I have been waiting for quite some time for a truly “smart” TV to arrive. Most TVs these days allow some extra functionality that has until recently been restricted to PCs – streaming online content, browsing the web, etc. However, due to the nature and variety of digital content it has been really hard making all of it accessible from your TV. Now I am completely convinced that unless you have a fully functional PC attached to your TV, you will always find some content that either doesn’t play well or is completely inaccessible. Henscoqi smart TV box promises to be an inexpensive and powerful enough mini PC that will let you have all the functionality that you expect from such a device. Unfortunately, even though it performs well under certain conditions, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

The box comes with several video streaming and viewing apps. If you consign yourself to those then you will have pretty good overall streaming experience, on par with Amazon Fire TV say. However, one of the main reasons to choose this device over a “regular” video streaming box is that it provides the full capability of an Android device. However, this is where all the troubles begin. In order to use this as an Android box you’ll need a separate media keyboard, something with a trackball or a trackpad for instance. The included remote just won’t do for such purposes. Configuring the Android to play nicely with your keyboard and TV can be tricky, and this functionality is not for the faint of heart. However, if you are willing to put up with all the annoyances then you can be rewarded with the ability to use thousands of Android apps right on your TV, including many really cool games. But be warned: Android was not designed with a media TV in mind, nor were most of the apps written for that platform. You can still use most of them with only some minor annoyances, but your experience will inevitably be frustrating.

If you are looking for a simple video streaming device that also plays some local video content then this Henscoqi Box does reasonably well. As a full-service media PC it falls short, as do most of these Android based devices. I would only recommend it to the early adopter types and people who like to tinker with their device. For a full media PC you really want a real PC – there is nothing out there that can do even close to what a PC can. There are a few full fledged PC-on-a-stick devices that are available out there, but all of them cost about three times as much as this Android box.

**** Product provided for review purposes. ****