If you really want a nice Android STB (set top box), the
nVidia Shield TV is amazing. If you have a recent Geforce GPU too, it makes it all the better. Unlike the Steam Link, the
Shield TV can stream 60fps 4k HD + 7.1audio from your beastly PC to your living room which is great for all these console ports we've been getting lately. It also contains USB ports so your favorite input devices can have their data sent to your PC! I got mine mainly as a media player but I do enjoy some GTAV and Metal Gear time to time.
And of course, like any Android device at heart it'll run Kodi and all the fun associated plugins (Genesis, SALTS, etc.). And if you don't qualify for the free TV-style remote @ purchase for whatever reason, I find the
$14 Amazon Prime remote pairs flawlessly and has ~30 ft range even through walls. I also grabbed
this bluetooth keyboard/trackpad combo for whenever I need to do some typing/computer stuff (usually for logins/pw's). It's about the size of a TV remote and works pretty awesome... even including a backlight for when you're watching TV in le dark.
I bought a SmartStream Android box ($200) that came with a IR remote and Kodi/Gensisis preloaded and all, but the remote had like a 10ft range and it didn't have the CPU/RAM horsepower to even navigate Kodi menus very smoothly. Lots of "Working..." prompts on the screen there while everything is instant on the ShieldTV.
Speaking of running things smoothly, this ShieldTV packs quite the hell of a punch with its 8core 64bit CPU & 3GB RAM so local speed is never an issue. Remember, it's designed with 3D 4k resolutions and 7.1 audio in mind! And with gigabit eithernet... network speed isn't an issue either. Throw a Plex server on your PC, torrent some nice 10GB+ movies and crank your transcode settings up. Even if this box lacks proper HW decode support for a codec, it can throw enough horsepower at a file that it plays flawlessly via software. And since it contains Chromecast support, any 3rd party app that makes use of Chromecast can also stream to this bad boy.
If the $200 pricetag is a bit out of your range, the Roku boxes achieve similar results depending on what you want to spend (but none of them really come close). But overall the best Android STB right now is the nVidia Shield TV and I can't recommend it enough. I like to buy things once and once only... and I got ripped off on that StreamSmart box myself so I'm trying to help you guys avoid the same issue. It would play 1080p content fine for the most part but once the bitrate got pushed up far enough... it would start freezing. I doubt I'll have the same problem on this Shield box.
Well this post is done... nVidia send me my shekels now.