Let me say first, I do not have a MicroHD. I do not plan to get one because it is an Ali receiver and I have plenty of Ali receivers.
All of the Ali receivers do about the same thing. They all blind scan about the same, and they all have about the same features. Look closely in the Micro HD reviews and you will see that it scans no better or worse than most of the other popular Ali receivers.
There are a couple of features that are exclusive to the MicroHD. One is the ability to do closed captioning, and the other is the ability to be updated by satellite. These are the only two exclusive MicroHD features that I see which are not available on another Ali receiver that I know of today, but you can expect this to change.
To me, the hardware on the MicroHd when compared to its delivered price of $139.50 is a joke! It looks like they tried their best to make the cheapest fta receiver possible, and nobody does it cheaper than China.
You do not have a loop out connection on the MicroHd, and you do not have a RS232 port for receiver recovery. To use the RS232 on the MicroHd, you will need to take the receiver apart, and connect a TTL converter to the receiver in order to have RS232 capability. I expect this to be beyond the ability of most people so the receiver will need to be returned to the factory if if you need to recover the receiver. Ali receivers are bad about locking up if there is an error in the sat file, so people need to be very careful when modifying or editing the sat file outside of the MicroHd receiver.
Speaking of editing the sat file, there is no way to do this outside the MicroHD except through USB sticks. There is not a LAN or Ethernet port on the MicroHD so you cannot edit anything through the network or even have the MicroHD on a network.
One thing I will give the MicroHd credit for is support. Brian Gohl has done an excellent job of trying to fix the MicroHd to suit the needs of the people in North America. The level of support that Brian is giving doesn't surprise me when the $139.50 price tag is considered. Currently there is a huge profit margin on the MicroHd receiver.
The Openbox S12 can be delivered to your house for less than half the cost of a MicroHD. The Openbox S12 has a LAN or Ethernet connection so basic file transfers can take place over your network. The Openbox S12 has a loop out connection, a front display instead of two idiot lights,and 4 pins on the back of the receiver for a RS232 connection. The four pins on the back of the Openbox S12 do not require a RS 232 TTL converter but you will have to purchase or make a connector to use the RS232 on the S12.
All things being created equal, I do not care too much about price. If a receiver has the features I want at a price that I can afford then I will buy it.
I think the same is true for the MicroHd. It does have a very high price at $139.50 but it is supported in the U.S., and I would not hesitate to buy it if I needed the couple of exclusive features that it has. Otherwise, I would buy the Openbox S12 for less than half price and have a receiver with more hardware.
I wish Brian Gohl the best with his MicroHd but I feel that the price of his receiver needs to come down....Way down. EB