TBH i'm leaning towards XBMC on the Pi - toble if you have any advice then would be much appreciated.
Essentially I want to be able to plug my Ext HDD in and watch movies / pics etc off there but be able to access the drive over my wireless network to put stuff on it i.e. from my phone. Also want to be able to stream stuff over the network from phone to whatever I get. I think either device can do both of those.... oh and I forgot, maybe watch the occasional football stream through the device too.
RE: Raspberry Pi - seems cheap but obviously need hdmi cable, case, sd card and setting it all up are the cons, but then the interface on XBMC looks great and because its one device with one lot of specs then stuff either works on it or it doesn't and the Pi community are all working on the same device.
RE: Android stick - nice compact unit that slots straight into the HDMI so less messing with cables trailing everywhere plus loads of apps although not sure how much I would use. Also big Android community but all working on many devices all slightly different. Also heard a lot of things about over heating, dodgy wi-fi, no 1080p, loads of Chinese fakes etc etc. They also seem more expensive up front for one but apart from the addition of a micro-sd I think that would be about it.
Totally undecided.
As for which Android stick I would get, again I have no idea. Don't want to spend loads but want something half decent with community support.