I'm desperate, please help me. I've been researching hours now, and there are so many godamnn boxes on amazon. And its confusing cuz some people in the reviews say 4k doesnt work some say it does, i don't know who to believe.
I would watch real, large 4k movies (no hdr) that takes 40-60gb on a usb drive. Which box is the best to run smoothly 4k?
Please recommend only under 100$. And dont you bring up shield here! Thats blasphemy!
Have you considered getting an Nvidia Shield TV?
Shield.
Because you're posting in AndroidTV, which limits us to a very specific subset of hardware. Shield is the best in this subset, everything else is too weak for your requirements.
But if you're NOT looking for an AndroidTV box, but any box running Android, then you have more choices.
Smoothly means auto Frame Rate Matching to sync the source video's frame rate to the TV's.
For Android TV - only the Shield has that feature + USB. But it blows your budget.
If that is the sort of feature you want then your only Android options below $100 are this sort of DIY setup:
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916&pid=2765197#pid2765197
You run LibreELEC Kodi on such a combo, and it is far superior vs anything a cheap Android OS has to offer.
Don't be cheap just get the shield
I heard the Shield from Nvidia is good
Mi Box S for $60 does an excellent job at this. I've used X-plore to file browse, along with Kodi and VLC all free off the Google Play Store. However if you want to be sure you are "future-proof" and 4K performance is ideal get the Shield TV.
I wouldn't recommend any of those junk boxes on Amazon. Buy an actual Android TV device.
For Android TV on a budget, the Mi Box is it.
Also I don't know how the Shield would be considered "blasphemy" in any sense of the word. I don't think that word means what you think it means.
4K rips will have random bitrates, so a low bitrate 4K rip might work fine on a Mibox, or FireTV 4K, but high bitrate 4K rips will suffer and stutter in its playback. To ensure 4K rips will playback on your device, no matter what the bitrate, then you need something fast and I dont think the MiBox or FireTV 4K will work.
If it costs under $100, then its probably going to have problems playing back high bitrate rips.
Nvidia S*#%€d