14 June 2025
11 min read

How to Choose a TV Box: From Airbnb Hosts to Hardcore Gamers (Select the Most Suitable One According to Different Scenarios)

By TomatoLeo
Product Marketing Manager at Magicsee.

From the article published earlier, we can conclude that box specifications do have a crucial role in our viewing experience. However, specs aren’t just numbers, and there is no need for us to always purchase the boxes with the best performance. Choosing a suitable TV box or streaming device is always a wise strategy, according to the concrete scenario.

For Airbnb Hosts, Hotel Managers, and Motel Operators: Providing Unique Streaming Services

Exhausted travelers are likely to find ways to relax after a whole day’s work or journey. Hotel managers have also noticed this demand and made many attempts, such as installing a television in each room. However, a large proportion of those televisions, mainly those obsolete, operate on a closed system, which lacks both content streaming versatility and compatibility with modern payment models.

Is there a convenient and inexpensive approach to update previous solutions? Yes! A TV box can act as a pivot between the hotel’s streaming resource and televisions in the room, delivering significant impact with tiny budgets. In addition to controllable on-demand entertainment viewing, a TV box installed with an ordering application may bring extra income to the hotel or homestay.

In this context, it is recommended to choose a device with 4GB of RAM for a smooth experience and future additional applications.

different scenarios of the use of the tv box

For Retro Gaming Enthusiasts: Collecting Various Games in A Box.

Retro or nostalgic games refer not only to decades-old games, but also those with a classical playing method or a pixel rendering style. A TV box equipped with a quad-core processor, such as Allwinner H616 and Amlogic 905X4, can run these games smoothly, since they usually do not have high requirements for the device. In consideration of the conventional operation, some TV boxes have been optimized specially for the gamepad control, supporting up to two gamepads simultaneously. Simply plug the wireless receiver into your streaming device, then enjoy couch co-op gaming with friends; that is all you need to do.

Compared to personal computers or PlayStation, playing games on TV boxes has its advantages. A TV box is as small as a wallet; it is very convenient to bring it out and apply it to almost every situation. Besides, the power of TV boxes is usually under 10W, which even a portable charger can supply.

If you are searching for a device for both viewing and gaming, a relatively high-performance Android TV box may be your best choice. Also, you can reduce the budgets for 8K resolutions or Dolby Vision to save more budget for more RAM and ROM.

Motivate Old Televisions: Get a lot done on a small budget.

Alongside the shrinking of the cable television market’s downturn and the decreasing usage of the specific set-top boxes, many televisions are becoming spare and unoccupied. While classic TV programs do lose their charm compared with the content on the Internet, those televisions are still intact and able to work well. It’s truly unfortunate to see a healthy horse locked up in the stable.

In this situation, TV boxes are the most suitable candidates to activate those idle televisions anew, whether they contain 1k or 4k resolutions. Equipped with the extraordinary ability to decode and access excellent content from the Internet, streaming boxes or TV boxes deliver premium experiences at entry-level pricing. Besides, TV boxes always contain a built-in casting application through which users can directly cast content from smartphones or tablet computers.

To achieve the maximum budget saving, users can opt for entry-level TV boxes, which still offer basic yet essential functions for entertainment.

an old television

More than Streaming: Powerful Workstation Build a Smart Home

A smart home is an advanced residential environment that integrates various intelligent technologies. It can be regarded as an organism within which various peripherals, sensors, and terminals complement each other well. With a smart home, users can directly switch the lights and adjust the air conditioning temperature by phone or remote. The architectural backbone of any robust home automation ecosystem must be a centralized control platform engineered for mission-critical reliability and elastic scalability.

For a medium-sized smart home containing fewer than 40 peripheral devices or accessories, an Android TV box is suitable to deploy and host the central control platform, for it has sufficient performance to transfer abundant data and calculate parameters rapidly. A tiny TV box shaped with simple lines can seamlessly merge tech sophistication into contemporary living spaces. Most of our boxes feature native voice assistant integration, establishing an extensible architecture for smart home services.

If you want to select a device acting as a central control hub, and focus on cost-effectiveness and appearance, a compact ATV box may be your best choice. When it comes to this, the LAN and WiFi are critical. A 1000M LAN port and WiFi 6 will make your network way faster and more stable.

structure of a smart home
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