I bought this little guy to replace a very old
  
WD TV Live Hub 1TB Media Center (Old Model)







  
  
    that hadn't had firmware upgrades in forever, was extremely slow, had an awful interface and crashed all the time.  I could also never get subtitles to work on it.  It was pretty amazing in 2012 but times have definitely changed.I was concerned that this little guy (Celeron i3) wouldn't have enough umph to play video off the file server where all our movies are stored but after reading some reviews I decided it should do the trick so I got this along with the
  
Kingston Technology HyperX Impact 8GB Kit 1600MHz DDR3L CL9 SODIMM 1.35V Laptop Memory (PC3 12800) HX316LS9IBK2/8 Black







  
  
    .  It arrived a couple days ago.First, I'm extremely impressed with how small this thing actually is when you pull it out of the box.  It's very well made and heavy enough with nice rubber feet that keep it from sliding around on the desk.  Given how stiff my HDMI cable is that's important.  The AC adapter is a wall brick so the only thing going to the NUC is a cable which is pretty long, 6ft?  The BIOS lets you play with the lighting on the front for the power button and the LED ring around the USB ports and power button.  You can even turn them off which is what I've done.  It's ridiculously quiet.  Even with the fan profile set to "Cool" you have to be right next to it to hear the fan.Setting it up is super easy.  Take the bottom off, pop the ram in, put a hard drive in (I already had a 1TB drive laying around) and put the bottom back on-less than 5 minutes. Then I did a fresh Windows 10 Pro install on it.  I guess Linux is an option but I don't know how and don't really want to learn right now.  After waiting overnight for Windows 10 updates because my internet is crap I installed Kodi 17.6 Krypton (formerly XMBC) and pointed it at my media share folder.  A while later all my movies and TV were scanned and in the library.  When I travel with my wife I plan to load movies directly on to the hard drive so we can hook it up to the hotel TV.This machine is not a performance beast like my newly built desktop PC but it's perfect for the intended use.  Kodi is snappy once it gets started, navigation is quick and playback starts immediately even reading the files from the media server over Wireless-N.  I've tested 1080p content and it plays fine, no stuttering or other issues.  And subtitles work!  No more burning them in with Handbrake.  The built-in IR receiver works great with my Logitech Harmony 650 remote and with some tweaking I've got all the major functions on the remote now.  Any time I need a keyboard I have a bluetooth one ready.I paid $150 for the WD media player in 2012.  I wish these had existed then because for not much more money I've put together a much more capable box that allows more customization and can run Firefox and other Windows (or Linux) apps.I'm very happy with this item and my wife loves being able to actually play a movie without having to futz with the antique, slow interface on the WD media player.As a media player/streaming device I can highly recommend this computer.