Laser Android 4K Smart Media Player

GOOD FOR 4K DOWNLOADS.

THE LASER ANDROID 4K Smart Media Player looks great on paper. Cheaper than an Apple TV, it runs the Android operating system, which means you can install apps straight from the Google Play Store. It also comes with an interesting hybrid remote control that sports a QWERTY keyboard on the back, and it has a built-in ‘Airmouse’ for gesture-based navigation similar to the Nintendo Wii. And, most importantly, it supports 4K playback at up to 60 frames per second.

But using it is frustrating. All of the apps are designed for touchscreen operation on a smartphone rather than for a remote control, and you’ll have to figure out how to operate the Airmouse function for swiping up and down the screen (good luck – the user manual isn’t much help). The remote control is also poorly-designed and doesn’t have backlit keys, making it virtually impossible to use in a dark room.

The Laser’s one saving grace is its support for 4K. If you happen to have 4K content, this media player can play it. We chucked a 52.5GB 4K movie encoded in HEVC onto a USB drive formatted in exFAT, and it played seamlessly on the Laser media player – a feat that even our late 2013 MacBook Pro Intel Core i7 with 16GB RAM couldn’t pull off. Note: this 4K playback doesn’t extend to streaming platforms like Netflix, Stan and Amazon Prime, which are capped at HD quality.

As difficult as the Laser Android 4K Smart Media Player is to use, the fact it can play downloaded 4K video files in pretty much any file format makes it worth considering if you have ready access to that kind of content.