Yes you can.. But for the hassle.. You are much better off just selling off your used phone.. Add some more money if it’s less than RM300 and get yourself a proper Android TV box. I would advise you not to waste your time trying to DIY a phone as media player. Phone screens have limited life time and to mirror onto a bigger screen, the phone screen has to be running as well. Also, you’ll have to leave it plugged in all the time. Good luck with all that heat especially when you game for long periods. End up, have to buy this cooler la, that cooler la.. along story short.. you’ve spent more than RM300 and still a poorer performance than a dedicated Android TV box.


TLDR... save time, money, headache and just gets a darn box. Confused where to start? See my sig for real world reviews...

*Buy Note 8 and use DeX? I love DeX but as a full time media player? that’s...

Na fam.. I’m not selling anything.. All my reviews are truly what you see is what you get.. No sugar coating. Goal remains to educate consumers to make best decision. In your case, the best decision is to get a proper box.

Sure you can always chase the rabbit down the other hole. I’d be glad to help you see how much time and money you’ll end up wasting..

You don’t have to get the roughly RM1K (ish) Beelink GS-King X unless you do need those 2x HDD bays and use as NAS. Lesser priced models will do just nicely for streaming, media playback and gaming. Cheapest models I’ve reviewed is the Beelink GT1 Mini 2 (Normal Android OS, custom ATV OS ROMs, dual boot, etc) priced I think 2xx or 3xx.. Alternatively, if you want a decent Google certified ATV OS powered box? The recently reviewed Mecool KM1 Deluxe, priced under RM300.

Deswai I asked you to go check out the reviews. You first see what they can do and if it’s what you want as well.. Meanwhile, you also need to understand that a device built for a particular purpose will almost always outperform a device built for other purposes but being tweaked to do something else.

Here’s a scenario.. You live in area that absolutely requires a 4x4 truck with its special tyres, suspension, ride height etc. Now, instead of just buying a nice truck and just cruise the hazardous road easily.. You went and bought an F1 car confirm super fast, handles like a dream, etc.. then you try to mod it to drive over rough roads.. You tell me, in both cases, which do you think is the better buy for those bad roads.. The truck or a modded F1 car?

This post has been edited by voncrane: Nov 28 2020, 02:01 PM

Nah... Media-wise? I fail to see the dealbreaker you speak of.. Ive seen cheap Android TV boxes outperform desktop PCs or laptops over RM3K .. How about you share what exactly you think your phone can do (media playback-wise) and I can tell you if a box can’t do the same ... Plus I’ll share 1 or 3 things a box can do that no phone can do, no matter the cost..

Got...it’s called the USS Enterprise NCC-1701.. Let me know when it’s available and cheaper than an F1 car..

This post has been edited by voncrane: Nov 28 2020, 02:15 PM

You wanted to go the phone route with just RM200 budget? Buddy.. pls lah.. But yeah, there are boxes you can get for under RM200... Feel free to check those out.

Anyways, CPUs do matter. If you watch my video reviews of the Beelink GS-King X with its AMLogic S922X-H SoC VS the Mecool KM1 Deluxe’s AMLogic S905X3 SoC, you can see a clear difference. Media playback and emulator gaming. So of course CPU & GPU matters a lot.

As for wanting more than 64GB storage? Fam, the GS-King X can handle up to 34TB easy... Don’t tell me that’s not enough ... Also, there are....
1. Plug in a USB drive or micro SD card as extra storage.. Use like normal.. OR
2. Plug in a USB drive or micro SD card and use as “Adoptable Storage”. This is where the external drive is converted and merged with the internal drive. Immediately increasing its capacity. Can install apps, games, media etc on it.. Use as a single drive. This means a box with say 32/64GB storage capacity, attach a compatible say 2TB drive and boom.. You have a 2TB+ box d.. So really.. storage isn’t an issue.

Hmm.. That would be most boxes running at least Marshmallow or Android 6 onward. Most boxes today should already be running such....which means they are supported. Example, the Mecool KM1 Deluxe I recently reviewed is already running Android 10. At this point, It is also important to note that even the fastest consumer microsd card still isn't as fast as typical eMMC flash storage. This is because eMMC consists of both flash memory and a flash memory controller integrated on the same silicon die. This is not unlike what Apple's latest M1 has done. Of course they took it to another level. Thankfully, (and iirc) Google included the feature where when a user adopts a new storage device, a special benchmark is run, comparing the inserted drive's performance against internal storage. If the adopted device is significantly slower than internal storage, you'll be warned about a possibly degraded experience. This benchmark was derived from the actual I/O behavior of popular Android apps. Currently, the AOSP implementation will only warn users beyond a single threshold, but device manufacturers may adapt this further, such as rejecting adoption completely if the card is extremely slow. And they would be right in most cases to do this. Inb4 ppl simply adopt adopt slow storage and later complain about their devices slowing down.

Speaking of device manufacturers and adoptable storage, It is up to the manufacturer to allow or disallow this. For reasons we can imagine. Hypothetically, why pay significantly more for 512GB when 256GB (adoptable storage) will do just fine. 128GB internal memory + 128GB sd card. The obvious answer is "save money" vs "speed & reliability". I tend to go with the latter.