CNXSoft – Embedded Software Development

Kimdecent sells some cheap RK3188 mini PCs such as QC802 for $76, but instead of sending me yet another RK3188 device, they agreed to send CS868, an HDMI TV dongle powered by AllWinner A31 quad core processor, so that I could review it. This mini PC comes with 2GB RAM and 16GB Flash, the latter being larger than the 8GB flash found in most other devices, and is available for $95 on Kimdecent Aliexpress store. More details about the specifications are available on Unuiga U28 post since the hardware is the same. In theory, AllWinner A31 has a much slower CPU than Rockchip RK3188, but its PowerVR 544MP2 GPU should outperform the Mali-400 MP4 found it the Rockchip processor, and A31 supports 4K2K video decoding. In this post, I’ll show some unboxing picture, give my first impressions, test Wi-Fi performance, video playback capabilities, and run some benchmarks.

CS868 Unboxing Pictures

I received the device in a parcel with lot of bubble wraps, so the package was not damaged,  but there’s not much to say about the package as it’s just a no name “mini PC for Android OS” without specifications, or other useful information.

CS868 mini PC and its Accessories (Click to Enlarge)

Inside the package, we’ll find CS868 mini-PC with a metallic casing, a short HDMI cable, a 5V/2A power supply, a microUSB to USB cable for power, and microUSB to USB female cable for the microUSB OTG port of the device, and a not-so-useful user’s manual in English and Chinese explaining how to use Android on mini PCs.

A closer look at the device reveals a fully metallic casing, HDMI male connector, a micro USB OTG port, a micro SD card slot, another micro USB port for power, and a full USB host port. There are lots of ventilation hole on both side for cooling the device.

You can also watch the unboxing video.

First Boot, Settings, and First Impressions

Since Cortex A7 is supposed to have a lower power consumption, I’ve tried to power the device directly from the USB port of my TV, unfortunately it won’t go further than the boot animation. So I’ve connected the RF adapter for the Mele F10 to the USB port, and used the provided power adapter to power the device, and after a few seconds, the device will boot and you’ll have to choose between 2 launchers:

• Standard Android Home Screen
  
• A 3D launcher designed for TV
  

I’ll keep using the standard Home Screen since I find it a bit more convenient with the input device I use.  We have the Volume buttons, and a power button in the status bar, but no option to go to full screen. You’ll also notice a 4K widget, which is an interesting media player I’ll describe in more details in the video section.

I’ve gone to the setup menu to configure Wi-Fi. The device also supports Wi-Fi direct, but not Bluetooth, nor Ethernet, ven with external USB dongles. You can also  setup to device for VPN access, as a hotspot, and add a 3G USB dongle.  The screen section lets you select 720p, 1080i, and 1080p modes at either 50 or 60 Hz, and you can also choose 1080p24. A slider is also available to let you zoom in/out to adjust your screen overscan if needed. There’s an option for Audio output, but clicking on it, just exits the Settings, so audio pass-through is not available. Screen Lock option is available in the System Settings, so if you require your device to be lock this should be possible (I haven’t tried). Developer options all seem available including USB debugging, CPU usage, GPU usage and more.  In the “About tablet” section, we find out CS868 is indeed the model, and this device runs Android 4.1.1 on top of Linux 3.3.0. The firmware is dated 2013/05/06, it’s rooted, and can be downloaded via Kimdecent website.

Google Play worked fine, and I could install most apps I tried such as Antutu, Angry Birds Star Wars, MX Player, YouTube, Dead Trigger, and more. The only exception was Sixaxis Controller, but this is normal behaviour, as the device does not support Bluetooth.

The system is pretty responsive, although It does not feel as fast as RK3188 devices,  and I can experience slowdowns just after boot, give it one or two minutes to be fully responsive, and while installing many apps via Google Play. The device did not hang during use, but there are still some annoying issues. I lost audio 3 times during my few hours of testing (reboot required), Wi-Fi failed to initialize once (reboot again), and at one point the device was stuck in the boot animation “AllWinner Tech A31 Quad Core” forever. Restarting the device did not help, so I had to flash the firmware via PhoenixUSBPro.

