gdgt

I still have a Boxee Box connected to my TV, but I've literally gone FOUR months without even realizing it wasn't plugged in.

I was a huge early supporter of the Boxee Box, and I still think it's a decent device for certain things, but there were too many little niggly issues that kept bugging me. I also bought the Sony Google TV, that's pretty much replaced the Boxee Box for me.

But let me answer your questions as best I can:

"connect a gaming console" - unfortunately, I have no idea what you mean by that. The Boxee Box isn't a device that takes inputs, it's like a DVD player or Apple TV or Roku, it just displays content. That said...

"an external HD" - the "input" a Boxee Box can handle would be an external hard drive or flash drive. From my experience, it was slightly challenging to get it to work, but that might be something they've improved. I mainly streamed content from a NAS.

"Spotify and Netflix compatibility" - Well, it looks like Spotify has been on Boxee for a long while now - about a year - though I haven't played with it because I'm an rdio guy. Netflix has been on the platform since the beginning or nearly the beginning, and it works just as well as any other instance of Netflix, which is pretty ubiquitous on streaming media devices at this point! When looking at these gadgets, it's probably best to treat Netflix like you treat HDMI. You just check it off the list because it has to be there :)

What the Boxee Box does better than anything else out there is play local content on your own network or hard drives. Seriously, nothing matches it (yet!). If that isn't important to you, then you need to look at what's important to you in these devices. I like the Google TV because of how it presents its self, as a sort of overlay on your current viewing experience. So I can pause a show and search for the actor I'm looking at without changing inputs. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but surprisingly it is.

But that's me. The other platforms have their major benefits. If you already do a ton of stuff in iTunes or have a lot of Apple devices in your home, iTunes and Airplay are compelling reasons to get an Apple TV. The Roku is the easy to use and extraordinarily inexpensive option. Like I said, it depends on what you need, and then you look at the services they offer. I don't know if Spotify is on either the Apple TV or Roku, for example.

I really like the Boxee Box, actually. I still switch to it on a rare occasion because it's the only thing I have that can access vudu, which is my personal favorite for watching streaming movie rentals (by far the best streaming quality, IMO).

I realize I sort of didn't answer your question here, but I hope I've given you a little more information to use...

Dignan brought up a lot of positives with the Boxee Box but the one word of caution I would bring up is that the UI can be a bit confusing. If you can find an old install of the desktop software I'd install that just to get a feel of how it is.