Future for Android Lollipop, or "M" on Minix?!

[Ichijoe]

Hello I currently have a 1G/8G MXIII... And, TBF I'm not that happy with it. Mostly due to the lack of RAM, Bluetooth, and 5Ghz 802.11.
I'm at the point where I'm now considering replacing this Box, with something better. My first thought would be either with Googles own ADT-1, or nVidia's Shield TV. Alas neither have Tosslink Audio out for some unknown reason, and are so now outta the picture for me. Which is a shame as the gaming performance of the Tegra GPU playing HL2 knocked me off my chair.
But my question has less to do, about gaming, and more about finally moving away from Kitkat 4.4.2.

So would anyone here know if Minix have ever mentioned such an update in the past, or if they ever plain on releasing such an update if ever.
Or should I just chill, till the end of the year for the fabled x9 to come along with 5.1.1 at stock? Seems to me its all some kind of bad joke now. As the focus really should be on Android M now.

inb4: Who cares?! FYI: Koodi 15: Isengard will eventually require Android 5.x+ to utilize the new features of that Application. So yes it will matter...

[mitchell4you]

Or RemixOS
Windowed apps,multitasking, multi-user.. it looks great

[NikAmi]

Now that Android TV boxes are available, I don't see much of a market for these Chinese boxes. They are incapable of just about everything. They are useless for all streaming video providers, they don't play 4k well, and their interfaces are abysmal. I used mine just to dip my toe in the water of these boxes and came away extremely disappointed. Get yourself an Android TV box (the Shield if you can afford it and want to play games) and if you really need the Toslink output, you can pick up an HDMI switch from Monoprice that can take the HDMI and split off the audio to Toslink.

[Dandroid534]

Now that Android TV boxes are available, I don't see much of a market for these Chinese boxes. They are incapable of just about everything. They are useless for all streaming video providers, they don't play 4k well, and their interfaces are abysmal. I used mine just to dip my toe in the water of these boxes and came away extremely disappointed. Get yourself an Android TV box (the Shield if you can afford it and want to play games) and if you really need the Toslink output, you can pick up an HDMI switch from Monoprice that can take the HDMI and split off the audio to Toslink.

Bit harsh, my mxiii 2gb works perfectly for streaming.

Also, I don't think nexus player or firetv play 4k either.

These DRM free, easily rooted, fully specd (yesthey have better specs than firetv/nexus), cheap boxes are IMO great.

You obviously bought crappy box, or the app you used is riddled with DRM.
As is clear to most, most streaming apps have DRM, and are limited to preapproved devices, and unrooted, apart from kodi\showbox\mobdro similar.

[Ichijoe]

Now that Android TV boxes are available, I don't see much of a market for these Chinese boxes. They are incapable of just about everything. They are useless for all streaming video providers, they don't play 4k well, and their interfaces are abysmal. I used mine just to dip my toe in the water of these boxes and came away extremely disappointed. Get yourself an Android TV box (the Shield if you can afford it and want to play games) and if you really need the Toslink output, you can pick up an HDMI switch from Monoprice that can take the HDMI and split off the audio to Toslink.

Or you know... You could do your homework... And find a cheep ADT-1 on Fle****... I think One Shield would likely net you Two of those.. And AFAIK They ARE THE SAME MACHINE! (i.e. They are both Tegra 4).

As far as the "Streaming Sites" go... I suppose you have a point there. Very few of these Boxes have the correct DRM'gt set to play 'em. A problem only made worse by an incorrectly set build.prop, which is in itself a simple enough fix. Why no one has up till now, would be a question I'd like to pose even to ROM Hackers such as Abdul_PT. If there should be a con to re-enableling the Widevine DRM. I'd have yet to run into it!

I don't own a 4k Set so I can't really comment... But, as far as the MXIII 1G -- 2G are concerned 4K was a con, from the get go! The S802 can only decode h.265 upto 720p MAX, AND THEN IN SOFTWARE ONLY! If such a thing as proper 4K existed... Then you'd have to go for the neo 8x-H Plus... Or some other amlogic "H" version, as only the "H" Chips can then decode h.265 IN HARDWARE upto 2160p (i.e. 4K). Assuming the Specs are in fact correct.

But, going back to Netflix, and Co. again... When the hell were these Boxes ever sold under a pretence that you could have ever used these Services, on those Devices? I thought the colloquial term here used to describe such Devices was XBMC Box. Much to the chagrin of the XBMC Foundation, who had to eventually rebrand themselves as Kodi. So as to NOT be seen as actually giving any such endorsements out. So you'd have to expalin to me how you thought anyone actually owed you the AppleTV2 experience of having your Cake (DRM Players) + Kodi (XBMC) too.... About the only good thing here is that the ATV2 is, or should be officially no longer supported. So if thats what you need then by all means pay over the odds for one.

As for gaming.... I'd chalk it down as a nice to have feature... But, my chief concerns at the moment are Live TV, TV Shows & Movies.... And, Kodi has that more or less covered.

[nanners]

>I don't own a 4k Set so I can't really comment... But, as far as the MXIII 1G -- 2G are concerned 4K was a con, from the get go! The S802 can only decode h.265 upto 720p MAX, AND THEN IN SOFTWARE ONLY! If such a thing as proper 4K existed... Then you'd have to go for the neo 8x-H Plus... Or some other amlogic "H" version, as only the "H" Chips can then decode h.265 IN HARDWARE upto 2160p (i.e. 4K). Assuming the Specs are in fact correct.

That's exactly why I bought my Minix x8h+ (for the S812 SOC). I wanted it to be future proof with regards to H.265. Well, 200 bucks later and Minix tells us that they won't update android beyond 4.x and XBMC 15 doesn't support HVEC on android < 5.x. Their solution is to provide a custom build of XBMC which is not what I want at all ... and Minix theoretically had the best software support out of all of them. It's the last Chinese box I'll buy north of 50 bucks..