Wi-Fi Performance

Contrary to my habits where I have one and only section for Wi-Fi and video testing, today I’ll reserve a full section to Wi-Fi, as I have a story to tell…

As I started to test video playback, and noticed very similar problem to what I experienced with Tronsmart T428, that is 1080p video would just no play smoothly. So I stopped video playback testing, and went straight to my “transfer a file from SAMBA to flash over Wi-Fi” test. The result was catastrophic, as a 278MB file took 7m 46s to transfer, at an average rate of about 600KB/s, by far the worst result I’ve ever seen (Other devices usually take 3 to 4 minutes to transfer this file). Real-time transfer speed shown in ES File Explorer fluctuated greatly but never went over 1MB/s. Two consecutive devices with terrible Wi-Fi performance? Impossible!

I remember once I had a USB Wi-Fi dongle that was extremely slow using mixed 802.11b/g/n setting in my router, and the performance improved massively by setting the router to use 802.11g only. So I did that, and the performance improved, but not enough to my taste: 5m 45s (~800KB/s) , and the transfer started very fast at 1.60M/s until 80%, to collapse at the end around 200KB/s.

Then I had an unthinkable idea, what if my router (TP-LINK WR940N v1) , or rather its firmware, was the cause of my Wi-Fi misery?

I went to the router setup interface and found some information about the firmware:

• Hardware version WR940N v1/WR941N v4 00000000
• Firmware: 3.9.18 Build 100104 Rel.36350n.

A Google search quickly directed me to the firmware download page of my router, with a more recent firmware: 3.13.9 Build 120201 Rel.54965n. So it looked like my firmware was just over 2 years older than the latest available version, I downloaded the file, and upgraded it.

Let’s try that file transfer test again: 1m 30s, or 3.09MB/s. That’s the fastest speed I’ve ever seen with any of the little devices I tested. Of course, I can’t use that number to compare to other devices without repeating the test for the earlier devices (which I may do), but at least Wi-Fi transfer speed won’t be the limitation for the video playback tests.

The moral of the story is that if one of your Android mini PC has poor Wi-Fi performance, don’t start to open the case and try to add an external antenna, check your router has the latest firmware revision first.  I’ll have to check the effect this new router firmware has on T428 as well.

CS868 Video Playback

I’ve installed MX Player for this purpose, and made sure the hardware decoder is used, or mention it if software decode is used instead.

Let’s started with samplemedia.linaro.org videos from a CIFS/SAMBA share in Ubuntu 13.04:

• H.264 codec / MP4 container (Big Buck Bunny), 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• MPEG2 codec / MPG container, 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• MPEG4 codec, AVI container 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• VC1 codec (WMV) – Video OK, but audio suffers from short static noise (<1 second) from time to time
• Real Media (RMVB) 720p – OK for RV8/RV9/RV10, but MX Player switched to SW decode
• WebM 480p/720p/1080p – OK

I’ve also played several movies in AVI, VOB and MKV container formats, and they could all play, although for some files buffering at the start was pretty long (20 to 30 seconds), and some, but not all, appeared to suffer from audio/video sync issues. MOV videos from my Canon point and shoot camera will buffer as with all other devices I’ve tried (over Wi-Fi). The status bar will automatically hide when playing videos.

I’ve also tried higher bitrate videos:

• ED_HD.avi (1080p MPEG-4 – 10Mbps) – The start is OK, but in some scenes where the bitrate must increase a lot, the video is very choppy.
• big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround.avi (1080p H.264 – 12 Mbps) – OK
• hddvd_demo_1080p.mkv (1080p VC1 – 17.5 Mbps) – The video can’t play smoothly most of the time.

There’s very good support for different audio codecs on the device:

• AC3 – OK
• Dolby Digital 5.1 and Digital+ 7.1 – OK
• Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & 7.1 – OK
• DTS-MA and DTS-HR – OK

I’ve also tried with one of my 4K2K video samples: HD.Club-4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4. At 60Mbps, it’s impossible to play over Wi-Fi, so I copied to the flash, and played it with MX Player. The only problem is that is uses software decode on that file, so I had to revert to using 4K Video Player included with the device, and it played perfectly.

4K VideoPlayer really showcases the power of AllWinner A31 VPU, as you can see your video file lists in thumbnail, and all 15 thumbnails are playing your videos. You can also open several videos and arrange them in different windows. I tried with 4, and they all seemed to play simultaneously smoothly. Watch the video below to see what it looks like. It may not be that useful, but I find it’s pretty neat.

