I am new to IPTV. My experience is cumulative of about three months now. One of the most widely asked questions you will see when surfing thru the IPTV sub is "What box do you recommend?". There are many nice boxes out there but in this market "nice" does not equate to sales. Recommendations and reviews of IPTV boxes are the main driving force behind sales for many manufacturers of IPTV boxes. Therefore, With limited knowledge of these boxes I went on a great hunt to find one that would be the best for my use. I was interested in an Android box for various reasons. My reasons are not important here. What was important is functionality and snappy response. After some searching I decided to try out the Beelink GT King model.
I was very impressed with the "air mouse" type feature in the remote control. I was also equally impressed with a nice menu system. The hardware goes without saying. Its modern and fast. Comes with ample USB3 ports and other nice things. However, All IPTV boxes have some "Not talked about in reviews" issues. For the Beelink company this turned out to be a major issue that had I known in time I would have not bought it. However, I spent a lot of time trying to fix this issue and trying other players that I ran beyond the time allowed to return it to Amazon.
Now lets list the deal breaker issue with the Beelink GT King box. The most recommended players such as Tivimate and Starters will crash on the GT King when viewing the groups or paging down thru certain areas of the channels selection. At first, I tried many things to fix this. I did a lot of research and ultimately contacted Support at Beelink. The conclusion I came to will probably shock you. It certainly did me.
In discussing this issue with Beelink via email and Support, Beelink left we with the feeling that only approved applications (by them) will run correctly on this box. While I spent some time sending them the logs and waiting for a reply - Ultimately, The reply I got from Support was as is below:
Developers say that you are not using IPTV, but TVPLAY.
Please download the IPTV from the AppMarket that comes with the device for playback.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Best regards
beelinkservice@bee-link.com
It took me a minute as I thought to myself "What do you mean IPTV and what is TVPLAY?". So, I fired up the box again and went into their application "AppMarket". In the AppMarket there are approx sixteen various applications they evidently have selected for you to run on the GT King. No where do you see Tivimate or Smarters or any other popular application. Evidently, Beelink is saying "Thank you for buying our product. However, We only support applications in the AppMarket". Now, I could be quite wrong here. Perhaps there is some other version of the most popular players out there that are tailored to the GT King. If there are then I havent found them. Therefore I took the time to fire off a reply to Beelink on the subject of "Marketing 101". I took great pains to be nice - even though I wanted to demand retribution for selling such a product. Of course, This brings up a related issue that I will briefly touch on.
If you are new to IPTV or looking for a decent box to include in your media setup, One does hit up YouTube to see what others are saying about products. This will be your first mistake. You see, None of the "Reviewers" mentioned the problem Beelink is having running some of the worlds most popular players. They gloss over the great hardware and the lovely boxing of the product. However, They are void of any critical reviews of problems with the device. Even if I am wrong and the problem is actually something I am not doing correctly or some obscure setting I have missed in these players, I would think Reviewers would mention it. So, Take YouTube at best very skeptically when watching reviews. For real reviews your going to have to dig deep. Of course there is no better place I guess then Beelink's Support Forum.
The one thing that stood out to me in the Beelink Forum where the posts about the GT King simply crashing as I have experienced. There have also been some firmware upgrades posted to address problems. My GT King came with firmware version 903P0. Upgrading to the latest 906P0 did not fix the problem and others commented this fact also in the forum. At that point the conversation with Beelink and those trying to get their problem fixed kind of "Dried up". I suppose that their cut off time for returns was quickly approaching and they just did the right thing and returned them.
This ultimately will be a good lesson for Beelink. If you do not provide good tech support and actually adjust your product to what the market wants, Then you better get used to diminishing returns and ultimate failure.
Now, I can envision some replies that "My GT King runs fine". Thats great. While your at it,include your model number (mine is B922), Your firmware version and version of Tivimate or Starters that you are using and any other relevant information.
I bought a Formuler Z8 . I am extremely happy with it. I also run Tivimate premium. As for my GT King box, I will just kind of hang on to it hoping that someday someone will post a fix or perhaps I will surf thru the 3rd party firmware that others are coming out with. Otherwise, It will sit collecting dust until I finally decide to throw it out. I would not sell this to anybody with such issues. I for one do not like returns and have a bit more respect for others then Beelink seems to have.
In closing, Feel free to let me know what the fix is if you have it or just vent your experiences with similar companies. I do hope that this helps others make better decisions in selecting IPTV boxes and of course avoid Beelink.
BTW -- Merry Christmas Everyone :)