[2Old2Slow]

Hmmm ventured in here after frying my RK3288 Tronsmart meta....hoping to see the x8h+ having a Lollipop rom available...I was in the process of updating meta to Lollipop when I killed the box...my fault, wrong power supply...so if Minix aren't doing lollipop I may as well get another rockchip device...btw it played 4k fine on my 4k TV, but had some minor audio issues...for me anyway

[Ichijoe]

>I don't own a 4k Set so I can't really comment... But, as far as the MXIII 1G -- 2G are concerned 4K was a con, from the get go! The S802 can only decode h.265 upto 720p MAX, AND THEN IN SOFTWARE ONLY! If such a thing as proper 4K existed... Then you'd have to go for the neo 8x-H Plus... Or some other amlogic "H" version, as only the "H" Chips can then decode h.265 IN HARDWARE upto 2160p (i.e. 4K). Assuming the Specs are in fact correct.

That's exactly why I bought my Minix x8h+ (for the S812 SOC). I wanted it to be future proof with regards to H.265. Well, 200 bucks later and Minix tells us that they won't update android beyond 4.x and XBMC 15 doesn't support HVEC on android < 5.x. Their solution is to provide a custom build of XBMC which is not what I want at all ... and Minix theoretically had the best software support out of all of them. It's the last Chinese box I'll buy north of 50 bucks..

Thanks for the heads up. I was afraid of that. I must say that I'm very disappointed to hear this news. Since I thought one of the things you were buying sans the box, was aa support layer. Now this makes me wonder if they're just as tight as everyone else when it comes to the GPL'd stuff? 'Cause if we at least had that... Then we wouldn't need them.

[nanners]

Thanks for the heads up. I was afraid of that. I must say that I'm very disappointed to hear this news. Since I thought one of the things you were buying sans the box, was aa support layer. Now this makes me wonder if they're just as tight as everyone else when it comes to the GPL'd stuff? 'Cause if we at least had that... Then we wouldn't need them.

I was duped as well. I bought my minix X8H+ based on the rave reviews about their so called support.. I assumed they'd update the OS to one major revision at least given the ridiculous price they demand for their boxes.

I'll never buy a Minix again, because a) their so called support is **** and b) I can buy boxes for half the price that do the exact same thing. I also assumed there might be a community ROM with lolipop, or openelec, but I don't see either.

On top of that the Air remote lite is a total POS.

[Dandroid534]

I don't like.the nvidia shield, had my friends for a weekend, too much DRM and advert trying to steal money by buying games and films ....

[nanners]

I'm with those who don't really care for the latest android version. In my experience, the hardware/software manufacturers are simply unable to keep up with the new versions, and it creates a slew of issues - mostly regarding permissions (such as the 10mb bug in the new Minix Neo U1), rooting, and even performance.
So far, android 4.4.2 is the best version for boxes, even with its "outdated" look. If you're spending most of your time inside Kodi, or in select few applications, the overall look of the OS does not really matter.
As for new features being supported only on 5.x and up - I doubt we'll need them. Even better HD audio format support has nothing to do with the OS - only with licensing and software (not OS) tweaks.

HEVC support isn't possible under Kodi with 4.4.2 , Kodi requires 5.x to get H/W x.265 decoding. Otherwise I wouldn't care either. But half the reason I bought the s812 based minix was to get that H/W HEVC. So Minix labels and markets x.265 support but doesn't actually update the OS so that the most important application can utilize it? Totally unacceptable.

I did find a Openelec thread on the minix forums, but it's still buggy as shit and it's not a user friendly install at all. Maybe that will pan out in the end...

[Ichijoe]

I'm with those who don't really care for the latest android version. In my experience, the hardware/software manufacturers are simply unable to keep up with the new versions, and it creates a slew of issues - mostly regarding permissions (such as the 10mb bug in the new Minix Neo U1), rooting, and even performance.
So far, android 4.4.2 is the best version for boxes, even with its "outdated" look. If you're spending most of your time inside Kodi, or in select few applications, the overall look of the OS does not really matter.
As for new features being supported only on 5.x and up - I doubt we'll need them. Even better HD audio format support has nothing to do with the OS - only with licensing and software (not OS) tweaks.

First off let me tell you whyy that's BS, and why you really want to update ASAP...
Stagefright bug, 'cause its not (nor never was!) Just for MMS. It was just that in certain cases that was the simplest way to infect a know target. Really only needs you to run some malformed Video File. Where In Kodi durr, where you could just as simply get infected. The only "safe" devices are actually those able to run Android 6.0, or in a pinch 5.1.1. Lollipop.

I get why not every Box needs an update, or indeed would get one. But, for the prices what Minix are demanding for the Neo x8h plus. A Lollipop Update shouldn't have been out of the question. As there truly is more to these Updates the a pretty face.

[Ichijoe]

The Stagefright (MMS) bug, can be sent directly via an infected MMS. Which on the face of it, shouldn't be a problem for these Boxes. The kicker is an infected Video (Which also calls upon the Stagefright Media Player CODEC), say, via Kodi will also infect you. Just 'cause the risk is still laughably lol, (For some unknown reason), doesn't take away the immediate danger of possible infection. In fact I have to say I'm surprised the Android System hasn't melted down 'cause of it yet.

As far as Company Updates go, looking at the slight recent Samsung Galaxy Pro (2014), a very pricy, and high-end Device, still has yet to even get its first update. IIRC it shipped with 4.4.4. At this point the final update to 5.1.1. is currently listed as pending. So some small hope then. But, if this is how the big boys are starting to roll, then how much should we actually expect from the Chinese Makers, who's only concern is to sell the next SoC to OEMs.