Android Stick PC (mk808)

MK808
We recently moved so I decided to change things up a bit.  In my old house every hdtv had a pc hooked up to it.  This added a lot of flexibility but also quite a bit of bulk, kind of messy, and unwieldy.  I'm trying the opposite this time using WD TV Live (3rd gen) and now these cheap android stick PCs to add a bit  more general computing.  The mk808 is basically a dual core android device without the screen.  It has hdmi out that you hook up to your TV.

Here are the critical items I think you need to get started:

$56 MK808 - At the time I ordered it from the seller: Sain Store which had it in stock and was fulfilled by amazon so you got prime shipping.  Since then it seems they have sold out.  I know geekbuying is a pretty major seller of these devices but it gets shipped from China so it will take several weeks to get it.  I have no experience with geekbuying).

$17 USB to RJ45 Ethernet Adapter - Some people report issues with wifi dropping in and out.  It worked fine for me for the couple of hours I tested on wifi.  Still, if you plan to stream HD content it's best to go wired.  This works great with the mk808.  Just plug and play.  No drivers to deal with.

$35 Logitech K400 Wireless keyboard with multitouch pad - This is a great compact wireless keyboard with a multitouch touchpad (2 finger scrolling, etc) that is still easy to type on.  It has some nice dedicated keys that work with android like home and the power button will sleep the android pc.  It also duplicates the left mouse button in the upper left corner.  This is handy for clicking and holding and dragging.

$3 Mini hdmi to hdmi cable - The one included is a bit crap and way too short.  Get a nice one that works with all TV's and resolutions at monoprice.

$1 Mini usb cable - You should grab this too since the one included is also a bit cheap.  This will prevent any issues if you plan to flash a custom rom using the OTG usb port.

$19 2 amp USB Power Supply - The apple iPad one is recommended because it's very well built if a bit expensive.  Mine came with a cheap 1 amp power supply.  Highly recommended if you plan to overclock.

Total: $131

So what starts off as being a cheap $55 ish android stick pc over doubles in price if you want to go for a good quality and highly reliable/usable setup.  It also has a microSDHC slot.  I dropped in a 32GB class 6 ($22) just for kicks.  It's not really needed unless you need more local storage or you want to use something like Titanium Backup between rom flash upgrades to quickly restore your apps.  With finless 1.6 you get 2GB internal app storage space and 4GB internal SD.

The first thing I did was install a full rooted custom rom: finless 1.6.  The process was pretty easy.  Just follow the instructions in the readme carefully.  The only thing I got stuck on was getting it into flash mode.  I ended up having to do the alternative paperclip method but that was easy enough.  After that flashing went smoothly.  I did play with it briefly with the factory default rom.  Google play store seemed to work fine.  I was even able to install onlive from the play store just fine.  Still, I wanted to take advantage of some of the neat apps out there that require a rooted system like being able to safely shutdown. I've been reading pulling the power isn't generally a good idea with some risk of corruption.  You also get 2GB of app install space which is nice.

- If you want full screen youtube app grab this version (though it doesn't seem to see the ethernet connection).  I just use the desktop version of the website which still lets you go full screen.  UPDATE: Grab the google.tv APK mentioned in this thread for the best full screen HD youtube experience.
- This thing is pretty tiny.  I stuck a killawatt on it.  1w sleep, 2w idle (screen on), 4w under max load (AnTuTu benchmark cpu).
- Performance isn't too bad.  9827 on AnTuTu benchmark.  Think Galaxy S2 speeds.
- Heat doesn't seem to be much of an issue.
- Only does 720p native and scales up to 1080p.  Native 1080p coming in 1.7.  Still, 720p upscaled looks pretty good and text is quite legible on the TV.
- If you completely shutdown the device there is no way to power it back up except unplugging it and plugging it back in.  That is why I'm choosing to just sleep it when not in use (1w of power I can live with) and hooking it up to a UPS I had laying around for safety.  Of course you could also try one of these IR controlled AC outlets.
- Boot time is around 30 sec.  Finless seems to take quite a bit longer than the stock rom.  This is another reason I choose to just sleep the device so it's truly instant on.
- Keyboard support is a bit inconsistent out of the box.  Depending on the app, sometimes the virtual keyboard still pops up and sometimes it doesn't.  When entering URLs into the default browser the enter key launches the site.  In chrome enter does nothing and you have to click on the GO button on the virtual keyboard.  After buying External Keyboard Helper app things work much better as you can actually select external keyboard as your input device.  Before, external keyboard wouldn't even show up as an option.
- No gameloft game support out of the box without some hacking.
- I think ethernet support feels a bit like a hack.  I've come across a few apps now (like the older full screen version of youtube, 1 password, and some games) that don't detect a network connection if wifi is turned off.  That means they won't work over an ethernet connection.
- When you cold boot the device ethernet usually doesn't work until you toggle it off and back on again.