CS868 Benchmarks

I’ve installed both Antutu 3.3, and Quadrant, but the latter refused to run.

T428 got about 15200 points, and as expected CS868 gets a lower score with 10,559 points. The RK3188 device is almost twice as fast when it comes with RAM, and CPU integer and floating point scores, which is due both because of the difference architecture (Cortex A7 vs Cortex A9), and frequency (1.0 GHz vs 1.6 GHz). The GPU scores are about the same, although I expected A31 to outperform RK3188 in this particular test. The flash write speed seems much better in CS868 compared to T428 (35.8MB/s vs 7.1 MB/s), but I’m not sure how reliable this test is.

Quadrant and Antutu system information show the CPU frequency ranges between 120 and 1008 MHz, the screen resolution is 1280×720, there’s a total of 1660 MB RAM available to the system, the rest being probably reserved for the VPU, and about 1200 MB are available.  The 16GB NAND flash is partitioned into 2 partitions: a 1GB partition for apps with 746MB available, and a 12.24 GB partition that is basically empty.

Inside CS868

CS868 looks like a pain to open, so I skipped that part. Luckily, Linuxium did it before me, and we can still have a look inside.

Click to Enlarge

The board is fitted with a largish heatsink.

(Click to Enlarge)

Once we removed it we can see AllWinner A31, the 16GB flash, and 4 RAM chipsets, but the pictures are quite not clear enough the see the name of the components.

(Click to Enlarge)

On the other side, we’ve got four more RAM chipsets, and flash, as well as what looks like a Realtek Wi-Fi module. There are also 6 pads (LED, 3V3, D-, D+, GND, and WPS), but none of those should be useful for serial access. Maybe it’s now possible to debug using D-/D+ pins (USB), I don’t know.

Conclusion

CS868 mini PC has potential, but as it stands the firmware need some improvements, as HDMI audio may cut, and once Wi-Fi failed to initialize. I also had to re-install firmware since the device refused to boot, however I may be partially at fault here, as several times I just disconnected and reconnect power to reboot the device without using the power button first. Performance wise, CPU performance is much slower than RK3188 based devices, and 3D GPU tests appear to be roughly equal according to Antutu, so A31 devices may have to be priced lower than RK3188 to become more interesting. Video playback is where CS868 stands out, it managed almost all files I threw at it, with the only issue being WMA audio, and some long buffering time with a few videos. HDMI pass-though could be a nice feature to have for some.

Concerning Linux support, the main advantage of AllWinner A31 devices such as CS868 is that the source code for Linux and U-boot is already available, and this may take a few more months before RK3188 source shows up. However, performance in Linux is likely to be poor for a quad core devices, and GPU acceleration won’t be available due to the PowerVR GPU. Ian Morrison ran a subset of Phoronix Suite tests in a chroot in Android, and found that for some tests results are about the same or even lower than Rockchip RK3066 devices, mostly those relying on single core performance.

A few day ago, I noticed MoDaCo posted instructions to enable multiple users support on Nexus 4 smartphone via Liliputing’s Lilbits. They indicate that it may also work on other Android 4.2 devices, so with more and more Android mini PCs and set-top box running the latest version of Android, but lacking. multiple user support, I decided to give it a try on Tronsmart T428. My little experiment did not end up being that successful despite the picture below. But who knows, maybe some of my clever readers will find a solution.

Lock Screen with 4 Users on T428 mini PC

The instructions below may “work” on any rooted Android 4.2 devices including smartphones, mini PCs, media players, etc…

You’ll need to install 2 apks:

• Xposed Framework – Scroll down on this page, then download and install XposedInstaller_2.1.4.apk. Finally run the installer, and reboot.
• MoDaCo Toolkit Xposed module – A link on this page will let you download com.modaco.toolkit.apk. After installation, click on it, validate the module in Xposed Framework, and reboot.

Now run MoDaCo Toolkit again, click on the icon on the top left corner to access the menu, scroll down to “Google Nexus (all)“, enable “Show users on power menu“, and reboot.

Let’s check if a “Users” section has been added to the Android settings.

At this point, you may think “Yes! Success! Party Time!”, to which I would reply “Not so fast!”.

