[Kitebuggy]

Hi!

I'm asking if it's good to use an smart TV box for XBMC?
There a a lot of Android boxes available (i.e. MINIX NEO X5 or X7) which can be reset to run Debian Linux.

it would be a nice equipped cheap solution to run XBMC on it,
with much more power than my Raspi (and more in/outputs)

Any thoughts on that?

Regards
K.

[mayoman]

I wouldn't get rid of the Pi for an android box unless you have a specific reason (e.g. I/O config).
Yes the Pi has a very weak CPU, but on the other hand far more work has gone into streamlining and optimizing the software on it than most Android boxes, so with recent software it performs far better than the headline CPU speed suggests. It also has an excellent GPU and licensing for all common codecs so it will play almost anything you throw at it flawlessly while many supposedly faster Android boxes won't.
There is no perfect and cheap Android box out there - every one has issues with certain things. If you want a significant performance improvement over the Pi, I would suggest going for a cheap x86 HTPC build instead.