Is this the i7 (10th gen) Chromebox you had in mind? Is currently going for $876 on Amazon. I guess surplus is the reasonable way to get them. Where is a good place to look? EBay?
ASUS Chromebox4 with Intel Core i7-10510U, 16GB RAM, M.2 PCIE 256GB SSD Storage, Power/DisplayPort Over Type C, Dual HDMI, Gigabit LAN, WiFi 6, MicroSD Card Reader, VESA Mount, Chrome OS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TGT71MG/
Do you think this could run Kodi? Looks like quite a capable machine and if you can get it for ~100$ maybe it could really be a better experience then using Raspberry.
Easily. The 8th gen CPUs are a nice sweet spot. Powerful enough graphics and cpu, energy efficient enough, 4 cores, while not new enough to be expensive.
Excellent, because while using Raspberry Pi is really cool just because his small it is. It very easily crashes especially if you're too fast. And because I've got an older model I had to restrict the resolution to 720p.
For those wondering why run Kodi on a TV. Simple the TV is to old to be in any way smart, but still works perfectly, so there no reason to replace it. Also it feels really good bragging to my brother what I can do in my dumb TV, that not even he can do on his smart TV. :P
ASUS Chromebox4 with Intel Core i7-10510U, 16GB RAM, M.2 PCIE 256GB SSD Storage, Power/DisplayPort Over Type C, Dual HDMI, Gigabit LAN, WiFi 6, MicroSD Card Reader, VESA Mount, Chrome OS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TGT71MG/