Things you can do with this thing:
- Competent mobile Chrome browser with flash support.  It's still a bit clunky.  Scrolling is still pretty jerky and page load times are longer than I like but it is serviceable.  Do NOT expect iPad like silky smooth scrolling and responsiveness.
- All the usual streaming services like netflix, hulu,  pandora, spotify, etc are there.  You have the entire google play store of apps to explore.
- Stream local content either directly using es file explorer and the built in video player or something like plex or xbmc ( which is not hw accelerated yet so hd is choppy. You need to configure it to work with an external player like mx player.  I haven't tried this yet).  Subsonic is nice for audio.  I found the built in video player to handle 1080p mkv just fine natively.  Even subtitles worked.  Playback was smooth over ethernet but hitched over wifi (even in the same room as the router).  Seeking to different points in the MKV while streaming over a network share was quick and responsive.
- Play games that don't require multi-touch like angry birds.
- Use rkremote.  RKRemote.APK is in the finless distribution.  Just side load it on your android phone or tablet to control your mk808.
- Skype if you hook up a compatible web cam.
- Hook up an xbox 360 controller and load up a bunch of emulators and play a bunch of retro classic games from atari 2600 up through playstation one. (Going to dig into this next.  Will update post when I do.).
- Remote into your desktop using splashtop, teamviewer, etc.
- Tried out Airtight which is an airplay receiver so you can stream from your iOS devices to the mk808.  It works fine with audio and some video.  The built in video player works and so dies air video but goodplayer, netflix, slingplayer do not work.  All audio works fine though.  It's pretty limited but for 99 cents it isn't too bad.

I have one question for those of you more experienced with the MK808. Is there any way to output AC3 or DTS bitstream so I can get true 5.1 sound out of my receiver? Right now 720p MKVs decode just fine but all audio gets down sampled to 2 channel audio. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a nice home theater setup. I have mine hooked up to a pioneer VSX-1021-k receiver. I've tried a variety of players like mx player, xbmc, and plex. Nothing seems to work. When I set xbmc to output ac3/dts over hdmi all I get is static. So I'm just wondering if it's my pioneer being picky (and I know it's a bit finicky with some sources) or the mk808 just doesn't support what I'm trying to do.

Recommended.  It's a fun relatively inexpensive android hacking box dream if you don't mind spending time fiddling with things.  It's definitely not for the type of user that just wants to plug something in and just start using it expecting everything to work.  Without 5.1 audio support I can't recommend this for streaming video.  It's fine for more general purpose use but for media streaming the wd tv live beats the pants off of this thing in overall usability and capability.

UPDATE: 2/25/2013
- XBMC Revisted.
http://www.xbmcandroid.com/
Installed the neon version of mx player and xbmc neon set top box.  Make sure you launch mx player once before installing xbmc.  This new build is suppose to use mx player as an external player for hw accelerated video right out of the box.  This is partially true.  It doesn't work with files streamed over shares (internal player still gets used).  The work around is pre-mount all your shares outside of xbmc using cifsmanager.  So install that first.  Use your favorite file explorer app (I use root explorer) and head over to /mnt/cifs and create a directory for each share you plan to mount.  Once that is done fire up cifsmanager and create all your mounts.  Make sure you click on the share to mount after you create it.  Now that is done head back into xbmc and when you add video source pick root file system instead of network share and browse to /mnt/cifs/yourmount.  That basically tricks xbmc to think the content is local so mx player gets proper launched.  Just remember if you reboot your android you will need to head back into cifsmanager and mount all your shares again.  Performance is pretty solid.  I tried MKV 720p/1080p, mov, avi, divx, flv, mp3, wmv, mp4, ts and pretty much everything plays (granted with 2 channel sound only UGGGG).  DVD iso's don't seem to work.  HD Mpeg2 .ts recordings from hdhomerun play but not 100% smooth.  It's very close but just slightly off.  It's still very watchable.  Plugins are hit and miss with this weird external player version.  Make sure you go into android settings | display | zoom it so there is NO overscan.  Also, hide the bottom menu bar before firing up xbmc and you'll get 16:9 video that nicely fills the entire screen.  UI is nice and responsive.  This really isn't a bad setup if all you need is 2.0 sound.  Unfortunately that doesn't cut it for me.