Click on “ADD USER” on the top right on the screen to, well, add a user, and click OK. The system will reboot automatically, which is not expected. There’s only 504MB reserved for “internal storage” in the current T428 firmware, with about 80 MB left at the time I tried, so I wonder if it could be the reason.

However after reboot, you can go to the Settings, re-enable Wi-Fi (the procedure disables Wi-Fi for some reason), and click on new user to access the lock screen, and create his/her new environment. The Home Screen is completely empty, only system apps are available, and none of the free or/and paid apps installed by the other user show up, which is probably normal. However, this also means you’d better only use multiple users on system with plenty of flash (e.g. 16 to 32 GB), or reserved as much as possible the flash area to Apps, and use an external SD card for data.

After creating 2 new users, I checkd the reported storage, and the numbers do not add up as shown in the screenshot above. I assume the 603MB for Por, and 599MB for Pan, are just “reserved” storage.

Adding one more user, and the Lock Screen will just look like the picture at the top of the post. The main problem is that I can only access the Lock Screen after creating a new user, and I could not find any other wayys. Installing several applications that are supposed to do so such as “ScreenLock Widget“, or “Lock Screen” did not help. In some devices, in the Security section, there may be an option to enable/disable the Lock Screen, but it is not available in T428 firmware.

So I’m stuck at this point. If you try in your device, let me know the results.

Android mini PCs ( HDMI TV dongles) are great to make your TV smart, and you may expect to be able to play Android games on your TV easily. The reality is that the keyboard and mouse, or remote controls used with those devices, are not suitable for games, and most games do not play at all. Of course, OUYA and GameStick projects will take care of this, as well as the recently available Project SHIELD ($349) , but if you already have one of those mini PCs, you may not want to spend the money for another device. Luckily there’s a solution, and with some efforts, you can play many games, but not all, with a PS3 Bluetooth controller connected to your Android mini PC or Set-Top Box.

I decided to give it a try by buying “GOIGAME Rechargeable Bluetooth Wireless DoubleShock III Controller for PS3” for $16.60, which is a clone of Sony’s PlayStation 3 Dualshock 3 Wireless Controller, and costs about three times less. Today, I’ll start by showing pictures of the controller, then explain how I managed to play Dead Trigger in Tronsmart T428 Android mini PC, and SuperTuxKart in a computer running Ubuntu 13.04.

Goigame DoubleShock III Unboxing

I received the controller in the package below, which was *almost* not damaged…

Goigame Doubleshock III Package (Click to Enlarge)

The wireless controller comes with a silicon case, and nothing else, so you’ll also need to find a mini USB to USB cable to charge the device.

It does indeed look like a PS3 Dualshock III controller, but for some details such as the “P3″ key. I can’t compare the build quality to an original controller since I’ve never used one. The model number at the back is CECHZC2U.

I’ve also partially disassembled the thing for those of you who want to see its guts.

Click to Enlarge

(Click to Enlarge)

Playing Android Games with PS3 Wireless Controller

At the beginning, I though my controller was damaged because I failed to see it in the list of Bluetooth devices in both Linux computers and Android devices. But apparently, this BT device does not work that way, and won’t be detected at all in the list of devices.

The first thing to do in Android is to download Sixaxis Compatibility Checker, a utility that checks if your Android device and your controller are compatible, before you buy Sixaxis Controller app (~$2.50 US).

Launch Sixasis Compatibility Checker, and click on Start. This is check if your Android device is compatible, and if it is successful show the message below with the master address. The message tells you to use SiaxisPairTool in Windows or sixpair in Linux, but since all mini PCs run Android 4.x, we can just connect our PS3 controller to the mini PC via USB for the next step.

If you don’t get the message above, your device firmware is not compatible, you need to investigate, and possibly re-build the Linux kernel and/or required drivers in as explained in that post.

After having connected the controller to the USB port, click on Pair, make sure the master address is correct (the one detected previously), and click OK.

Disconnect the USB cable, click on Start again in the app, and click on the PS3 Button (original controller) or P3 Button (Clone).  LED 1 should be on, and the other 3 off, and the following message should show up in Sixaxis Compatibility Checker.

