MK808 Dual Core Android 4.1 Jelly Bean mini PC for $49.99 + FS @ geekbuying.com

Quote from neoleo : The concept and value is good but the device quality is poor. My MK802+ reboot couple of times when playing a video. The power supply quality is very poor and also USB connector has become loose only used a few times.

Wow. Can others comment on the power supply issue? My understanding is that you can use either an external power supply or the HDMI port itself to power the unit. Random rebooting would be a deal killer for me.

Quote from sonofsmog : Wow. Can others comment on the power supply issue? My understanding is that you can use either an external power supply or the HDMI port itself to power the unit. Random rebooting would be a deal killer for me.

The HDMI port won't supply enough power.
The included 5v AC Adapter might have issues (because of low QC).
Best bet is to use your own 5v AC Wall adapter, rated at least 1-2A for best results.
You could get lucky, and your TV's USB port might provide enough power.
I have my HP Touchpad charger (5.3v @ 2A), and it's probably the best/highest quality AC Adapter you can get!

Quote from sklar : A basic 5 or 6 year old laptop would be faster and far more flexible than an android stick. Those don't cost $200. Pretty much any old piece of crap with a decent gpu that can decode 1080p in hardware would stomp this into the ground and do everything you'd want, while this will do some stuff and if you mess around with it long enough, it might do most things. Look at the recent android stick threads. Lots of bugs, lots of stuff that doesn't work. A lot of people don't think they work very well, lots of people feel like they wasted money on it. So that eliminates people in finland with 300 square foot apartments. If you cant find room for a small netbook or laptop next to your tv, perhaps streaming video isn't your biggest concern? Which is why so many people complain about the lousy wifi performance on these. If there is anything in your house that'll screw up wifi throughput, its when the signal has to try and penetrate a television. You really do NOT want to hide it behind a tv, but to run an extension hdmi cable and mount the stick where it'll have line of sight to your router. My take is that these are still very immature and might be better in six months. This one looks like its got some chops, nice cpu and gpu...better than the slower single core models. But I'm 99% sure they slapped that jelly bean on it and a bunch of stuff doesn't work right out of the box.

I have to agree that for the most part, these PC's on a stick aren't quite ready for the mass market. I'm willing to wait and buy one from a trusted retailer, if I have a problem, or I'm not happy with my purchase I won't have to jump through hoops returning it.

Quote from huahenryyan : I ordered a tablet from them and CS (via email and chat) is kindly

One criteria for purchasing from a retailer is reputation. I use WOT (web of trust) on my browser, and get a warning the site McBub.com has a poor rating based on user ratings. That's good enough for me. In fact I never heard of McBub until the site was being promoted here on SD's.

Got one of these a couple months ago. Wifi isn't very good, hdmi outputs natively at 720p and scales to 1080p(not true 1080p).

All these android sticks seem to be still maturing, imho I'd hold off to buy one until a later date. I wouldn't buy another one if I had the chance again.

I received one in late November. Gave it to my mother for Christmas so she could check e-mail/use social apps on her TV.

Price is pretty much what it was 2 months ago. Not sure why this thread is getting a lot of attention.

Since I set it up and tested it out (I'm such a good son), I can say:

WiFi was not a problem. Worked perfect, no drops, strong connection.

HDMI cable that came with it worked fine with two monitors I have, but did not work with my Vizio TV circa 2009. However, I replaced it with one from monoprice and it worked just fine.

Movies worked great, Netflix worked great, no problem generally with any apps.

What disappointed me was the lack of the abilility to play games on these. Only game I could play was Angry Birds; others I tried either didn't have a keyboard or joypad setup or a control method other than touch. I also had trouble with the gamepad apparently maxing out the available power causing the gamepad to work intermittently or causing a reset. I could fix that with a powered USB hub, but the lack of compatible games made it not worth it.

Anyone order from Geekbuying.com in USA?

Are they reliable place to order? I understand they're from Asia so shipping may take 2-3weeks or so.

But their facebook page shows a lot of customer's posting asking for status and not receiving their order since Last Oct/Nov/Dec.....

anyone with experience can help share their experience? Would like to order direct from them but don't want to get burned...ty

is there anyway to use one of these to pause/record live TV, maybe onto a connected USB hard drive?

i'd love to get rid of my huge silverstone box.

