Using old Smartphones as a Media Centres

Smartphones these days are getting more and more powerful. So what happens to your smartphone when you finish your contract and get a brand new smartphone ?

Well one option that I thought was to turn it into a media centre client for my XBMC HTPC. I primarily wanted to have the ability to watch the movies, view youtube clips, catch up tv etc... via my bedroom tv. After looking at all my options, I was going to have to spend at least $100 to get something setup - and I wasn't sure that streaming of content was going to be upto my standards.

So with my recent switch from my trusty Samsung Galaxy Nexus to the HTC One, the Galaxy Nexus presented itself as piece of decent hardware that I would have had to get rid of. To get this working I had to do a couple of things :

1. Download and Install xbmc from xbmc.org. XBMC is not available via Google Play, instead it is available as an APK on their website - you will need to ensure that you allow the installation of applications from third party sources (See your settings to turn this on). 
2. Purchase a MHL cable to enable you output from your phones USB socket (the one that you charge from) to fit a standard HDMI cable to. You can pick up a MHL cable for as little as $10 from ebay. 
3. Purchase a HDMI cable to connect from the MHL cable to the TV. 

You will also need to have your charger handy to connect to the MHL cable, which will charge your phone and ensure it has enough juice. To finish off this setup, I was planning to use my mobile (HTC One) with the Yatse remote to control XBMC. 

The Actual Experience

Initially when I plugged MHL cable, with the HDMI cable connected to the TV and the MHL cable, I received nothing... absolutely nothing. I then had to reboot the Galaxy Nexus, and wallah the boot screen was displayed on the TV and off it went. 

The initial boot into XBMC was also problematic, it was slow very slow. Slow as in it took minutes to open up - and I thought that everything was frozen. 

Then connecting to the HTPC box with XBMC sharing the video collection was slow to find, but that was quickly resolved. I only make this as a statement since I tried it twice in that time and it was taking a long time to refresh the contents. This might have something to do with my home network, but I run a fairly standard network like most of you. 

Finally I managed to get access to the content and started to play the first couple of movies. I started with a 1080p video - the video took a while to load or buffer but it started to play soon after. Then I tried a 720p video - similar to the 1080p video it took a little while but soon started but this time I had audio coming through. The 720p video was choppy, but the audio was worse. Often there was crackles and distortion the kind that you get when there is digital audio coming through in incomplete packets. 

Not knowing where the problem was I decided to try getting XBMC running on my HTC One with the same MHL cable and HDMI cable. Unfortunately the outcomes were in complete contrast to the Galaxy Nexus - 1080p videos were fine with no lag, 720p videos were much like the 1080p videos, but most importantly the audio was clear. 

So with that experiment, I have to unfortunately conclude that although some of the smartphones that may be getting retired have fairly decent hardware that can be repurposed - it is probably not going to be enough to be a XBMC media client.