Asrock H2R Review

@wendell Don't know where I should stick this so meh, deal with it bitches

Having had the H2R for the better part of two weeks now, it's novelty has sorta worn off.

In the house, the primary purpose of the H2R is clearly the miracasting abilities.
So about those.


That's maybe a tad harsh.
In turns of set up, its plug in a micro usb power thingy (An included wall adaptor would have been nice), plug into hdmi port and install the app <<< more on that later. If you don't wanna plug in an ethernet cable (and I'd guess this is going for the whole cable cutting thing so ehhh), then navigating to the hdmi input on the tv brings up this splash screen prompting you to connect to the h2r via wifi and set it up via the app.
Worked good. @kewldude007 keks


I should preface this bit with saying I've not actually used a chromecast or other miracast device so I'm not sure if I'm neglecting a really unique featuring thinking it to be common place but I don't think so, feel free to tell me otherwise.

You then get launched into the apps interface. Once you figure out how to set the language to English, although I'd hope that's just cause this one got shipped from Asia and if you bought it locally it would be in English, its pretty nice. Connect to a network and you're flying.
n.b. Worth checking for updates, had some on my end, hardly new news but ehhhh.
As for the app / firmware / everything except hardware really, it's not actually an asrock creation, rather a 3rd party (Chinese?) deal. From these guys (Asrock are listed as a partner) https://www.iezvu.com/

(They also happen to sell something that looks identical to an original chrome cast
hmmmm aka Clarkson on Chinese "brands" @SpaceCat

Despite this, it works fairly well. Apart from doing the usual video/photo/music streaming shizzle (which it handles perfectly well although there was the occasional buffering or slightly longer load on longer 1080p videos), the H2R also allowed for live streaming your phone's camera, which worked surprisingly well at 720p with very little latency, as well as document sharing and web browsing (Most useful for cloud video so basically youtube).

Also, really no idea if this exists elsewhere, you don't just get to miracast video but you can live screen capture your phone onto the H2R too, is this a normal thing?

Nice as these are though, for me at least, that's all they are. Nice things to have. Novelty features that I'm highly likely to never use. Besides, I personally can't see the appeal of a miracast device generally for the home when a RPi2 with kodi or plex can cover all your media needs over a wired connection for great speeds n reliability.

It's clear however, that this was designed with the traveller in mind (comes with a little carry bag and small enough cables to fit in said bag) and quite honestly, it does just dat 'nd it does it gud.


But that's not all, no oh no.
It also acts as a travel router thingy.
Shock horror, its ok.

This is even easier to set up. Plug in an ethernet cable (not included), change the password and off you pop. Speed wise, that's gonna depend on what you plug in. Tbf I probably should have done a speed test at the time, woopsy. Can do one later if enough people want it. Using my 100 down fibre connection, it was more than enough to watch 1080p youtube on one device and general web stuffs on another, on American interwebs, who knows. Range / wall penetration wise, it's about what you'd expect, for a hotel suite though, which I guess is the intended usage, it'll work fine.


So, would I buy one?

Honestly, no.

Primarily cause I don't really travel, so straight away there's no real need for the portable hotspot capability which can just as easily be fulfilled by a phone with a decent data plan.
For two, I don't really feel the need to cable cut and would take my rpi htpc setup over miracasting generally any day.
For someone on the move however, this could genuinely be useful and for everyone else, it's a pretty nifty gadget to have around.
I guess it all just comes down to the price then, right now a chrome cast is about £30 here in the UK and although this can do more (or at least I think it can) than a chrome cast, I doubt it's gonna sell well unless its priced around the £30-40 mark though. As a freebie with a G10 however, it's a win-win.

Ahemm, speaking of G10's.
Yes pls @wendell <3 ?

Laters.

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