G+_Michael Carleton Posted January 1, 2013 Share Posted January 1, 2013 Hi, All About Android , and welcome aboard, Gina Trapani ! I'd love to hear your impressions and reviews of the FAVI SmartStick. I picked one up for Christmas as a test - and overall I'm pretty impressed at what I got for $50. The remote is pretty good too. Originally shared by Julian Sammy FAVI Smart Stick Review Well, I've got a #FAVI #SmartStick for myself for Christmas, in part to test out whether it's worth it to get more for family and friends. It's a simple device: a $50 Android tablet built into a dongle about 10cm x 3cm x 1cm. It plugs directly into your TV's HDMI port, and lets you run pretty much any android app through your TV. I got it with the FAVI wireless keyboard (I'll just call it the 'keyboard' from this point). I'm watching Netflix on my father in law's big TV right now. The picture is pretty good. (Captain America is streaming over wifi with no hitches). Setup The physical connections were easy. Getting the keyboard to pair with the stick was easy too. Unfortunately, the pairing is not particularly reliable, and the SmartStick is very laggy, so it was hard to get the setup to work. The SmartStick did let me install Google+ and Netflix, and comes with apps like Plex preinstalled. It took some time for the Play store to load - not surprising on a $50 bit of hardware - but the play store did load and did work. It took quite a bit of fiddling to get the SmartStick to recognize the WPA2 secured home network. It really shouldn't have been this hard. It appears that the SmartStick couldn't figure out how to talk to the network when running the setup program. Eventually, I did a 'manual' setup by going through the settings and entering the network information. Use It took some time to figure out most of the controls for the keyboard, and I still haven't got the standard IR remote to do anything. Netflix is running smoothly, though, with only one little hitch so far. The range on the keyboard is shorter than I'd like. This house has a big living room, so I find myself getting up and standing next to the TV to make it work. Initial Recommendation I'll be buying at least one more of these. The old XP "media centre" I have lodged behind our TV at home is going to be replaced: it's going to be a Plex server soon, and I'll run all the video I want through the SmartStick. At $50, this is a great deal. http://www.favientertainment.com/v/vspfiles/SmartStick_custom/index.html http://www.favientertainment.com/v/vspfiles/SmartStick_custom/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_P Costello Posted January 10, 2013 Share Posted January 10, 2013 Wonder how well this integrates with cable provider's own apps, like TWC and Optimun, where the app plays TV shows live from a guide. It could bypass set top boxes and cable cards by doing so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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