UPDATE: 2/10/2014
- Updated to finless ROM 2.1 using 6gb app space and 1080p kernal patch.  Used titanium backup pro to help with app migration.  Do not try and flash on windows 8.1 specifically and waste hours of time like I did.  Find a win 8 or win 7 machine.
- Man, I forgot how sluggish these things feel.  I haven't used it in ages.  Cold boot times are really long now too.
- Stopped working with one of the hdmi ports on my pioneer receiver.  Swapped ports with my 360 and both devices work now.  I'm not sure what's going on.  Everything goes pink once in a while now and I have no idea why (happens when hooked directly to the TV too and also on my asus monitor).  Unplugging and replugging in the hdmi fixes it or sometimes it fixes itself after a while.  UPDATE:  pink issue seems to be mostly gone now.
- I'm kind of done with this device.  It just screams cheap flakey Chinese junk.  I wasted a weekend hoping 1080p and the new ROM would help with hdmi compatibility but it hasn't.  I'm using a monoprice hdmi cable (I have 2 of them and tried both) so I know it's not the cable.  If I want to share a browser on the big screen chromecast + chromebook works about 100000X better.  This device really doesn't add any functionality I can do better with other devices.  The only thing that is kind of handy is airtight but when the new appletv finally gets released I'll probably just pick up one of those.

Max Payne (piano)

I've finished every single Max Payne game that has been released (including 3) and this piano theme has always stuck with me. I hope you enjoy it. It was fun to learn.

You can find the sheet music to this great arrangement here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BchDZue9LeE

Guild Wars 2 - Fear Not This Night (piano)

Guild Wars 2 - Fear Not This Night (piano).  I love this song.  Too bad you don't actually get to hear it much in the game.  You will hear it in the last personal story mission (The Source of Orr) right before the last dungeon.  I've got a level 80 elementalist: finished the personal story, and all the dungeons in story mode.  I'm still working on explorable modes and working on a warrior alt.

You can find the sheet music here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?k882o51vee361t3

Mass Effect 3 - I was Lost Without You (piano)

Mass Effect 3's love theme. This is another great arrangement by Sebastian Wolff. You can get the sheet music here:
http://sebastianwolff.info/news/2012/03/mass-effect-3-i-was-lost-without-you/

Mass Effect 3 (XBOX 360)

- Finished ME3 with 74% readiness with about 4 hrs of multiplayer.
- about 5300 effective war assets.

- Mined all resources (less than 1hr of grinding to finish up scanning the rest of the planets near the end)

- final save: 46h 15m
- Level 55 soldier, paragon.

- Normal difficulty level

- Got the ummm "perfect" ending.  Went back and played the other 2 endings just to check them out.

- I pretty much played most of ME2  back to back with ME3.  I had started ME2 back when it was first released and quit after about 7 hrs.  I guess I was a bit burnt out on bioware games having just finished Dragon Age on the pc so I gave it a long break.  I then went back and started playing ME2 again about a month ago, finished it, and went straight into ME3.
- Finished reading all the comics and about half way through the second novel so yeah I'm pretty invested in this universe.
- I have both iOS apps.  Infiltrator is ok though has some control issues.  It's not Dead Space quality.  The free data pad app is pretty neat with a galaxy map mini game that contributes to you war assets.  I like reading all the emails you get too which are different than the ones in game.  Also, you get access to the entire Codex with the voice overs.  It's really nice to browse the codex on the iPad.
- I actually went back and played the ME1 DLC: Bring Down the Sky because I had skipped it when it first came out.  It was a pretty bland mission with more mako driving (uggg!!!).  The graphics were pretty dated looking.  Combat has come a LONG way since me1.  Don't bother with this dlc.  It's really not worth it.
- Hit the import bug where it wouldn't import the face of my me2 character.  I went through a lot of trouble getting my xbox save onto my pc and then running it through a variety of programs and online utilities to get my character code and slider values except for makeup.  Even after all that my Shepard still doesn't look right.  To have that serious of a bug slip through QA and then still exist for months after release is totally inexcusable.  You invest 100 hrs into the character, and I better damn well be able to play MY shepard in me3.  Again, it's more signs of a rushed product that could have been better.

