Google TV

AirTV Mini Android Streamer Has Arrived

The AirTV Mini has finally arrived (and only a month late)! Is it the affordable NVIDIA Shield TV dongle we had hoped for? Well, The Streamable has gotten it unboxed and taken the Android TV hardware for a test drive. And they come away relatively impressed.

The AirTV Mini ($80) is more expensive than the Xiaomi Mi Box S — which has been as low as $40 recently. The device is a nice alternative in the world of Android TV boxes for those who don’t want to spend $180 on the NVIDIA SHIELD — with good enough hardware and the latest version of Android (9.0). We would consider buying one, even if if we weren’t planning to use it with Sling TV — since it was a snappy Android TV experience.

Sure, it runs more than somewhat equivalent Roku and Fire TV 4K streaming sticks… but there aren’t really many compelling sub-$100 Android TV solutions. So here ya go. The Streamable tells me that while you can’t directly boot into the Andoird TV homescreen, it’s a simple matter of hitting the Home button to bring it up – and there it will remain until the next power cycle (which would be an infrequent event). Of course, the company also wants you to subscribe to sister service Sling TV and augment that setup with an AirTV network tuner to merge your antenna locals with Sling’s subscription content. And they’ll even sweeten the pot with Netflix deep linking.

Published by
Dave Zatz