What are Kodi boxes?

Kodi boxes (otherwise known as Android TV boxes) are a great success no matter how you slice them. The best models provide 4K video to your TV and allows you unlimited access to the audio and video streams of all formats and services. If there is a better, more versatile piece of AV software out there, we have never seen.

On top of giving you the ability to stream video and music files over a local network, the software also includes the ability to install add-ons for the streaming of virtually any flow you can think of, including Amazon Prime Instant Video, Spotify and Netflix.

One of the main selling points of Kodi is the fact that it was supported by almost every platform you can think of, up to and including MacOS, Android, Linux and Windows.

The only real drawback we can think of is that Kodi did not really produce flow box (no, Kodi official Raspberry Pi case does not count), so you need to find your own devices to run on.

Fortunately, dozens of manufacturers around the world more than happy to provide some for you. In fact, to be completely honest, the requirements to run Kodi almost laughably low: all you need is a capable GPU 3D graphics hardware controller for all the rendering, the dual-core (or better CPU), and 1GB of RAM.

That said, while there are many Kodi boxes are available with pre-installed, you should be careful. So-called 'fully loaded' Kodi box comes with a lot of add-ons that give you access to pirated content. Not surprisingly, there was a major crackdown on the type of box, with the European Union declare them to be illegal.

The best solution is to find a compatible media box and manually install Kodi. And with this guide, we have collected the best Kodi flow boxes on the market in 2018. For each, we have tested how easy it is to install Kodi, how smoothly running, and how each handle playing 1080p or 4K video.