> Currently, for most devices only software decode of audio and video is hooked up.
This is a good start, but ultimately, you need hardware decoding. Even if a modern phone or tablet could decode 720p x264 in real time (many cannot), the battery usage would make it entirely untenable.
Yes, but you could put your tablet on a charger and hook it to the TV. If you then had a remote control app on your phone, that would be perfect. Even better, someone designs a snazzy dock for this function, which may or may not have its own purpose-built remote/controller.
Voila, your tablet is now also a media center box. (And could even function as a low-power game box.)
Or get a Gen 1 or Gen 2 AppleTV, both of which are (very) easily rootable and can run XMBC smoothly and cost less than half the price of the Android tablets I've seen.
But what about the AK802 Android 4.0 micro-pc network player with 1.5ghz Cortex A8, 1GB RAM, 4GB flash, HDMI for less than $70 ?
Its the size of s thumb drive, so you could make a keychain out of it. XBMC for Android should make this playable out of the box (no root necessary).
Practically any device (eg, $60 Deal Extreme set top boxes) has some hardware decoding these days (H264 decoding at least). Whether it is used by XMBC is another matter.
This is a good start, but ultimately, you need hardware decoding. Even if a modern phone or tablet could decode 720p x264 in real time (many cannot), the battery usage would make it entirely untenable.