Best Media Players for TV — Top 15 by Our

Content

Inexpensive models (up to 40 dollars)

Google Chromecast 2018

pros

• Spec­tac­u­lar design
• Great func­tion­al­i­ty
• Ease of set­up
• Works with­out delay

Minuses

• Does not sup­port all appli­ca­tions
• No screen res­o­lu­tion set­tings
• Miss­ing hard dri­ve

Top media play­ers opens a com­pact and func­tion­al device, which makes it pos­si­ble to expand the capa­bil­i­ties of the TV. It con­nects to the TV via HDMI, and to the Inter­net via Wi-Fi. Sup­ports 1080p (Full HD) res­o­lu­tion. The device can be con­trolled from a smart­phone with a spe­cial appli­ca­tion.

IconBIT XDS16

pros

• Remote con­trol
• Nice appear­ance
• Avail­abil­i­ty of a LAN con­nec­tor
• Pos­si­bil­i­ty to update the soft­ware

Minuses

• Pret­ty weak spec­i­fi­ca­tions
• Wi-Fi con­nec­tion insta­bil­i­ty
• Not enough mem­o­ry

A small device run­ning Android OS. The device has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of main mem­o­ry. The mem­o­ry can be expand­ed with mem­o­ry cards. The play­er sup­ports almost all pop­u­lar video and audio file for­mats.

Invin IPC002

pros

• com­pact­ness
• Fast response
• Low price

Minuses

• HDMI cable includ­ed is too short
• Ven­ti­la­tion only from below
• Lit­tle RAM
• Lack of instruc­tions

Media play­er with­out a hard dri­ve, which is suit­able for unde­mand­ing tasks. The device already con­tains all the nec­es­sary codecs to sup­port all video, audio and pic­ture for­mats. The RAM is only 1 GB, but the mod­el works smart­ly. Con­trols the oper­a­tion of the Android 7.1 OS. For data stor­age, 8 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry is pro­vid­ed.

Middle segment (from 4,000 to 200 dollars)

Apple TV 4K 32GB

pros

• High oper­at­ing speed
• Con­ve­nient man­age­ment
• Thought­ful design
• Quick con­nec­tion
• Abil­i­ty to sync with oth­er devices

Minuses

• There is no Euro­pean-speak­ing voice assis­tant
• Does­n’t sup­port all for­mats

High-qual­i­ty device from a well-known brand of dig­i­tal elec­tron­ics. The device has 3 GB of RAM, so there are no brakes when view­ing even high res­o­lu­tion. For data stor­age, 32 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry is pro­vid­ed. The mod­el is syn­chro­nized with oth­er devices of the com­pa­ny, cre­at­ing a com­mon media space.

Xiaomi Mi Box S

pros

• Nice design
• small size
• Remote con­trol with micro­phone
• Sup­ports all per­mis­sions

Minuses

• There is no slot for a mem­o­ry card
• Small built-in mem­o­ry

A mod­el that sup­ports all pos­si­ble video for­mats. No tedious con­ver­sion is required for view­ing. Installed 2 GB of RAM. This is suf­fi­cient for most tasks. The media play­er runs on Android OS. In addi­tion to HDMI, there are also com­pos­ite audio and video out­puts. 8 GB of mem­o­ry is allo­cat­ed for data stor­age.

Dune HD Pro 4K

pros

• Infor­ma­tion dis­play on the front pan­el
• Exten­sive cus­tomiza­tion options
• Quick turn on
• Con­ve­nient con­trol pan­el

Minuses

• Low qual­i­ty HDMI cable
• Lots of firmware bugs
• Poor Blue­tooth con­nec­tion

Reli­able media play­er with Ultra HD 4K sup­port. The Android oper­at­ing sys­tem takes full advan­tage of this plat­form and syn­chro­nizes the play­er with oth­er devices. It has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of inter­nal stor­age. If this is not enough, you can con­nect a mem­o­ry card.

Expensive segment (from 200 dollars)

Dune HD Max 4K

pros

• Robust met­al hous­ing
• Front pan­el dis­play
• Abil­i­ty to install hard dri­ves
• Lots of set­tings
• Sup­port for most for­mats

Minuses

• High price
• Soft­ware issues
• Hard dri­ves get very hot dur­ing oper­a­tion

A sophis­ti­cat­ed device that will allow you to store all your video files in one place. The device has 2 slots for hard dri­ves HDD. In addi­tion, there is also 16 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry and 2 GB of RAM. A good plus is a sep­a­rate HDMI out­put for audio only.

Denon DNP-800NE

pros

• Huge func­tion­al­i­ty
• Abil­i­ty to play files from a flash dri­ve or from a smart­phone
• Spec­tac­u­lar design
• A large num­ber of radio sta­tions

Minuses

• Does­n’t always under­stand Cyril­lic
• High price

An advanced net­work audio play­er that sup­ports pop­u­lar for­mats. On the front pan­el there is a dis­play that dis­plays infor­ma­tion about the file being played. Comes with a remote con­trol for con­ve­nient sound adjust­ment.

