@bkelso29 Your very welcome. This questions actually needs a bit more info than provided. If you insist on USB 3.0 then some of these are off the list. First of all the money issue & affordability is always in question, but from what your saying you want the internet not to be neutered shall we say & have the most benefits for you to stream tv without any issues having WIFI 6. You need to look deep inside the specs of many of these boxes to see what suits your needs. I will be clear on something that many may not realize. I highly recommend NEVER purchasing a box with only 2 Gig of ram. The reason for this is almost the entire 2G is taken up by the operating system. This is so important to a box as basically think of it as it’s brain & having more of it helps it think to stay ahead of what your telling it to do. Not only is the CPU/GPU important but also having enough ram to keep it thinking faster is far better. I never recommend to anyone to cut themselves to a 2 Gig of ram box - EVER! Not a good idea.
NO 1. - If you want the lowest cost bargain basement box that has USB 3.0, WIFI 6, AI-SR but no Dolby Vision or AIPQ, just HDR 10/10+/HLG with great 32 bit capability then you may want the X88 Pro X5M box w/Android 14 & Slimbox capable to flash their firmware in to it if desired. Also instead of the G31 Mali GPU that the Tanix TX5 has, this has the Mali G310 GPU which is a faster & better GPU. This box will get mid 500’s quad core score on Geekbench and will be solid & reliable for speeds & in my honest opinion the best box for the lowest cost. I built one of these boxes for my daughter & it’s cranking well to this day & I would guess it’s at least 9 months old now. I did put Slimbox in to it & it runs great. This box does tend to run warm on CPU Temps just like the Tanix TX5 does so I recommend putting a fan under both of them. The TX5 runs about 61-63C without the fan under it, now running 49-51C with the fan under it.
NO 2. - When it comes to the Tanix devices, I have a couple of their W2 boxes with only 2 ram/16 storage & only because I got them both for 50 bucks & got that money back for free on a rebate deal from one of the kickbacks extensions. This box is a TOAD & I do not recommend it. Although after putting Slimbox in to it the box works fairly solid, the guts in this thing will only do a quad score in the 100’s & the WIFI is 100mbps neutered. Good spare tire & since I got them so dirt cheap I grabbed them. The Tanix TX5 is a touch behind the X88 Pro X5M but a better choice.
NO 3. - The Tanix TX5 is a great option & has solid WIFI speeds, but is not WIFI 6, nor does it have USB 3.0. Since I just built mine I can tell you that it is getting solid 250’s from my routered WIFI 6 Cudy W/VPN on Surfshark of my 300’s fiber internet. My nominal speeds are generally in the 360’s range without VPN. For WIFI 5 this is very solid speeds. Slimbox works really solid in this box & I have been running it for a week now without any issues. The negative about this box is although less in price by the time you buy a good BT remote to use on it your about equal to the cost of the X88 Pro X5M box. The IR remote that it comes with totally sucks. There is a plus model & a max model of this TX5 but are harder to find. This one due to your statement is most likely off your list.
NO 4. - If you wish to have Dolby Vision in the guts of your box your going to have to dig a little deeper in to your wallet. For about the lowest cost option & solid speeds/workability that has DV capability, along with AI-SR & AIPQ I have the Ugoos SK4, but NOT the pro version & the wife runs this box every day & it is super solid. I do NOT recommend the pro version as it has level 1 certification, which means it is locked up to googleygoo’s control, but also I heard the Netfiix still won’t do hi resolution video on the pro version. The cost of this Box is far less than my AM9 Pro I have, about half really but is not as fast of a box as the AM9 Pro but not a factor to stream with. This box gets about the same speeds as the X88 Pro X5M on Geekbench so it’s a solid one for speeds, & does WIFI 6, DV, HDR 10/10+/HLG but is considerably higher in price. On our Sony the picture quality of this box is stand up superb equal to my AM9 in my honest opinion & a great cost saving option. I have 2 identical 90 series Sony Bravia tv’s & both look equally impressive.
NO 5. - For the best of the best at the lowest out of pocket costs the AM9 Pro I feel is the best one. Many others recommended the AM9 to me from this site, & yes @sim_bill I through my hand up to you my friend for all your insights before I purchased one. Your going to fork out 230+ tax for this box, but the benefits of this box is truly tops. From it’s DDR 5 ram to the true 64 bit processing it’s one of the best out there. Currently Am…n has the best price for it. The company store is best for the Ugoos SK4 at 125 from what I am seeing. I got 800’s quad score from the AM9, but the Pro version will do over 1,000 mainly due to it’s much faster ram memory. Since it can think much faster it makes a big difference. The newer CPU helps some also of course.
In my experiences from the improvements I have seen, having the AI-SR & the AIPQ is huge to improve picture quality along with the Dolby Vision. Do as you wish, but these 3 things are a great thing to have. I have an antenna up & have a 3.0 FL** tuner & run my locals through the app. Doing this makes incredible improvements on my antenna channels on my AM9 Pro as it ads both of the AI improvements to them before displaying on my Sony, especially for the 480i feeds.
These are the ones I know a lot about, & there may be others I am not aware of, so any other people reading this feel free to chime in on boxes & their picks, but the X88 Pro X5M wins for cheapest & best low budget option, then for the extra cost but more affordable the SK4 NON Pro version. My top pick is the AM9 Pro as it is the cheapest & fastest fully loaded box that isn’t missing anything. Also another pet peve for me on this AM9 Pro box is that if you run a fan with it, it will cut off power to fan from it’s USB ports on/off when you turn box on/off, whereas NONE of the other ones will do this which is super cool to me not having to monkey with the switch to manually turn on/off if you do desire to run one with a fan. After I lost my AM9 due to overheating awhile back I will never fail to run a fan under all my boxes. SK4 will also cut on/off same way. Although the SK4 doesn’t have vents under it, I put a fan under it anyhow just to help cool it some.