Click OK, and if you play around with the analog joystick and buttons of your controller, debug messages should be displayed in the app:

Client 0: DOWN - 19
Client 0: UP - 19
Client 0: DOWN - 19
Client 0: UP - 19
Client 0: DOWN - 20
Client 0: UP - 20

With the number changing depending on the key pressed.

Now go over Google Play, buy and install Sixaxis Controller app to be able to play games.

The user interface is very similar to the free checker, just follow the same instructions to pair your controller. You can then click on “Change IME”, and select Sixaxis Controller.

Now let’s try to setup the system to play Dead Trigger. Still in Sixaxis Controller, click on Preferences->GamePad Settings’, and Enable Gamepad as shown below.

I’ve also changed the “Analog Poll Rate” to the maximum, but I’ve not sure it affects playability at all.

You may also want to enable “Mouse Emulation”, or you’ll have to use your mouse to control the menu in the game instead of your controller.  I’ve done that, and selected the “START” key to toggle mouse, set the left stick to control the mouse, and assigned L1 and R1 as the left and right mouse buttons.

There’s also a “Touch Emulation”, which will be necessary in many games such as ShadowGun, but not in Dead Trigger, so I’ve skipped this part, which appears to be more complex as I understand you have to setup profiles for each games. Some people also mention the need to use Droidmote to be able to play more games on devices such as MK808.

Let’s start Dead Trigger. Press “START” once to toggle mouse emulation, and go to the setup menu to change the control scheme to “Free Move Pad”, and for my controller, I had to set the aim sensitivity for the game to be playable when turning left or right.

Finally click on Customize Gamepad to define the buttons used for firing, reloading, aiming, and more.. That’s it, start the game, press the “START” button on the controller again to disable mouse emulation, and kill’em all!

Sometimes, the analog sticks would just stop to work for a short, and/or appear to be stuck in position (which they weren’t). I don’t know the root cause of the issue. It could be a controller issue, a firmware bug, or Sixaxis Controller app bug.

PS3 Controller in Linux (Ubuntu)

Instructions to use the controller in Ubuntu are available in help.ubuntu.com.

I could install the tools:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:falk-t-j/qtsixa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sixad

and after connecting the controller via USB run the following command:

sudo sixpair

But the next step, where you disconnect USB, and run

sixad --start

would be unable to detect the device as I pressed P3 key. There seems to be issue with Ubuntu and my Bluetooth dongle, as Bluetooth often gets disabled.

USB mode however works perfectly, and after installing the packages below:

sudo apt-get install libusb-0.1-4 xserver-xorg-input-joystick

I could control the mouse pointer with the controller, and play SuperTuxKart without issues in Ubuntu 13.04. It did not work with Ubuntu 12.04 and an earlier version of the game.

DealExtreme has started a promotion that is taking place on May, 15-20 offering 50% discount on selected products. I’ve gone through the list, and found several RK3066 Android mini PCs all priced between $23 and $27, as well as some other items that may be of interest to readers of this blog.

[Update: Sorry, in just a couple of hours, all items listed below are already sold out]

Android Mini PCs:

• MK808 – $25.00 – One of the most used Android mini PC. Powered by Rockchip RK3066 with 1GB RAM, 8GB Flash. The version in DX runs Android 4.1.1, but a beta Android 4.2.2 firmware is also available.
• MK808B -  $23.50 – Same as MK808, but with Bluetooth, and somehow it’s cheaper…
• Rikomagic MK802 IIIS – $27.10 – Rockchip RK3066 powered mini PC with 1GB RAM and 8GB Flash. Contrary to the previous 2 that feature a HDMI female connector, this one comes with an HDMI male plug.
• COZYSWAN MK809 II – $24.50 – Basically the same specs: RK3066, 1GB RAM, 8GB Flash.

Remote and Controllers:

• Mele F10 Fly Mouse – $12.60 – I have just reviewed the Mele F10 earlier this week. If you don’ have an RF remote already, and use Android STB and/or mini PCs, it’s probably a good idea to buy this 3-in-1 (mouse, keyboard and remote) 2.4GHz “Fly Mouse”.
• GOIGAME Rechargeable Bluetooth Wireless DoubleShock III Controller for PS3 – $8.30 – If you already have a mini PC, and don’t feel spending more to get an OUYA or Gamestick, this Bluetooth game controller can be connected to your Android device to play several games. I have one already, I could finally set-it up, kill some zombies, and I’ll post instructions later today or tomorrow. It also works with Linux, albeit I could only manage to make it work in USB mode.

