Will something like this give more flexibility than a smart tv?

Amazon – Midnight Android

Another alternative I guess is just to buy a cheap tablet for £50/60 that has HDMI out?

I bought a recon ROKU 2 for £25 off ebay. It said it didn’t come with a remote controller but it did. I watch netflix quite happily on that and it does catchup TV, NowTV and others. I’ve not tried streaming from a local source yet but it apparently can do it.

I looked into Android platform TV boxes a bit back, but came out with the conclusion (rightly or wrongly?) that it wasn’t quite sorted yet. A lot of people seemed to be reporting issues of the constantly crashing variety and various others of instability, incompatibility or whatever..
Stuff like the Roku3, Apple TV and a few others I can’t recall, seemed to be better regarded.
I haven’t actually taken the plunge yet

I use a raspberry pi. Works pretty well for iPlayer and streaming. It’s flexible too so you can add lots of things to it. Watched the Red Bull Rampage on it. It’s not as polished as a dedicated system. I use my android phone as a remote which can be great, can be a bit fiddly.

Mate at work suggests ar raspberry pi as well but he loves doing things the hard way – and he has no kids.

bought one of these, for about £25. works a treat.

I very much favour the tv + device route, much more flexible, much more upgradable and IMO cheaper. Also the device you can take with you to another location / mates house etc.

OP just to add I am Apple based and it all works well together, appreciate you are Android but FYI. Tablet (or phone) plus HDMI out works too but not quite as flexible as you cannot sit with the tablet (or phone) on sofa and surf videos. I actually did this before I bought apple tv (£25 cable to fit iPhone / iPad to HDMI vs £100 Apple tv). As above makes watching rampage / mid week mini movies / online rentals / “ripped” or downloaded films easy.

This is something I keep looking into.. At the moment my PS3 does everything I need, youtube (connects via android phone really, really impresively, iplayer, netflix (us & uk), lovefilm, 4od, blinkbox, iTVplayer (never used that!), sony rental – the only thing it doesn’t do is play nice with itunes drm & it plays GTA4.

I’ve had a play on my mates Smart TV – I think it’s a Philips model, quite frankly it’s hideous, it’s slow to respond & a very clunky user interface. At the moment I think the tech level keeps this at TV plus device. In the future it should improve.