Rubbish layers or clicking to access 3rd party content - dissapointing.
When the YouView box broke for the bedroom I thought I'd replace it with a Kodi box. I was pretty disappointed with what I found.
I'd known about Kodi boxes for a while, but did a little extra research before purchasing this Kodi(style) box. For those of you who don't know, it's essentially like having a TabletiPad box which you can plug into your TV and run apps from.
So, it runs Android, you connect it to your TV, connect it to your Wifi (or wired network) download and access the Play store - then you can download Apps from the Google Play store to play on your TV.
Or so I thought... the reality was very disappointing.
I navigated to the Play Store, found BBCi player - [SORRY THIS APP ISN'T COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR DEVICE]
I gave a little laugh out loud.
Found 4OD (Channel 4's on-demand player) - [SORRY THIS APP ISN'T COMPATIBLE...] you know the rest.
At which point I started to Google if there was a fix. It turns out you need to setup the Kodi app, then within the Kodi app there's a 3rd party "extension" which allows you to access the BBC iPlayer. But it does mean, I need to turn on the box, load Kodi, scroll through it's menu, select BBCiplayer, wait for that to load, then I have to use it's own 3rd party interface to search for content.
I just couldn't be bothered with it - why have so many rubbish levels to go through to be faced with something which is clunky and difficulty to use.
Which sums up how I feel about this box.
I recommend getting a YouView box. Unlike this product, it's instantly on, with BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Channel 5, Netflix, NowTV, UKTV player etc. it uses the source interface (so you can save cookies and login to your own accounts) and is much smoother than this thing.
Alternatively, buy a casting device like Chromecast, then just use your phone or tablet to cast its content onto the screen. So much easier to use than this, so much more compatibility with Apps.
I struggle to think of any reason why anyone is 2018 would buy something like this.
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