Zappiti MINI 4K HDR

pros

• Sup­port for most for­mats
• Excel­lent play­back qual­i­ty
• Mem­o­rable design

Minuses

• Not the most user friend­ly inter­face

One of the best media play­ers for TV in 2019 with sup­port for Google Play online ser­vice. This opens up a num­ber of addi­tion­al uses. The amount of RAM is 2 GB, built-in mem­o­ry — 8 GB. There is also inter­net radio. The device sup­ports many file sys­tems, so these prob­lems should not be with the con­nec­tion of media.

4k resolution

Image res­o­lu­tion is one of the most basic com­pet­i­tive qual­i­ties of a media play­er. To deter­mine the best 4K media play­er, you need to fur­ther study the char­ac­ter­is­tics that will empha­size the high qual­i­ty of the trans­mit­ted image.

Apple TV 4K 64GB

pros

• High image qual­i­ty
• Appear­ance
• Con­ve­nient remote con­trol
• Good per­for­mance

Minuses

• Not very com­fort­able typ­ing

4K media play­er with large inter­nal mem­o­ry (64 GB). The device is run­ning one of the best tvOS plat­forms. The mod­el does not sup­port all video for­mats, but this prob­lem is eas­i­ly solved using con­vert­ing pro­grams. The per­for­mance of the play­er is at a high lev­el, as the installed 3 GB of RAM is more than enough for every­day tasks.

Xiaomi Mi Box International Version

pros

• com­pact­ness
• Func­tion­al­i­ty
• low price
• Con­ve­nient remote con­trol with voice con­trol

Minuses

• No LAN port
• May run out of mem­o­ry

4K UHD capa­ble device run­ning Android 6.0. Sup­ports most video and audio for­mats. The play­er is pow­ered by a quad-core ARM Cor­tex A53 2.0GHz proces­sor and 2GB of RAM. To store your own files pro­vid­ed 8 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. Includ­ed is a remote con­trol equipped with an inno­v­a­tive voice search sys­tem.

Dune HD Neo 4K T2 Plus

pros

• Sup­port for a large num­ber of for­mats
• Func­tion­al­i­ty
• Easy set­up
• Pow­er­ful tech­ni­cal com­po­nent

Minuses

• Ques­tion­able sound qual­i­ty
• It is not pos­si­ble to con­fig­ure net­work access to the media library

Inex­pen­sive media play­er that well sup­ports Ultra HD 4K ultra-high def­i­n­i­tion video at frame rates up to 60 fps. Runs on Android 6.0. The device has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. Includ­ed is a con­ve­nient remote con­trol.

To watch movies

Dune Neo 4K Plus

pros

• Abil­i­ty to con­nect key­board and mouse
• Can install Android apps
• Good pic­ture and sound qual­i­ty
• met­al body

Minuses

• Lim­it­ed audio play­er func­tion­al­i­ty
• Remote con­trol back­light miss­ing

From 7 300 ₽

A sol­id mod­el for watch­ing movies from var­i­ous sources. You can use data from the Inter­net or use your media by con­nect­ing them to the device. To store files on the media play­er pro­vides 8 GB.

Invin W6 2Gb/16Gb

pros

• com­pact­ness
• High build qual­i­ty
• Low price
• Con­ve­nient remote con­trol with micro­phone

Minuses

• Appli­ca­tions some­times slow down

Mul­ti­func­tion­al device for watch­ing movies. The mod­el sup­ports a num­ber of pop­u­lar online ser­vices, includ­ing Skype, Picasa, Youtube, Flick­er, Face­book and oth­ers. To expand the mem­o­ry, microSD cards can be installed.

Google Chromecast 2015

pros

• Low price
• Func­tion­al­i­ty
• Inter­est­ing design
• Ease of con­nec­tion

Minuses

• Focused on Android OS users

The review is com­plet­ed by a cheap and func­tion­al media play­er sup­port­ing 1080p res­o­lu­tion (Full HD). RAM is only 512 MB, but every­thing works with­out brakes and freezes. There is also lit­tle inter­nal mem­o­ry, since the play­er can work with online ser­vices. For the Android OS, a lot of options for con­trol­ling the play­er are addi­tion­al­ly opened.

There are many dif­fer­ent mod­els of media play­ers on the mar­ket. And which one to buy is an indi­vid­ual mat­ter. For a sim­ple exten­sion of the TV’s capa­bil­i­ties, a cheap mod­el is suit­able. If there is a desire to get a high-def­i­n­i­tion image and high-qual­i­ty sound, then you will have to find a more seri­ous device.