Misc:

• Sandisk Micro SD / TF Memory Card w/ SD Adapter – 32GB (Class 10) – $15.75 – If you like to mess around with Linux, and your hardware can boot from an SD card, you’ve got to use a Class 10 SD card, or Linux performance will be terrible.
• Ethernet Shield with Wiznet W5100 Ethernet Chip / TF Slot – $7.00 – For Arduino users.
• TP-Link TL-WR703N – $11.95 – This is a cheap hackable router, even more so at $12, that can run OpenWRT, be converted into a PirateBox, and more.

There are also a few Android tablets for about $35, and I’ve also decided to buy ThL W8 Android smartphone powered by MTK6589 Quad Core processor for $115.60.

Geekbuying was kind enough to send me another RK3188 mini PCs for review. Tronsmart T428 is very similar to MK908 I reviewed earlier, with 2GB RAM and 8GB flash, but the latest device runs Android 4.2.2, its Wi-Fi module supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, and T428 can also be used as a Miracast Display. Geekbuying sells for the device for $96.99 including shipping, but before to buy the device I strongly recommend you read the review. I’ll post some unboxing pictures first, then carry on with my first impressions, video playback capabilities, Wi-Fi performance and some benchmarks.

Tronsmart T428 Unboxing

I received the device is in the package below.

Tronsmart T428 Packaging (Click to Enlarge)

T428 comes with a short HDMI cable, a 5V/2A power supply, and a USB to microUSB cable for power.

A close look at this mini PC shows the casing is made of plastic and metal (on the lengths), comes with an HDMI male port (my preference), a USB port, a microUSB port for power, an LED, a microSD slot, and a recovery button.

Tronsmart T428 (Click to Enlarge)

You can watch my unboxing video.

First Boot, Settings, and First Impressions

I’ve connected Mele F10 RF adapter to the USB host port, T428 to the HDMI port of my TV, and the power supply to the micro USB port of the device, and we’re ready to go. After a little while, we get a standard Android Home Screen (All apps added by me).

Home Screen (Click to Enlarge)

We’ve got Vol-/+ buttons, Power Button, and sometimes, but not always, the full screen icon… So mostly all good here.

I’ve gone to the setup menu to configure Wi-Fi. The device also supports Wi-Fi direct, Bluetooth (built-in), and you can setup to device with VPN, as a hotspot, and add a 3G USB dongle, but there’s no Ethernet option.  The screen section lets you select 1080p or 720p modes at either 50 or 60 Hz, as well as 576p50 and 480p60. There’s also a slider to let you zoom in/out to adjust the UI to your screen. There’s no option for HDMI audio output, so HDMI audio pass-through is not available. There are plenty of options available in Developer options including USB debugging, CPU usage, GPU usage and many more.  In the “About device” section, the model number is T428, and the device is running Android 4.2.2 with Linux kernel 3.0.36+… The firmware version is 2013/04/19.

I’ve installed several applications with Google Play including Antutu, ES File Explorer, Angry Birds 3D, MX Player, YouTube, Facebook.., and everything went smoothly. The firmware does not come rooted, but RK3188 rooting instructions (Windows only) worked fine.

All applications could run smoothly, and the firmware is stable, and the only issue I encountered, which I reckon is a major one, is that Wi-Fi signal will drop from time to time [Update: I resolved Wi-Fi stability issue by updating my router firmware, see CS868 review for details] .  T428 does not overheat. I’ve also managed to pair a Sixaxis game controller (not possible with MK908 firmware), but I haven’t been able to play games yet, since more work is needed (Droidmote setup). But that’s for another blog post. [Update: I wrote instructions showing how to play Games with a PS3 Bluetooth controller]

T428 Video Playback and Wi-Fi Performance

I’ve just installed MX Player to test video playback, making sure H/W decoding is enabled for the video I tested.

