Not so very long ago, getting a media player in your front lounge was a laborious, expensive process. These days it’s pretty cheap to buy a set top box running Android or a Raspberry Pi, add a bit of storage and just enjoy. Well this process is about to drop another notch in price with the arrival on kickstarter of the Remix Mini.

Jide Tech, the company behind it are targeting it as a low cost PC, which is perfectly reasonable given that the mobile versions of Microsofts Office Apps are available on Android as well as Google’s own cloud based alternatives. Just plug in a mouse, keyboard and HDMI monitor and you’ll have something that’s perfectly up to the job of doing schoolwork or running a small business. But I suspect that the average Geek Power reader (not that our readers could ever be described as average) already has at least one proper PC, so won’t be looking at the Remix for that.

As the basis for a media centre, the Remix Mini really begins to shine. Despite that low, low price ($20 is less than £13 of real money) this Kebab sized device has 2 USB ports, HDMI that can handle 4K resolution, an ethernet port and a micro sd card slot. It also does 802.11 b/g/n Wifi and Bluetooth 4.0, and comes running a “remixed” version of Android 5.0 These are not top of the line specs it’s true (no USB 3, no ac Wifi), with the added version that you can use the Android versions of apps like iPlayer and Netflix.

The only downside I can see with this project is that you’ll have to wait till October to get your Remix Mini, but given that they are close to doubling their original funding goal at the time I’m writing this, they might use some of the spare cash to speed up production a bit. But if you’re looking for a cheap media centre or a second/third/fourth PC to keep the kids away from your tech I don’t think you can go wrong with this.

Source Kickstarter via Android Central