Mele A2000

So I finally got a Mele A2000 I ordered from deal-extreme. Took about 3 weeks from ordering. The cardboard boxes were a bit crushed but nothing was broken.

Actually seems like quite a nice little unit - much better than that crap digital tv tuner/recorder I got from Kogan (which even if it didn't have issues like rebooting and not responding to the remote if the weather isn't just so, runs totally shithouse software anyway and is just a real fucking pain to use). In short, at least it isn't total junk ...

Android seems to run fine on it, and the video player seems ok although it doesn't really do 'pal' properly. The HDMI output didn't seem too compatible with my old DVI monitor (output was purplish) but I didn't try the different video modes on it either. Had a US plug on the plug-pack, but it was robust enough that a pair of pliers fixed that without too much work (i've had other plug-packs break apart when trying to bend the pins). There's something going funky with the network though - videos off my lan play fine, but although the google shop worked once doesn't seem to want to connect any more, neither does the browser. I guess it's lost the default route somehow (maybe playing with both) Hah, funny, it was a DHCP server running on the ADSL router i used as a switch .... Looks like i can't turn the damn thing off either so I guess i'll have to find another box to do that.

Oh yeah, when i first plugged it in I used my pc mouse. And here's a fucking idea - the mouse wasn't over-accelerated to the point of total unusability like every X11 based desktop always is these days ...

OTOH, a dark blue and black mouse pointer on a black background is hardly a fucking sterling idea though.

Performance seems ok - not quite as snappy as the transformer prime (not surprising), but visually fine (better than the benchmarks would suggest). The browser is a truck load faster than the ps3 that's for sure, even running firefox.

I also got one of the wand remote things - it isn't fantastic but works ok (better than the original wii imo) without requiring any adjustment (one re-centres by just pushing off the edge and when you move back it starts from there). What is odd about it is design of the case. It has some strange sharp edges and a clip-together type look. It also has holes for a microphone and ear-piece, but it doesn't appear to be hooked into anything (could be neat if it was). It's actually kind of cool and works as a keyboard mouse on any machine you plug the small dongle into. Rather missing is a tab key however ...

Not sure what I'll do with it yet, I might just use it on a tv - one reason I went with the mele rather than the other smaller things is the CVBS output, and the SATA (and to be honest - it has a friggan case). But work is using the tablet for a demo so it's also the only android device i have handy at the moment too. I'm not sure whether I want to muck about with linux on it although that's originally got me interested in it.

I was originally going to get 2, one to hack, one to use as an appliance/android thing, and ordered them from Tom's shop on aliexpress. Unfortunately they have some fucked up credit card verification thing which wouldn't work with mine (even rang the bank), and although Tom mentioned pay pal never gave me his details (if it was supposed to be on the shop front, it definitely wasn't). I did get 2 this time but one was for a friend to look at, although if it doesn't suit his purposes I guess I may end up with it too.

There goes the weekend anyway, as if the NEON hacking wasn't enough ...

Update: Apart from 1/2 of Saturday i didn't get much time to play, but since then ...

• I downloaded the new firmware which just came out and installed that. Needs a microsoft windows peecee to create the SD card :-( I did mine via a USB stick first, and then dd'd that over the sd-card, as my windows peecee has no card reader. It still worked even though the USB stick was 8GB and the SD 4GB.
• The update made some strange changes, such as changing the device id in the shop, removing their custom ugly launcher, and replacing the default five-pane one with a single-pane version. But on the positive side the mouse pointer is a lot easier to see (although it just wasn't well drawn, and additionally goes beyond the hardware sprite bounds when playing video), and videos play full-screen properly. I didn't use it enough to know if its fixed any other issues.
• I found Skifta - it seems a simple no-nonsense upnp client for browsing mediatomb & mythtv shares, without adverts and other crap. I was using avia (or something like that) on the tablet but then I noticed it wants a DNA sample and urine sample to install ...
• I tried the alpha XBMC port from the nightly builds (on xda forums): in short, just don't bother yet on this machine. It uses software decoding, and even without that it runs like a total pig and is a huge install (~50MB). To be honest I find it a pretty confusing and difficult to use bit of software anyway, and it would have to have something else to make me put up with it's weird interface.
• On the dev side, I found ADB Konnect as a simple tool to enable adb over the network. It's about 2x faster than a beagleboard XM in raw cpu power + memory speed. And JJPlayer is totally shit on it ...!