Lightake sent a newsletter on New Year, they were selling this new Quad Core Android Stick (Hi802) on a special price of $89 (8GB) and $109 (16GB), however they have now increased the price for the 8GB :
http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale/wholesale-hi802.html?Sea…
From the specs, it sounds like a winner among all other HDMI sticks available in the market, hopefully the performance would be as good. Your thoughts ?
It uses Freescale i.mx6 with Vivante GC2000. Probably not the best quad core around. I'll agree with @scrimshaw that Ouya would give a better experience. However it's not shipping yet (unless you are a developer).
vivante is pretty sucky for games
….but Ouya is primarily for gaming….and I don't think you can install all Android Apps on Ouya that are available on Google Play… I think the apps would especially need be developed for Ouya…?
In the HDMI sticks category and with media entertainment in mind, this is the device I can find has the top specs.
Correct, it runs on android but doesn't support Google Play.
http://blogs.bettor.com/No-Google-Play-support-for-Ouya-Vide…
There are still doubts on the Ouya, the developers really have no obligation to do much more than create the console, after that the group could take thier winnings to Aruba, and everyone stuck with a dud piece of hardware, thats if they even get to production! So far they have made a few hundred dev kits
So about the same price as an Ouya. If you don't mind that the Ouya has to sit in front of the TV rather than plugged directly into the HDMI, the Ouya would be a better choice overall since it comes with gaming controllers and full size USB ports.
Of course, the Ouya is developer oriented, and until the community becomes busier there probably won't be a lot of apps to choose from.
You can pre-order the Ouya for $99 USD plus $20 shipping.