I started testing with samplemedia.linaro.org videos from a CIFS/SAMBA share in Ubuntu:

• H.264 codec / MP4 container (Big Buck Bunny), 480p/720p/1080p – OK, but the video plays for 1 or 2 seconds, then freezes to buffer a few seconds, then plays normally until the end. So this issue is minor, and mainly annoying for reviewers…
• MPEG2 codec / MPG container, 480p/720p/1080p -  OK.
• MPEG4 codec, AVI container, 480p/720p/1080p – OK.
• VC1 codec (WMV) – 480p/720p/1080 OK, but there’ a thin line with artifacts at the bottom of the screen
• Real Media (RMVB) 720p – OK for RV8/RV9/RV10.
• WebM 480p/720p/1080p – OK

I’ve also tried several full movies (AVI and MKV), and I did not notice buffering issues. Video playback looks relatively bad here, but this is only a Wi-Fi issue, as the signal drops, and sometimes completely cuts off. [Update: A new router firmware mostly fixed the performance issue with this device, so I've also added audio codec and high-bitrate testing below]

T428 supports the following high-quality audio codecs:

• AC3 – OK
• Dolby Digital 5.1 and Digital+ 7.1 – OK
• Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & 7.1 – OK
• DTS-MA and DTS-HR – OK

Even after firmware update, higher bit rate videos can’t play smoothly:

To confirm Wi-Fi sucks big time, I’ve copied one 278 MB file between the network share and the NAND flash, and it  took 4 minutes 04 seconds (1.14MB/s). I’ve never seen a device with such bad Wi-Fi before. Hopefully this is only a firmware issue. During the transfer in ES Explorer, I can see real-time transfer speed oscillate between 70KB/s and 1.50 MB/s. So it’s not a constant speed, it fluctuates heavily, contrary to all other devices I’ve reviewed. I’ve also removed Mele F10 2.4GHz adapter, just in case it negatively affects Wi-Fi performance, but the result is the same when I use USB keyboard and mouse. There’s an Android 4.1.1 firmware that may fix the issue, but I haven’t tried it.

Wifi Update: After updating the router firmware, I can transfer the same 278 MB file in 3m 02s (1.53MB/s), at regular speed, and the Wi-Fi signal does not drop any more. Since I’ve updated the router firmware, I can’t use my historical test results for comparison, and the only other device I’ve tested in this configuration is CS868 mini PC, which transfer tshe same file in 1m 30s (> 3MB/s). So even though Wi-Fi is snow table, and perfectly usable, the performance may not be optimal.

T428 Antutu and Quadrant Benchmarks

The device could achieve good results with both Antutu and Quadrant benchmarks.

With 15207 points, T428 scores a little higher than MK908 (14,464), but both are still on the same range. Finless ROM can boost the score to about 17,000.

Tronsmart T428 Quadrant Score (Click to Enlarge)

Tronsmart T428 gets about the same score as HTC One X smartphone (Snapdragon S4 or Tegra 3).

Contrary to MK908, 2D and 3D tests were very smooth in both benchmarks. System information section shows the frequency can oscillate between 312MHz and 1.6GHz, the SDK is rk31sdk, and the board is said to be rk30board. The resolution is 1280×672, there’s 1606.7MB RAM available out of 1914.7MB (After running advanced task manager). The “internal partition” is 504MB large with just 76.41MB available, and there’s 5.24GB available in the “NAND flash” (data partition) out of 5.82GB.

Inside Tronsmart T428

Sorry nothing here today. I’ve tried to open the device, but failed, as some part of the casing seem glued, and as I pushed the metallic part of the casing, I could see I bended them a bit too much to my taste. I’ve also been told there’s no easy way to open it, so if you want an hackable device, this may not be the one for you.

[Update: Ian Morrison managed to open it (Click for pictures), but he mentions it's not designed to be opened, an you're likely to damage the case trying to do so]

Conclusion

Tronsmart T428 is fast, smooth and stable (as in no crashes or hung system) just like MK908, unfortunately Wi-Fi performance ruins it all.  This is a shame as all other aspects of. [Update: Wi-Fi has become stable after a router (TP-Link WR940N) firmware upgrade]. This device seems promising: Full screen and power buttons, Miracast Display support, all video codecs I’ve tried seems to be supported fine, support for 5GHz can help if there are lots of 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi hotspots in your location …