Mass Effect 2

I still think I inadvertently created Kelli Giddish

- I got the perfect ending and saved everybody.
- 52h.08m, level 30 soldier, paragon

- I completed all the DLC with overlord and shadow broker being my favorite.  From a game play perspective arrival was kind of meh but it's good to play as a bridge between me2 and me3.

- I felt me2 did a lot of things right.  It had a very large and interesting cast of characters.  Most grew on me by the end.  All their loyalty missions were quit interesting too.  The combat was much improved over me1.  I felt character progression though was a bit over simplified as far as gear upgrades.  

- Scanning planets for resources was just boring busy work after about 15 min of doing it.  Good thing I have younger children which I got them to mine enough resources to get all my upgrades. 

- I liked how crew loyalty and ship upgrades impacted the ending.

- Journal was well done always pointing you to where you need to go next and tracking every step of your missions as you completed them.  You always knew what state a mission was in.

Mass Effect 3 (WARNING: SPOILERS BEGIN HERE)

- Lets start with the good.  The Combat is even better IMO especially if you have played gears of war.  The cover system gets a bit sticky though with one button doing too many things.  The combat rolls aren't bad.  Game looks as great as ever.  Load times aren't bad except for the odd 2 people guarding the load screen between the war room and the galaxy map.

- Quick save is awesome!!!!

- I like the class flexibility how any class can use any weapon.  The weight vs power recharge speed tradeoff is well implemented.

- The weapon upgrade slots are a nice customization and then having 5 levels of upgrades for all weapons and mods gives you even more progression.

- There are some HUGE incredibly well done emotional beats and payoffs throughout the game: Genophage, Geth/Quarian, and tons of wrap up if you saved everybody from ME2.  

- Music has always been fantastic in this series and even better in me3.
- I romanced Liara through all 3 games.  Though I did get the shower scene with Traynor before restoring to an earlier save.  The Tali / Garrus romance was cute too.
- Multiplayer horde mode is a lot of fun.  I like the unlock progression.  You either love or hate the random slot machine style of unlocks though.  In some ways I think it brings some excitement when you buy a pack with in game credits.  At least that is better than some of the crap you have to do to unlock the pro versions of perks in MW3.  On the other hand it would be nice to know you will unlock this race or weapon at a specific overall XP threshold.  Either way, it's different and works pretty well for the most part.  I liked how you got to preview the multiplayer maps if you did the side quests in the single player.  It seems like they could have easily added bots but didn't.
- Jessica Chobot: This game was NOT kind to her.  Her face seemed extra wide, and her poor voice acting really stands out compared to the rest of the excellent cast.

- What happened with the Journal?  It's pretty much crap in me3.  I'm not sure why they broke a working system.  You basically have no idea what step you are on in the mission, where to go, or anything.  It's pretty much useless requiring a lot of looking up in a wiki.
- The new resource mining is improved overall from me2 IMO though it is a bit silly getting chased by those reaper ships.  It's easy enough to escape and come back in until you get 100% resources gathered.  At least you don't have to worry about buying probes or manually scanning every inch of every planet.  It's a lot less busy work.
- Unfortunately, the two trips to the Citadel you have to make to gather up all these lame busy work side quests kind of suck.  It's worse due to the Journal system so you have no idea if you even picked up whatever random widget that person on the citadel wanted.  At least you are visiting all new sections of the citadel.
- The day 1 DLC: From Ashes is a greedy blatant money grab IMO and reeks with EA douchebaggery.  It's quite integral to the story.  It gives you so much needed background information not just in the flash backs with the Prothean but in all the crew interaction especially with Liara.  Liara's realization and misconceptions of what the Protheans are are really well done.

