even have goddam Dolby Audio License. Amazon and Apple has this audio supprt well sorted out.

• poor Apps support vs the competition once you get outside of USA. Even in the US, a big one is no Android TV Playstore - DirecTV App. No Hulu either.

• Stagnant Google Android TV - Playstore, Music, Movies, and Games Apps with no improvements for years now for easier content discovery.

• Google restricting 4K HDR YouTube to the Chromcasting Ultra or non Android TV platforms. They really don't give a shit it seems even when ATV hardware is already HDR VP9 capable.

• long term bugs with the non release of Network tuners when using the Live Channels App with the HD Homerun and finger pointing by HD Homerun and Google at each other for a long time now

• lack of comprehensive Frame Rate Matching Apps support by ATV Apps developers. Really important in territories that need 25fps / 50Hz support.

• the colorspace switching mess on the flagship Android TV device - the 4K HDR Shield, coupled with it's poor quality picture upscaling

• Fragmentation now of Android TV into Operator Tier versions for Pay TV operators where Apps installs can be purposely blocked and there is not even a consistent suite of Apps available due to hardware approval issues, Netflix being a prime example.

• Google really not giving a sh1t for a long time and using a "throw it out into the market" and see what sticks approach.

Google and Android TV are now facing market share issues and are a long way behind the competition vs Roku, Amazon and Apple and it's exactly why higher Apps development priority is now given to those platforms first.

That is ultimately what happens when you are late to the media player market with poor focus. Powerful Google reference Android TV hardware should have been on the market years ago. Google would have been forced to show greater interest then.

june 22 2018 15 months since nougat beta. hopefully i don't see you at the 18 month anniversary.

RIP

Seems like a lot of people are eating crow to today!!! I'm digging Oreo!

At this point who knows what's gonna happen with the mibox. But I agree it's been a long aggravating ride. All I want is adaptable storage that actually works which 6.0.1 does not seem to do correctly on my box. Fingers crossed for Oreo but I'm not optimistic.

I gave up and bought a shield yesterday which I realize I should have done from the beginning. There are a lot of little things wrong with the mibox that dont come through in a review article or even when you have owned it for a while. you just get comfortable with the defects and think that this is just how it is, or that android tv sucks.

Android TV doesn't suck, cheap boxes suck. Everything little thing works better faster brighter and sounds better on the Shield. It's not the kind of thing that you see in a quick review or in a benchmark. sure it plays 4k and HDR, but until you see it side by side with a shield TV, you don't realize that you were getting a fraction of the experience. the framerate is consistent, the audio is correctly transmitted, the interface doesn't lag. oh and it does little things, like mount network volumes with no fuss and , it pays games, I didnt even know I wanted that until I streamed a game at 4k.

There was a saying I heard. The cheap man buys twice.

PS, the mibox is passable at 1080p, but its advertised as a 4k box, which , yeah it does 4k, technically

How does one get involved in the betas?

And some people think Android 8 is coming 😂. Suckers.