Unboxing of MINIX NEO X6 Android Media Hub

MINIX is a Hong Kong company known for its NEO series Android media players, which are a bit more expensive that the company, but the hardware and especially support is supposed to be better, justifying the higher price. I had never tried it a MINIX device, but thanks to Tinydeal I now have MINIX NEO X6 powered by Amlogic S805 quad core processor, with 1GB RAM, and 8GB eMMC, so I’ll soon be able to find out if the praises for the company are justified, or simply hyped. Today, I’ll take some pictures of the devices, and try to open it to check out the hardware, before writing a full review in a few days, and compare it a much cheaper device like MXQ S85. MINIX NEO X6 Unboxing Photos The parcel was sent by Singapore Posts so it took a couple of weeks to be delivered. The device is […]

Rikomagic to Launch MK80 and MK12 TV Boxes based on Allwinner A80 and Amlogic S812 Processors

There’s a three processors fight right now in the Android mini PC market with Rockchip RK3288, Allwinner A80, and Amlogic S802/S812 SoCs. All have their own strength and weaknesses, and have about the same performance, but so far I like Rockchip RK3288 for 3D gaming, Amlogic S802 and S812 for video playback, and Allwinner A80 for its possibly better potential to run Linux desktop distributions (TBC). Rikomagic have already been selling Rikomagic MK902 II powered by Rockchip RK3288 processor for a little while, and they’ve now announced two new upcoming products: MK80 with Allwinnert A80, and MK12 with Amlogic S812. Rikomagic MK80 and MK80 Plus Preliminary and probably incomplete product specifications: SoC – AllWinner Ultra Core A80 4x Cortex 15 @ 2016 MHz, 4x Cortex A7  @ 1320 MHz big.LITTLE processor with Imagination Technologies PowerVR GC6230 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.0, Directx 9.3 System Memory – 2GB (MK80), […]

Review of Rippl-TV Android XBMC TV Box

Rippl-TV is an Android TV box based on an update revision of Eny Techology/Shenzhen Tomato M8 (square) TV Box with an Amlogic S802 quad core processor, but featuring a different firmware with an alledgedly customized Android 4.4 OS called utilOS, and a launcher based on XBMC also called Rippl-TV. I’ve already written an unboxing post, including pictures of the board, so today I’l focus on the full review, and compare the performance to the original M8, as well as a closer look at the new user interface. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions Rippl-TV comes with an IR remote, and as long as your stay in XBMC and play videos, it’s fine, but as this type of remote is usable with most Android apps, I used Mele F10 Deluxe air mouse instead to control the device. I’ve connected an Ethernet cable, an HDMI cable, a USB hard drive, and a […]

Unboxing of Rippl-TV XBMC Android Media Player

Half year ago, I reviewed Shenzhen Tomato M8 / TM8 Android TV Box. It was the first hardware I received based on Amlogic S802, and although I found overall performance and video playback in XBMC was very good, the firmware was not always stable, and Wi-Fi performance was poor. Shenzhen Tomato has now sent me another model based on Amlogic S802 called Rippl-TV (click for full specs), with an hardware very similar to M8 as we’ll see below, but a completely different firmware that relies on XBMC as the Android launcher. Rippl-TV Unboxing I received the TV Box by Fedex in the following package that reads “Rippl-TV a drop of perfection brings out the best in media…” The package lists the key features of the TV with 4K UHD video playback, XBMC Rippl-TV Edition, Android 4.4 OS (called UtilOS), dual band Wi-Fi, a quad core Cortex A9 CPU coupled with […]

SPMC 13.3.3 Release Adds H.265 Video Playback and Android TV Support

SPMC (Semper Media Center) is a fork of XBMC for Android with some modifications, that you can easily install from Google Play or Amazon AppStore. The latest version is particularly interested as it adds H.265/HEVC codec support for platforms such as Rockchip RK3288, and Amlogic S805/S812, and other SoCs making use of MediaCodec API and libstagefright should also work, including Realtek RTD1195 and Hisilicon K3V2. This version is also the first to support Android TV based on Android 5.0 Lollipop. SMPC 13.3.3 Changelog: Preliminary support for h265 (including RK3288) Preliminary support for Android TV Allow sleep and Daydream to kick in (e.g. on Amazon Fire TV) Add setting to scrape all videos, even if they failed Add “sd” & “hd” to the advanced settings of libstagefright (and mediacodec) for fine tuning Allow fullscreen on Jelly Bean Hide irrelevant video & audio settings Another possible fix for start crash Make the […]

OpenELEC for M8 TV Box (Amlogic S802) with USB Tuner Support

M8 TV Box is an Android media player based on Amlogic S802 that’s relatively popular. We’ve already seen XBMC Linux ported to M8 device, for people who want a more pure XBMC experience, and automatic frame rate switching, but now OpenELEC Beta 2 is also available for the device thanks to Alex Deryskyba (Codesnake). The firmware image (OpenELEC-Meson8-K200-devel-test build 2.zip) will work on M8 / TM8, and any other Amlogic S802 devices based on K200 board. It is based on OpenELEC 4.1.2 and Linux 3.10, and a beta version, so there may still be some bugs, for example Bluetooth is not working. One very interesting feature is built-in VDR / Tvheadend DVB backends which means you should be able to use one of these USB tuners to watch Live TV from your box via satellite (DVB-S/S2), cable (DVB-C) or digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T2/ATSC) dongle. The zip files contains three files […]

$80 CX-S806 Android Mini PC Powered by Amlogic S812 SoC

Yesterday, I wrote about two upcoming Amlogic S812 Android TV boxes by Eny Technology, namely M8S and M8C, with a production trial run scheduled by the end of this month, but I’ve seen then been informed that CX-S806 TV box with the latest Amlogic quad core processor, 2GB RAM, and 8GB eMMC flash is already shipping for as low as $80, as well as a model with a 2MP front camera called CX-S806S. CX-S806 / CX-S806S technical specifications: SoC – Amlogic S812 quad core cortex A9r4 @ 2.0 GHz with octa-core Mali-450MP6 GPU up to 600+ MHz System Memory – 2 GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB flash. No SD card slot Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 (AP6330 wireless module) Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K2K @ 60 Hz (TBC), 3.5mm AV jack (composite + stereo audio) Audio Output – HDMI, AV, optical […]

Eny M8S and M8C Android Media Players Powered by Amlogic S812 SoC

The first Amlogic S812 Android TV box I had seen was Xtreamer Wonder which should start shipping for 99 Euros ($140) by the end of the month, but they’ll have some competition as Eny Technology will soon manufacture M8S and M8C Android media players, also based on the same quad core Cortex A9 processor, with 4K UHD video output and HEVC/H.265 hardware video decoding. M8S and M8C have the same technical specifications except that the former comes with 2GB RAM, and the latter with 1GB RAM: SoC – Amlogic S812-H quad core cortex A9r4 @ 2 GHz with octa-core Mali-450MP6 GPU @ 600+ MHz System Memory – 1GB (M8C) or 2 GB (M8S) DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND flash + micro SD card reader Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 4K2K @ 30 Hz, AV port Audio Output […]

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