Asus O!Play Mini Plus Smart TV Set-Top Box Review

Considering media players are not something that we look at that often, the O!Play from Asus was just that little bit different to others that we have seen with native Netflix capability out of the box. Online streaming services are becoming a lot more popular these days and Netflix along with LoveFilm are the two big players in the UK for online streaming services.

Apart from the services that come pre-bundled on the player, any additional functionality is a little limited due to the custom firmware that Asus have opted to use and perhaps the use of Android instead would have opened a few more doors, but then why would they want to do this as it means that the O!Play is just like every other Android player on the market.

On a note of the system’s performance, we will point out that on the pre-installed firmware that came with our sample, there were a number of issues relating to Netflix and the device not responding to the remote at all whilst a film was playing, meaning that the only way to stop playback was to pull the plug out, which is neither good for the device or practical in any way, shape or form. Thankfully Asus have noted this problem along with a few other minor bugs and there is a firmware update available that rectifies all of these issues. To save hunting, the update can be found here – Asus Support Downloads.

Whilst some will argue “why get one of these media players when you could just as easily use an Xbox or Playstation?”, and in some respects they do have a point, but not necessarily a valid one as not everyone has a games console to playback media on and in respect to the low cost and simple interface of a device like this, they are far more expensive and complex for novice users.

The bottom line is, for around the £90 mark, the O!Play Mini Plus smart box is a well priced little media device that has a compact build that will suit it well in a bedroom environment, for example, and its intuitive user interface is ideal for novice users. Granted there are a few known bugs, but with any new device that has a custom firmware, this is to be expected and these are pro actively being sorted as we speak.