Verdict & Conclusion
The hardware on the Xios DS is frankly nothing to write home about. A relatively antiquated ARM Cortex-A9 at 1ghz combined with a still modern MALI 400 GPU give lacking performance which I have a feeling is due to the software not properly optimizing the hardware performance for anything other than video.
XBMC runs good for the most part on the Xios DS. Browsing around XMBC has a fair bit of lag with the stock XBMC UI skin and is only multiplied when 3rd party skins are bought to the equation. Video file streaming is very good with no lag present at all at either 720p or 1080p. Web-streaming video can be a painful experience though as Hulu and Netflix both experienced issues throughout testing and Youtube was less than a flawless experience.
The remote included with the Xios is very basic and does an okay job at navigating around. I highly recommend buying a cheap wireless USB keyboard and mouse though to help the whole experience.
Shopping around on the good old interwebs the Xios DS can be found for $110 or so. At that price it is not too bad compared with the competition. If it was simply an android-only device this price would be a bit too much, but the XBMC support justifies the price.
I really hope the Xios DS can at least be upgraded to Android 4.1/2 Jellybean which might help some of the smoothness issues present when browsing around the UI . The fact that it is rooted from the factory reduces the burn of running on an older version of Android. Being rooted almost makes the price of admission worth it, almost.
Pros:
- Full Andorid Experience
- Rooted from the factory
- Low power consumption
- XMBC support
- Good HD file streaming
Cons:
- Lackluster browsing experience
- Outdated OS version
- Buggy/ needs tweaks to get certain apps to work at all
- Hardware a behind the curve
- Bad benchmark scores
Final Words. If you need an XBMC streaming box to stream video files the Pivos DS fits the bill if you don’t want to break the bank. If you are looking for an android box to stream media files and online media I would really look elsewhere if XBMC is not something you are specifically looking for. There are faster media boxes out there but for those who are looking for solid XBMC support the Pivos Xios DS will certainly fit the bill.
SCORE
7.0/10
