Review of MINIX NEO U1 Media Hub

We’ve already seen that MINIX NEO U1 has some impressive hardware to offer with a good thermal solution, and high-end chips for storage and WiFi, as well as some neats additions like RTC support. But obviously the most important is to find out how the box performs, so I’ve put it through it spaces with video playback and features testing, as well as some benchmarks. First Boot, OTA Firmware, Settings and First Impressions The device has three full-sized USB 2.0 ports, which become four once we had the provided USB OTG adapter to the remaining micro USB port. So I’ve connected a USB 3.0 hard drive, the RF dongle for NEO A2 Lite air mouse, a USB hub with a USB webcam, a USB keyboard, and the RF dongle for Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad, as well as USB powered speakers to the micro USB port. After inserting HDMI, optical audio […]

K1 Plus Amlogic S905 TV Box Review

Videostrong KI Plus is one of the first Amlogic S905 TV boxes to be launched on the market, and it also happens to be one of cheapest model selling for around $45 on various sites, and it’s even available for $39.99 on GearBest for Black Friday / Cyber Monday. I’ve posted the specifications and pictures of the device previously, and after updating the firmware, I’ve finally completed the review. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions As usual, I’ve connected a whole bunch of cables and peripherals to the device to make the power supply can handle it, including a USB hard drive, a USB webcam, a USB keyboard, a USB hub with two RF dongles for Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad and MeLE F10 Deluxe air mouse, as well as a HDMI, optical audio and Ethernet cables, and a speaker connected to the 3.5mm AV jack and powered by one of […]

DragonBoard 410c Development Board Quick Start Guide and Android Benchmarks

Linaro’s 96Boards initiative was announced in February with the introduction of Hikey board, and while progress has been rather slow, there are now two boards available for sale: Lemaker Hikey and Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c. The main advantage of these board is that 96Boards is not only an hardware specification, but also a software specifications that mandate most code to be open source, with recent versions of Linux and U-boot, and in the case of Dragonboard 410c work is being done with Freedreno open source GPU drivers. Now that I’ve got a board I’ll explain my experience with the purchasing process, take a few pictures, and show how to get started with Android, and install the latest version, before running a few benchmarks. Ordering DragonBoard 410c Development Board I normally don’t like purchasing from North American and European distributors, because of the potential documentation involved to comply with silly laws, high […]

Amlogic S805 vs S905 Benchmarks Comparison

After publishing a benchmark comparison between Amlogic S905 and Rockchip RK3368 yesterday, I was asked to do the same with Amlogic S805 and Amlogic S905. Since I already had the data, I just went ahead to write this post. Bear in mind that Amlogic S805 TV boxes run Android 4.4, while Amlogic S905 devices all feature Android 5.1. So while the table below should give a good estimate of the actual performance improvement between the two generation devices, Amlogic S905 performance will be amplified thanks to optimizations in Android 5.1, for instance the use of ART runtime instead of Dalvik. With that in mind here are the results comparing the results I got with Videostrong K1 Plus (Amlogic S905) and MXQ S85 (Amlogic S805) TV boxes. Amlogic S905 Amlogic S805 Ratio CPU Quad core Cortex A53 @ 2.02 GHz Quad core Cortex A5 @ 1.488 GHz GPU ARM Mali-450MP ARM […]

Amlogic S905 vs Rockchip RK3368 Benchmarks Comparison

The first Amlogic S905 TV boxes have started to ship,  and I received Videostrong K1 Plus a few days ago, but due to some issues with Google Play Store, I’ve decided to postpone the review. In the meantime, I’ve side-loaded popular benchmark apps including Antutu, Vellamo, and 3Dmarks to the device to compare it to its main 64-bit ARM competitor: Rockchip RK3368. I used benchmark results from Beelink i68 review and compared them to K1 Plus, both devices running Android 5.1. A ratio greater than 1 (green) mean S905 is better, while a ratio lower than 1 (red) means RK3368 fares better. Amlogic S905 Rockchip RK3368 Ratio CPU Quad core Cortex A53 @ 2.02 GHz* Octa core Cortex A53 @ 1.2GHz GPU ARM Mali-450MP PowerVR G6110 Antutu 5.x Overall 28,027 34,171 0.82 Multitask 4,260 4,041 1.05 Runtime 2,721 2,949 0.92 RAM Ops 1,960 2,346 0.84 RAM Speed 2,420 2,601 0.93 […]

Review of WeTek Core Android Lollipop Media Player

EThe first devices based on Amlogic S812 processors started shipping by the end of 2014, but in the third quarter of 2015, there’s been a few new device released as some companies ported Android 5.x Lollipop to the platform. I reviewed two of these. Mygica ATV1900AC had potential but the number of bugs was disappointing, while Tronfy MXIV Telos was almost a disaster. Today, I’m going to report my test results with WeTek Core Android 5.1 TV box, also powered by Amlogic S812, more exactly S812-H, which includes DTS and Dolby licenses. I’ve already listed the specs, and torn down WeTek Core in two previous posts, so I’ll focus on the firmware in this review. Initial Setup and OTA Firmware Update First of all, I’d like to mention that I got an early WeTek Core sample, and while the hardware is frozen, the firmware is still being developed before the […]

Zidoo X6 Pro Android TV Box Review

Zidoo X6 Pro is a 64-bit ARM Android TV Boxes  based on Rockchip RK3368 processor, promising support for HDMI 2.0 and video decoding up to 4K2K @ 60Hz. While the others I’ve tried so far, such as Beelink i68,  are pre-loaded with some version of Kodi 14.2, X6 Pro comes with a modified version of Kodi 15.1. I published pictures of the Zidoo X6 Pro TV box and board a few days ago, and today I’ll review the box’ features, performance, and capabilities. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions I’ve connected a USB hard drive to one of the two USB ports, as well as a USB hub with two RF dongles for Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad and MeLE F10 Deluxe air mouse, a USB keyboard, and a USB webcam. I’ve also inserted an Ethernet cable, an HDMI cable, an optical audio cable, a Class 10 micro SD card, as […]

Mygica ATV1900AC Android 5.0 Mini PC Review

4K TV boxes based on Amlogic S812 processor have been around for about 9 months, and I already reviewed MINIX NEO X8-H Plus and CX-S806 mini PCs, but Mygica ATV1900AC is one of the first to support Android Lollipop, so I though it would be interesting to see the progress made compared to devices that run Android KitKat. I’ve already taken apart the TV Box, and found some interesting Toshiba eMMC flash and Realtek 802.11ac WiFi chips on the board, but today, I’ll test the firmware including stability, features and performance in this review. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions I’ve connected all ports of the device using the four USB host port with a webcam, hard drive, an RF dongle for a wireless gamepad, the RF dongle for the included remote, as well as inserting an HDMI cable, an optical audio cable S/PDIF, an Ethernet cable to Gigabit switch, […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case