There are many streaming boxes on the market today, and just about everyone knows what Apple and Roku have to offer. Aside from the high-end boxes, there are a variety of sticks that flood the market from Roku and Amazon. What you might not know about is a lesser-known brand called Onn that is exclusive to Walmart. Obviously, Walmart is a massive store, so if you wander into the electronics area, you’ll probably see one of these boxes.
While Onn doesn’t have the name value of something like Amazon or Roku, that doesn’t make it a bad company. It’s actually far from the case. Onn makes an Android-based streaming box that actually represents some of the best value on the market today.
Somewhere Onn takes the edge over Amazon now is things to do with the device aside from just watching streaming apps. Amazon Fire TV devices used to be easy to tinker with, but the shift away from Android has made that less so now. Onn is actually the box that’s easier to mess around with, and that makes it great for many reasons. Running on Android opens the door to so much, and if you want to make your Onn box into a retro game emulator, it’s super easy.
- Brand
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onn
- Wi-Fi
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Wi-Fi 6
- Ethernet
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Yes
- Storage and RAM
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32GB of storage, 3GB of RAM
Onn takes the advantage here
An unwalled garden
It’s no surprise that people like to have control over their devices, and that’s something that Amazon used to excel at. The shift to an in-house operating system has taken that away, and it has left the field open for a new competitor. Onn’s box hits a sweet spot of a low price with some good performance for several emulators. No, I wouldn’t grab one of these devices in the hopes of playing modern games, or even Wii titles for that matter, but for systems like the PS1 and under, Onn has a nice thing going here.
The Onn 4K Pro costs $60, which makes it cheaper than Roku Ultra, Apple TV 4K, and Google TV Streamer. I’m not saying it’s as high quality as any of those devices, but it represents some great bang for your buck. It supports Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10+, so a lot of bases are covered here. On top of that, it comes with 32 GB of internal storage, which is another thing that makes it good for retro game emulation.
The Android ecosystem lets you sideload your favorite emulator by using an APK, and RetroArch is a very popular and easy-to-use one. That’s not the only option you have, so feel free to install something that fits your needs better. The 2024 model is powered by a quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, so you shouldn’t expect high-end performance out of this thing by any means. It’s a streaming device first and foremost, but again, if you’re only planning to play games from the PS1 generation and earlier, I don’t think you’ll run into any problems.
It’s highly portable, so you can easily bring it around to different rooms in your house, and you shouldn’t have any trouble running light shaders to help emulate the older look of those consoles. It doesn’t beat playing on an actual CRT TV, but you can still get a good experience from an Onn box. Besides, CRT TVs are dying more and more each day, and it also feels like it’s becoming more difficult to find them. These used to be given away for free, but now you often have to pay for them.
Amazon is still good, but it does less
Don’t fret if you don’t tinker
I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom when it comes to Fire TV devices because they are still perfectly fine for the majority of people. I would imagine most people buy streaming sticks and boxes just to watch shows, and that’s where the Fire TV devices excel. It’s just that they used to be capable of a lot more, so seeing that functionality stripped away is a bit of a bummer — but that functionality only appealed to a niche audience in the first place.
I’m grateful that an alternative brand has stepped up to fill the void, even if it’s unintentional. The Android ecosystem is such a joy to work with, so I’m glad to see it sticking around in the streaming world. The thing that made the Amazon Fire TV sticks so nice is that they ran Android and were dirt cheap. That’s why it’s important for Onn to fill this space, because it’s another affordable brand and doesn’t force people to go out and buy a high-end Google TV Streamer. As long as Onn stays in this price range, I can see this Onn box being a draw to people who want to watch movies, but also people who want to get into retro game emulation without breaking the bank.
