Smart TV box warning in South Africa

South Africans who want the best experience with video streaming services and other smart TV apps should invest in a higher-end streaming box if their built-in TV software is slow.

With a growing number of households getting access to uncapped broadband in the past few years, many more people wanted to stream content on their TV.

A quick fix was buying one of a plethora of cheap Android TV boxes or sticks, which had flooded the market.

However, many consumers would have learnt the old adage of “penny-wise but pound-foolish” is particularly applicable when it comes to streaming boxes.

The problem was not just poor compatibility and performance issues that required significant technical tinkering to resolve, if possible.

Many prominent tech researchers found that these boxes can contain security vulnerabilities and even deliberately installed backdoors that could deploy malware or steal personal data.

To avoid buying such a device, your first port of call when considering an Android box should be Google’s spreadsheet of certified Android TV boxes on its website.

These boxes offer guaranteed support for all official apps as well as official versions of the Android TV operating system, giving some assurance of better performance.

Over the past few years, an increasing number of TVs have been released with built-in smart TV software, often certified by Google or streaming companies.

The TVs have likely reduced demand for standalone boxes or streaming sticks.

However, many of these smart TVs only feature the barebones hardware needed for built-in Internet connectivity and app support.

That means even in cases where you might have a Google-certified smart TV with perfect app support, it could have slow or poor performance.

MyBroadband looked at some of the best streaming boxes on the market for those users who are completely fed up with a slow smart TV or streaming box.

One of the best-performing smart TV boxes on the market — the Apple TV 4K 3rd gen — runs on an altogether different operating system.

Although users of other Apple devices are likely to benefit most from the box, its high-end hardware and smooth performance could win over the most devout Android users.

That is if they are willing to cough up around three times the going rate for certified Android TV boxes, as the latest Apple TV 4K starts at just under R3,000.

Android’s Apple TV rivals

That being said, the Android TV-powered boxes offering the same high-end hardware as the Apple TV also cost a little more than the average streaming box.

Among the Android-powered devices that have proven themselves to be formidable is Nvidia’s Shield TV series.

The Standard and Pro versions of these boxes have received high praise for their excellent performance.

Although the base model only sports 8GB storage and 2GB RAM, it comes with Nvidia’s self-designed Tegra X1 chip, boasting a 256-core GPU.

The higher-end Pro model gets a faster Tegra X1+ chip and 3GB RAM in addition to double the storage capacity.

There are two Google-certified Android boxes with the same or higher RAM and capacity than the Shield TV Pro.

These are Walmart’s Onn Google TV 4K Pro and the Mecool KM6 Plus Deluxe.

The former packs 3GB RAM and double the storage of the Shield TV Pro, while the latter boasts the same amount of RAM and storage as the Apple TV 4K.

Both also support Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, the best wireless connectivity standard available on streaming boxes.

Below are five of the top smart streaming boxes for South African households looking for a lag-free and optimised streaming experience.

Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Pro 2024 — From R1,525 (GeeWiz)

Mecool KM6 Plus Deluxe — R2,009 (FirstShop)

Apple TV 4K 3rd gen (2022) — From R2,989 (Amazon.co.za)

Nvidia Shield TV — From $200.55 / R3,551 (Amazon.com)

Nvidia Shield TV Pro — $259.63 / R4,598 (Amazon.com)