Endings and resolutions
- In general I feel corners were definitely cut on this game.  What should have been their biggest and best mass effect game to wrap up this trilogy instead we get a good game that feels a bit rushed (budget? EA influences?) and not quite reaching it's full potential.  This game should have been treated like the half life series: take as long it takes to make the best possible game.
- After finishing the game I went back and watched all the endings and a lot of the different resolutions through the game because I really don't plan to play this game again.  I was really surprised by some of the outcomes that can happen like saving Mording, Tali committing suicide, Miranda dying, etc.  I was really impressed by some of the different paths you can take which makes the ending look that much worse.
- Tali:  The romance path really should have had a cutscene that showed her face as a payoff instead of a short glimpse of a cheesy photoshopped stock photo.
- Saying goodbye to everybody before the last mission was a great touch.
- All the resolutions you get with pretty much everybody you saved from ME2 was well done.

- In this case I feel artistic integrity is just another word for developer arrogance.  That sums up what I feel about what happened with the ending.  I'm not sure if the rumors are true but it really does feels like Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locked themselves in a room and wrote the ending without any peer review from the rest of the writing team.  I think they were too close to the material and couldn't see it from the outside (how the players would perceive it) and so a very poor ending was released.  I felt the writing and narrative choices were very consistent and made logical sense up until the ending.
- My biggest issue with the 3 choices are none of them matched in tone, belief system, or moral compass that I've been playing my shepard.  There was no way to object to the ultimatum the stupid star child presents.  I spent the entire game proving that organics and synthetics CAN coexist peacefully and can even mutually benefit from one another (geth/Quarian, EDI/Joker).
Destruction: This is what I ended up choosing but I completely reject that I have no choice but to destroy all synthetic life including the Geth and EDI.
Synthesis:  I've been fighting to preserve life, all kinds of life (synthetic and organic), and not force everybody in the entire galaxy to some mutant hybrid.  We fought against this very thing in ME1 against sovereign and saren (indoctrinated).
Control: I've been fighting TIM this entire time against the entire idea of controlling the reapers, how dangerous that path is, and that very notion is from somebody who is clearly indoctrinated.
- The star child's reasoning is that every 50,000 years the reapers have to come and destroy all ADVANCE life else the synthetic vs organic wars will destroy all life as we know it (including primitive organic life).  So the reapers exist to reset everything and let things evolve from the surviving primitive life again over the next 50K years.  I just proved that this cycle is different.  That there is a chance that synthetics and organics can coexist.  Yet, I never get a chance to argue that point.  Star child even admits I'm the first to ever get this far.  That this cycle is indeed different.  Instead, I'm presented with 3 choices that I do not agree with.
- The rest of the issues just makes things even worse with weird logic gaps: how does your ground party end up on the Normandy, why is the Normandy fleeing?
- The last FMV only differs by the 3 color choices and maybe 3 secs of actual cut scene that is different (and even then only very minor differences).  Dude spend some time and money and render different end cut scenes!  This game deserves it!
- There is no explanation why the mass effect relays have to be destroyed.
- fleets might not actually be stranded in sol if you believe this post?
- None of your war assets really mattered that much, and getting over 5000 effective war assets amounts to a confusing single breath from shepard (again spend the time and money here and add some optional cut scenes at least, branch it more, depending on level of war assets to make it feel more meaningful).
- It's these reasons why I'm pissed about the ending.  No where do I mention I want a happy ending or shepard even has to live.  I reject that all the general public wants is a happy award ceremony type of ending.  Take a look at another popular work of fiction: Game of Thrones.  Ned Stark gets his head cut off but you don't see the kind of outrage that you see with the me3 ending.  It's because that result fit the rest of the narrative;  it had an internal logic; the characters had motivation that made sense (a crazy Joffrey world logic but still consistent for his character).  No BS star child came down out of nowhere and lopped off poor Ned's head.  It was definitely not a happy conclusion to season one (and if you've read the books you know lots of bad things happen to the best, most noble, and likable characters).  But I think most people were OK with it.
- I do like the indoctrination theory.

Recommended.  ME3 compared to ME2 is like 2 steps forward but 1 step back.  There was so much potential to have ME3 be the best in the series but this game felt rushed and unpolished.  With 150 hrs invested into mass effect I expected a better ending.  The payoff just wasn't there.  An extra 3 months or so and this game could have been great.  It's too bad they cut corners all over the place.  But I have to admit what is there is very good (except the last 15 min) and still very much worth experiencing.  Maybe the free extended ending DLC will help some but I doubt it's going to make me completely happy for the reasons I stated above.