I was reading some posts on how much people were raving about the Nexus Player with Tablo and the fact that Best Buy was selling for $49.99. I have been having issues with the Roku restarting randomly, so I figured I would try out the Nexus Player. I bought it last night.
I have version 2.2.7 on a 4 Tablo tuner.
Pros:
I like the Tablo interface better than Roku’s. I definitely gives us more options.
Cons:
The Tablo doesn’t show the guide. I did an update of schedule to see if that might be the issue. It started to show a couple of shows, but the time was off by 12 hours. It was 6:30 AM, but the guide time said 6:30 PM with no way to get to the earlier time.
Under recorded show, I saw 1 show with 1 episode. All my recorded shows were not available. I actually have 48 shows, most with multiple episodes.
Nexus Player does not have Amazon Prime in Play Store
I Don’t like the Nexus Player interface compared to Roku.
Can’t order my apps
Only 1 row of apps. this will be a pain to get certain apps
I gave up after this, waiting for a later time to play with it and research. I unplugged it for now and hooked the Roku back up. In the hopes of giving my wife a better experience than Roku (less waiting, no reboots, no ff lock ups), I felt that the Nexus player fell short and would only have her screaming louder to go back to DirecTv.
That’s my 2 cents for now, for what it is worth. Comments and suggestions would definitely be appreciated.
Did you complete all updates on the Nexus Player under Settings–> About before testing? The Nexus Player improved significantly with each update. There were about 4-5 of them. You should be on Android 6.0 Marshmallow by the end.
You have a lot of concerns, let me see if I can help:
As Tablo mentioned, I don’t think you have your system time set correctly.
I’m not sure why your recordings aren’t showing up, I haven’t ever seen that issue before, unless syncing is not complete.
Amazon Prime is not available for Android TV, unless you buy a Sony TV in which it is included. That’s Amazon’s decision, not Google’s. Maybe it will come eventually, once Amazon is done boycotting everyone but Roku and Xbox. I personally don’t think it offers anything above Netflix or Hulu , but that’s just me.
If you download enough apps, your row of apps will be doubled into 2 rows. Your most-used apps should move to the front of the app list over time. I agree it would be nice to manually place them - that ability will probably come in an update.
Did you notice faster streaming? Fewer LPW issues? You didn’t seem to comment on what I see as one of the Nexus Player’s greatest strengths.
Did you download or use any other apps? Pluto TV runs really well.
You might want to make sure you had it appropriately configured before you throw in the towel. It may be different from what you are used to on the Roku side.
See my link above, but also there is Amazon Underground I wonder if that will run on Nexus Player? From there you should be able to install the Amazon Video app
I saw the link, but I am almost 100% positive it doesn’t work. I have recently looked into this for my mother. I think the Amazon app force closes when you try to stream. Even if it did work, you would have to use a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to control because it wouldn’t be optimized for Android TV. Not ideal.
You could still use Google Cast to send a browser tab watching Amazon Prime to the NP.
I agree that it is dumb you can’t reorder your apps. This is Android, geez. Once you get enough apps, it will move to 2 rows. I’m not sure about 3+.
My guide works great. I think something isn’t setup right.
Amazon Instant Video would be great, I’m sure they would get more Prime subscribers if they just made it available. More than the # of Fire TVs they are selling because of it.
I own 3 of them now, because the experience is way better than chromecasting (even with 2nd gen) and I never hear people complaining about bugs on here (besides my minor bugs that I’ve found) and I always hear about Roku bugs and limitations based on how the Roku doesn’t allow you to hold the guide data (I believe it loads it in cache temporarily or something technical).
@RetiredEngineer Any adapter should be plug-n-play on the Nexus Player - Android doesn’t have a driver solution like Windows to my knowledge. I use a MicroUSB OTG adapter without any issue. I have heard of multiple people using one of those adapter without issue. It might be worth doing a quick Google search for “Micro-USB Ethernet Adapter for Nexus Player” and see if anything pops up. When I get off work I’ll see if I can look as well.
@faganm24 I never hardwired any of my Android TV boxes, no, because the WiFi performance has been very consistent for me. However, I have heard from multiple people who have hardwired their Nexus Player successfully using such adapters.
If you’d like a link to the USB OTG cable I purchased for USB accessories, let me know.
Ordered this on Amazon for $12 shipped. Made by Plugable Technologies. Supposedly compatible with Nexus player and very highly rated:
4.6 out of 5 stars 1,043 Reviews
Plugable USB 2.0 to 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN Wired Network Adapter for Macbook, Chromebook, Windows 10, 8.1 and Earlier, Surface Pro, Wii, Wii U, Linux (ASIX AX88772 chipset)
I spent a few more bucks and got this OTG Host Addapter for the NP. It has 3 USB ports so you can plug in more devices such as USB HD, keyboard, mouse, IR remote adapter (to make it compatible with Harmony remote)… etc.