Considering the terrible Wi-Fi performance, I can’t recommend Tronsmart T428 at this stage, and you’d better go with Tronsmart MK908 which works much better, at least until we’re sure a new firmware can fix WLAN reliability and performance issues.
After resolving T428 / TP-Link router interoperability issues by updating the router firmware, my assessment of T428 has completely changed, and the device is actually pretty good, with only minor issues, such as an internal flash partition for apps that I find too small (504MB), and fills up too quickly, the lack Ethenet  support (USB dongle),  no support for HDMI pass-through…

The first HDMI TV stick based on Rockchip RK3188 that I noticed was CloudnetGo CR9, and since then many more similar products have hit the market. I did not write about most of them as “it’s just more of the same” most of the time, but listed some in CloudnetGo CR9 post’s comment section. Today, I’ll provide a (non-exhaustive) list of devices, in no particular order, with a summary of the hardware specifications. I won’t mention Android versions since all of them already run Jelly Bean (Android 4.1 or 4.2). Retail price information, which I got from Aliexpress, Geekbuying, W2COMP, and some other sites, is provided for reference, and includes shipping unless otherwise stated.

Ugoos UG007B

• CloudnetGo CR9 - 2GB RAM, 8/16 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 1x microUSB – Price Unknown  – See review
• Tronsmart T428 – 2GB RAM, 8GB Flash, HDMI male,  1x USB, 1x microUSB – $99
• Rikomagic MK802 IV – 2GB RAM, 8GB Flash, HDMI male,  1x USB, 2x microUSB – $100
• Ugoos UG802B – 2GB RAM, 8/16 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 2x microUSB – $98
• Ugoos UG007B – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 2x microUSB – $77 to $85
• Ugoos MK809 III – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 2x microUSB – $81 and up
• Measy U4B – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 2x microUSB – $100
• CX-919 – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 2x microUSB, small external Wi-Fi antenna – $90
• QC802 – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 2x microUSB – $76
• iMito QX1 – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 1x microUSB, external high gain Wi-Fi antenna – $90
• MK908 – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI female, 1x USB, 2x miniUSB – $90 – See unboxing pictures and review.
• MK919 – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI female, 1x USB, 2x microUSB – $77
• MK919A – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 2x microUSB – $77
• Cozyswan S400 – 2GB RAM, 8 GB Flash, HDMI male, 1x USB, 1x microUSB, detachable external antenna – $61 to $70 (Factory price).

All devices mentioned above also comes with built-in Bluetooth, and a micro SD card. After completing this list, I feel quite disappointed by the lack of options. All devices comes with 2GB RAM and 8GB Flash, and the only variations are with the HDMI port (female/male). the number of USB ports (2 or 3), and some mini PCs features of external antenna (iMito QX1 / CX-919 / Cozyswan S400). Difference in price is sometimes due to the Wi-Fi/Bt module used, as you’ll have to pay about a $10 premium to use a Wi-Fi module supporting 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz as in T428.

KDDI, a Japanese Telecom operator, has launched AU Smart TV Stick, an Android 4.0.4 HDMI TV Stick powered by Texas Instruments OMAP4430 dual core processor with 1GB RAM, and 4 GB Flash, together with a “magic” Bluetooth remote for 9,800 Yen ($99 US).

Here are the specifications of this device:

• SoC – Texas Instruments OMAP4430 Dual Core Cortex A9 @ 1GHz + PowerVR SGX540 GPU
• System Memory -1GB RAM
• Storage – 4GB Flash + microSD card slot
• Connectivity:
  • Wi-Fi IEEE802.11b/g/n
  • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Video Output – HDMI (female)
• USB – micro USB OTG
• Power – AC100V
• Dimensions -  31 × 105 × 14mm
• Weight -  45g

The Bluetooth remote measures 50 × 149 × 21.5mm, weights 73 g, and comes with a gyro sensor.

The package included the mini PC, the remote, as well as an AC adapter (100V), an HDMI Cable, a holder, and 2 AAA batteries for the remote.

The company appears to have heavily customized Android in order to provide easy access to its online services, but Google Play store is still available on the device.

I find this device interesting as it’s the first I’ve seen using OMAP4, and since it includes a Bluetooth remote (and, I assume, Japan’s 5% consumption tax) the price seems relatively competitive. To my knowledge, it’s the first time a large company actually sells an HDMI TV dongle to consumers. so it’s nice to see mini PCs go mainstream, at least in Japan.

Further information is available on AU Smart TV Stick page (in Japanese).

Via Google+