Quote from sklar : A basic 5 or 6 year old laptop would be faster and far more flexible than an android stick. Those don't cost $200. Pretty much any old piece of crap with a decent gpu that can decode 1080p in hardware would stomp this into the ground and do everything you'd want, while this will do some stuff and if you mess around with it long enough, it might do most things..

Like someone else said an older laptop typically does not have hdmi ports. You can use dvi or display ports laptops but you need affordable converters. An old laptop with only vga would require seperate audio cables making more of mess plus converting to hdmi would probably be pricey. Who wants to trust a laptop running all the time? It's not something you can setup to only turn on when the TV turns on. Yes an old laptop is fine if you are using this for yourself on a single tv. But if you want multiple tv's that a neatly hung on the wall or members of your family that are not tech savy you better keep it all simple. The Android sticks would be nice for this but they are still too buggy from what I'm reading.

Quote from sklar : Look at the recent android stick threads. Lots of bugs, lots of stuff that doesn't work. A lot of people don't think they work very well, lots of people feel like they wasted money on it..

Yes there are a lot of people complaining but every person has a different set of requirements they expect from these android sticks.

Quote from sklar : Which is why so many people complain about the lousy wifi performance on these. If there is anything in your house that'll screw up wifi throughput, its when the signal has to try and penetrate a television. You really do NOT want to hide it behind a tv, but to run an extension hdmi cable and mount the stick where it'll have line of sight to your router. .

I prefer to buy a $10 usb to ethernet adapter. Wifi is a big problem in these android sticks but there are hacks to help.

Quote from sklar : My take is that these are still very immature and might be better in six months. This one looks like its got some chops, nice cpu and gpu...better than the slower single core models. But I'm 99% sure they slapped that jelly bean on it and a bunch of stuff doesn't work right out of the box.

Yes these are not tested as throughly as you might expect. But I think they are great little tinker gadgets. I think it's possible you can use an android stick and be very pleased with the performance If your lucky. But I think not having the hardware accelerated decoding for xbmc kills the slickness of the android sticks.

Quote from hiawan : your better off buying a no-name tablet with HDMI. This has no bluetooth, no mic and not well developed.

No, tablets and Android sticks are very different products with very different uses. Most Android sticks are designed to be hooked to a TV and used to watch video. They don't need a screen, but they do need an HDMI port, USB port or ports, and low power. Most tablets are missing some of those features, like full sized USB. Most tablets have other features that are a completely worthless extravagance for an Android stick. For instance, there's no need for a capacitance touch screen.

For just running 1080p video, the 2nd generation single-core Allwinner powered sticks do just fine. Though I'd recommend staying away from the original version of the MK802, it tended to overheat and didn't have enough RAM. The MK802 ii is a fine pick and only about $35 from a number of Amazon vendors.

Many have asked about XBMC. No, it doesn't work, not really. The XBMC developers have fallen way behind in developing for a number of ARM chipsets. XBMC has no hardware video acceleration on either this Rockchip or the Allwinner, meaning it cannot do high definition video. XBMC has always been a bit of a pig, now it is being completely outstripped by the competition. The XBMC guys are blaming the chip vendors, but the truth tends to point towards the XBMC devs. There are a number of Android video players on both the Allwinner and Rockchip that perform flawless hardware video acceleration at resolutions up to and over 1080p.

Even the single core allwinner sticks can play full 1080p using MX Player, Mobo Player, and a few other players. Single core is enough for 1080p. For games you might want more, but if you're at home, you probably already have a device better suited for games. I don't really see the point in spending $85 to $100 + on a quad-core stick that will only be better for games.

I bought this and mine DOES NOT WORK>....

Quote from cheapee : I prefer to buy a $10 usb to ethernet adapter. Wifi is a big problem in these android sticks but there are hacks to help. .

Only $6 here, and confirmed to work with Android.

http://www.monoprice.com/products...1&format=2

Quote from Damocles : is there anyway to use one of these to pause/record live TV, maybe onto a connected USB hard drive? i'd love to get rid of my huge silverstone box.

How are you going to feed live tv to the android stick? XBMC with Navix/freecable/ceton/silicondust? XBMC has some pvr functionality or plug-in's that provide pvr functions.

Quote from chriskellydev : My only gripe with it is that the Play Store doesn't seem to search for Paid Apps. It supports the download/install/run but you can't search for them .

Log into the Play store from a desktop computer. You can review all the apps and remotely install them to any device on your account. You can even review the apps you have already installed on any specific Android device.

Using a desktop computer is often the fastest way to review and install apps, either for sticks like this or for Android phones and tablets.