Minix NEO-G4-108A ARM Cortext A9 Dual Core Quad Core Mali 400 Graphics 1 x HDMI Dongle Pocket PC

Pros: Works as advertised - not quite as responsive as my Nexus 7, but the cost is certainly less - I have it hooked up to a 27" monitor, with a wireless mouse and keyboard

Cons: Not as easy to upgrade the Android version as the Nexus 7.

Other Thoughts: All in all I like it very much. It does what I want it to do just fine

Pros: This is a very neat little bar. The device is quite agile with only minimal lag in performing functions.

Cons: Most have noted that the remote is weak and ineffective, I agree.

The big problem, however, is its inability to stream content fast enough to allow for decent playback. The unit this was meant to replace, a WD TV Live, has no trouble streaming content from a D-Link DNS-321 NAS through a Arris TG862 provided from my cable company.

Speedcheck on an iPad 2 shows download at 19 Mps and the G4 downloads at barely 2 Mps.

Other Thoughts: I bought this to learn a bit about the AndroidOS, and while it seems pretty good, the lack of streaming performance leaves me with a novelty brick.

I should have checked the blogs before I bought as there seems to be hints of the problem out there.

Pros: Works well with XBMC.
Built in Wifi works well.
Small footprint, doesn't take up much space.

Cons: Streaming anything above 720p is not watchable.
The included remote is useless, use a wireless mouse instead.

Other Thoughts: Got this to install XBMC.
As long as you stay with 720p streams and under, it's good. I would expect future firmware to possibly correct this issue.

Pros: Very easy setup especially if you are familiar with the Android OS. One of the best purchases I made in a long time.

Cons: the remote control it comes with is practically useless. I connected a wireless mouse and it worked great without any additional setup.

Pros: This is an update to the "Great value" review I posted a little over a month ago. Posting this update in the hopes that my experience will benefit others.

I've continued to be generally pleased by the Neo G4, with the exception of ... (see Cons)

Cons: ... the increasingly-frequent instances of temporarily dropping the connection to my media server, which caused excessive pauses and timeouts. I spent a few weeks trying to debug the issue, using different video apps, sourcing from a different physical server, going over different network protocols, and checking against different Android devices.

Ultimately, I narrowed the issue down to the Neo G4's wireless drivers and/or chipset, which is in line with other complaints I've heard about the device.

But ... (see Other Thoughts)

Other Thoughts: Based on some cryptic notes I found on the interweb, I was able to overcome these wireless issues with some ROUTER settings. I own a Belkin dual-band router, with one radio broadcasting 802.11 b/g/n at 2.4 GHz, and the other broadcasting a/n at 5.0 GHz.

I disabled my router's 5.0 GHz radio, and the Neo G4's connection hasn't dropped since.

Fortunately I'm not relying on high-speed wireless for anything else, but this seems like a real issue, and there isn't any evidence of Minix pursuing a fix. I doubt I'll buy another Neo G4, as I initially speculated -- although I may consider a Neo X5, since this comes with an Ethernet jack on-board.

Pros: Works with powered usb hub- Works with my 2tb usb hard drive- Netflix runs 1080p- Google Play store works- Android I.C.S works well- Chrome browser- Powers from my Tv USB port- Device runs without excessive heat.

Cons: No Hulu

Other Thoughts: I am really impressed how much this micro device can do so well

Pros: WiFi works unlike all the other Android TV sticks, although the performance is not all that great. At least it works, unlike the MK808 which I also bought.

Cons: Apps such as MLB At Bat, CNN, TuneIn Radio, etc are not compatible with this device and Google Play will not even allow you to install them. There's no way of knowing which app you need will work or not on this device.

Other Thoughts: If I had to do it over again, I would not buy this device. My biggest desire was to run MLB At Bat so I could watch baseball games on the big screen but as stated in the Cons section the device is not compatible with some Android apps. NetFlix does work and the video quality is acceptable, doesn't look like HD but is OK. It has 8GB flash storage despite what some other reviewers are saying. It is not partitioned as one big 8GB drive which is probably causing confusion for some people.

Pros: For this price and in this form factor, you'd expect the device to be terribly underpowered. But it isn't! A pretty good workhorse as far as current Android devices go. (Check the specs if you don't believe me, the CPU is a Rockchip RK3066)

Cons: Your mileage may vary, but I never got the hardware video decoder to work correctly, in any of the video player applications I tried. Not a problem though, since the CPU is powerful enough for great software decoding, and there's no battery life to worry about.

Some reviews mentioned a remote? Mine didn't come with any kind of input device. Hopefully you've got a spare USB mouse -- any HID device should work.

Other Thoughts: I rooted this guy (easy instructions, Google it) and installed CifsManager (from the Play store) to locally mount my home network's media shares. Took a while to find the right Android apps to do what I wanted, but now I'm in love with the thing. I might end up buying another one to replace my HTPC!

Pros: Great pocket size android device with lots of support forums and great response times. Easy to root if your into that kinda of thing and works with xbmc.

Cons: The included ir remote is in need of replacement but works when up close however it definately needs an airmouse or similar to be enjoyable.

Other Thoughts: works great for playing movie and tv files off a usb drive as it plays many formats and you can always upgrade the codecs to play more.

Pros: It runs XBMC well and the build I installed had Navi-X and other plugins pre-installed. They all run reasonably well and I've been streaming some content for a couple days now. I really stick to SD content, so I haven't really tested HD playback. It's not too difficult to root or upgrade, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone not familiar with Android.

Cons: When running XBMC, I've got some sync issues with FilmOn and I can't get SportsDevil to work, but those are minor problems for me.
The remote is atrocious and doesn't work that well in XBMC, unless you keymap some of the buttons. I highly recommend using this with a keyboard/mouse. This also goes for some of the apps native to the G4 -- I can't use YouTube with the remote and when you first run the G4 the android demo overlay is nearly impossible to get out of unless you have a mouse.
The micro USB cable is only 3' so, I had a bit of an issue plugging it in and I got a 3' HDMI cable instead of the tiny adapter in the picture.
You only have about 2GB of useable storage on the G4, but there is 8GB on the device (some of it is linux formatted and can't be seen by the G4). With flash memory so cheap these days, pick up a large microSD card or an external hard drive if you really want to store media locally.

Other Thoughts: I'm using this as a media center for my bedroom and I've connected it to an Apple TV 1st gen I have in my living room so I can watch my movies or stream content from anywhere in my house. It works great for that purpose, but I'm sure this wouldn't be as great if you're using this as a primary media center.
I've only been running it for a couple days, but I haven't noticed the G4 getting all that hot (warm, sure, but nothing I'm concerned about) and really my only frustration with this has been how crummy the remote is and the necessity for a keyboard and mouse especially when first setting this up other than that this has exceeded my expectations.