Android TV

thenry · 05-10-2025, 18:14

What types of android tv devices do you own? What are your thoughts?

I have a cylindrical Nvidia shield, Amazon fire stick 4k max 1st generation and 2nd generation.

For user experience I love the Nvidia shield. For cheap and cheerful a fire stick is the way to go.

On the shield I have cx file explorer that has cloud storage so I'm logged into my OneDrive for sideloading apks. Downloader on the fire stick does the job.

Though these devices are decent spec. I've found they cannot handle large local databases. I'd be interested in reading better spec'd devices?

SnoopZ · 05-10-2025, 19:11

Firestick Max 16GB and Firestick Max 8GB in bedroom, with Downloader app for sideloading and X-plorer where I could sideload via OneDrive if I needed to but I used X-plorer today to backup my Tivimate data file so I can copy it to the other Firestick in my bedroom saving a huge amount of my time.

Interesting thread to find out what better devices are out there if needed in the future.

**Paul** · 05-10-2025, 19:30

I posted this elsewhere, but to recap ;

My main box is an X96Q (about 18 months old).
My other box is an A95X (about 6 years old) - not often used now.

Jaymoss · 05-10-2025, 20:01

Any none fire android TV box I always skinned to the older android none tv interface so it was not filled with content and just shortcuts that I chose

SnoopZ · 06-10-2025, 19:06

Probably not the right place for this but the new Amazon 4K stick will be called Firestick 4K Select with Vega OS and it only has 1GB RAM compared to 2GB on the current 4K"and WiFi 5 instead of 6.

Jaymoss · 06-10-2025, 19:20

its gonna be pants . Why they put only 1GB in anything nowadays is nuts. Wonder if they finally switched to 64 bit though

**Paul** · 06-10-2025, 19:49

So they downgraded the memory, the WI-Fi, and OS ? No Thanks.

SnoopZ · 06-10-2025, 19:56

Yep.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Staging-Pro.../dp/B0CN41YQKQ

thenry · 12-10-2025, 14:57

SnoopZ do you have the full playlist enabled from your provider? How are your fire sticks behaving?

SnoopZ · 12-10-2025, 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by thenry

SnoopZ do you have the full playlist enabled from your provider? How are your fire sticks behaving?

I've hidden everything that's not in English, so I've got loads of Sky channels and for Movies and TV Shows I've also hidden the none English.

I don't have anything to compare against but in my opinion it's running fantastically, I use VLC as my Player as this gives automatic subtitles for Movies and TV Shows and also I purchased the Premium Tivimate as my guide to allow me to hide stuff.

The only time it's stopped working which I thought was a service outage was when I changed VPN location, so I've learnt never to do that.

Formula 1 TV is fantastic and really looks awesome to my eyes in both UHD and HD, so much so I've today cancelled my Formula 1 TV Pro subscription which cost me £6.99 a month, so I'm keeping this IPTV service costing £7.86 a month.

It's running great on my Firestick Max 16GB and also great on my Firestick 4K 8GB in the bedroom, I've also bought another 4K stick for my Dad's Christmas present while it's on offer and I will attempt to set him up on IPTV with him paying the monthly bill and me hopefully managing it 3hrs away so I hope it's still reliable!

Not sure why your experience was so much different to mine and Jays unless they limited stuff on your trial or maybe your existing service is just way better in your opinion.

thenry · 12-10-2025, 17:49

The gripe I had with it is I want the full playlist, sometimes sport in a different language is the only option. Neither my shield nor fire 4k max could handle the demands of the playlist in full example switch stream, looking for a stream my app would crash.

I have no idea how your provider updates things but with you making custom changes should your provider update the playlist you'll be reconfiguring it once again. Which could be a pain in the arse.

With my provider(s) there's everything in sensible numbers in folders. Everything is kept to a minimum to allow the end user to have everything loaded.

SnoopZ · 12-10-2025, 18:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by thenry

The gripe I had with it is I want the full playlist, sometimes sport in a different language is the only option. Neither my shield nor fire 4k max could handle the demands of the playlist in full example switch stream, looking for a stream my app would crash.

I have no idea how your provider updates things but with you making custom changes should your provider update the playlist you'll be reconfiguring it once again. Which could be a pain in the arse.

With my provider(s) there's everything in sensible numbers in folders. Everything is kept to a minimum to allow the end user to have everything loaded.

With Tivimate I can create groups, like put all Sport in one group but I think the channel list will still get updated so I will just see how it goes as there are 130,000 channels and I really don't want to see all those. It's a learning cure for me but so far it does everything easily that I want it to do and I'm more interested in the movie and TV show lists for now.

My Fire sticks haven't crashed once, so it maybe worth you grabbing one while still on offer before the crappy version comes out as they don't cost too much. I went for the Max at £40 and 4K for my parents at £25.

If your provider has a website please PM me it, it maybe good for my dad so I need to test.

thenry · 12-10-2025, 18:15

I've got 2 4k max models 1st gen and another 2nd gen with the pro remotes, ethernet adapter all the bells and whistles. I too went for them on offer

The two providers I have are closed for invites at the minute. I'm awaiting an opening for somebody else so I'll keep you in mind but it's been some time now no mention of it opening up. But I do stress if it ain't broke don't fix it meaning your found provider. Stick with it if it's working for you. I did like some bits of your playlist Italy was working, Netherlands too. With recent raids those were not working elsewhere including my provider.

SnoopZ · 12-10-2025, 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by thenry

I've got 2 4k max models 1st gen and another 2nd gen with the pro remotes, ethernet adapter all the bells and whistles. I too went for them on offer

The two providers I have are closed for invites at the minute. I'm awaiting an opening for somebody else so I'll keep you in mind but it's been some time now no mention of it opening up. But I do stress if it ain't broke don't fix it meaning your found provider. Stick with it if it's working for you. I did like some bits of your playlist Italy was working, Netherlands too. With recent raids those were not working elsewhere including my provider.

Thanks I'll probably stick with my current provider, I don't like all this invite crap, I like to go to a proper website and click purchase and see how it goes, so as you say if it ain't broke stick with it.

My Fire sticks are only connected via VM WiFi and so far there is no issue, hopefully at my parents house no issue also.

Jaymoss · 12-10-2025, 19:43

And this is all why I swear by PC. Not messed with the M3U yet but you can literally open and M3U in a text editor and delete all the entries you do not want and have a much smaller playlist. Used to do this all the time when I use ProgDVB as my player

Today I purchased off ebay for the grand sum of £45 HP ProDesk 600 G3 i5-7500 @ 3.4GHz 8GB DDR4 Ram 240GB SSD WIN 11 Pro. Will urinate all over any of the Firesticks once connected to my PC it is replacing a much smaller HP EliteDesk 705 G4 Mini PC A10-9700E CPU16GB RAM 256GB SSD WiFi which cost me £80 but because it is smaller its cooling is a little louder . I am going to sell this at a loss

You can still run Windows Subsystem for Android on these btw even though it is not supported anymore so most android apps will run on it as well