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November 25, 2019August 25, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

MINIX NEO G41V-4 Mini PC Review – Part 2: Windows 10 Pro

MINIX NEO G41V-4 is the latest mini PC from the Hong Kong-based company, and this time they’ve gone fanless with a new design that should allow proper cooling with a large heatsink, plenty of ventilation holes on the top, as well as a dust-resistant meshing to present dust from entering inside the enclosure. I’ve now had time to review the fanless mini PC, and I’ll report my experience with Windows 10 Pro, while Ian did his part with Ubuntu 18.04. Switching to Windows 10 Boot from SSD I had installed the optional 240GB SSD in the first part of the review. It offers an easy way to get more storage and performance, and you don’t need to reinstall Windows 10 Pro since it’s already installed in the SSD. You just need to change some settings in the BIOS as explained in the user manual. To be on the safe side, […]

November 15, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

X96 Link 2-in-1 Android TV Box & Router Combines Arm and MIPS Processors

Most TV boxes come with WiFi and/or Ethernet to access the Internet or local network in order to stream videos, but there are a few rare exceptions with TV boxes also acting as router such as Zome ZMT-330A we covered way back in 2014 with two Ethernet ports. Shenzhen Tomato informed me about another TV box router product dubbed Nut Link powered by Amlogic S905W processor and equipped with not two but three Ethernet ports. A quick web search reveals the device is better known as X96 Link and sells for as low as $39 shipped on sites like GearBest or Aliexpress. X96 Link specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905W quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with penta-core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a port up to 4K @ 60 Hzm AV port for composite video and […]

November 7, 2019November 8, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Allwinner H6 VC200-OS Processor is a Cheaper Version Allwinner H6 SoC without PCIe, GbE, Camera…

Allwinner H6 SoC has been around a few years, first used exclusively in Zidoo H6 Pro TV box, but then finding its way into other TV boxes, and some single board computers such as Orange Pi 3 or Pine H64 model B. There’s no a cost-down version called Allwinner H6 VC200-OS with most of the same features but without the mostly useless PCIe port (since it does not work well on H6), and other interfaces. I’ve gone through Allwinner H6 (V200) specifications and highlighted the ones missing or updated in H6 VC200-OS using stricken bold or bold text using information from the datasheet. CPU – Quad-core ARM Cortex A53 with NEON, hardware Java acceleration, and FPU 3D GPU – Dual shader ARM Mali-T720 with support for OpenGL ES3.1/3.0/2.0/1.1, OpenCL 1.1/RenderScript, Microsoft DirectX 11 FL9_3 Memory I/F – DDR4/DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR2/LPDDR3 interfaces Storage I/F – 1x eMMC 5.1 flash interface, 1x NAND Flash […]

October 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

MINIX NEO T5 Google Android TV Certified Media Hub Launched for $85

MINIX has been pretty busy in the last few months with the launch of their NEO J50C-4 (64GB) and NEO G41V-4 mini PCs, and the company has now just officially launched MINIX NEO T5, their first Google Android TV certified media hub for $84.90 on Aliexpress or Amazon. MINIX NEO T5 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X2 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash, microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.1 output up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDR10+ support Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, optical S/PDIF, HDMI digital audio; Dolby Digital support; Dolby TrueHD / Atmos and DTS-HD pass-through is also supported Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band 802.11ac WiFi 5 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.2 USB – 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x USB 3.0 port Power Supply – 5V/2A NEO T5 ships with an IR remote […]

October 29, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NVIDIA Launches Upgraded Shield TV with Tegra X1+ Processor

Ever since NVIDIA launched the Shield TV in 2015 it features in lists of best Android TV boxes in the $200 budget range, although it can raise to close to $300 if you do not live in a country where the Shield TV is not officially sold. The company launched a more compact version in 2017, and NVIDIA just officially announced upgraded Shield TV and Shield TV Pro 2019 models with a more powerful Tegra X1+ Processor delivering a 25% boost, as well as Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision support. As you can see from the photo above the Shield TV now has a completely different cylindrical design, while the Shield TV Pro keeps the traditional design of the box. However, both share many of the same specifications: SoC – NVIDIA Tegra X1+ processor with a 256-core NVIDIA GPU Memory & Storage Shield: 2 GB RAM; 8GB eMMC flash; MicroSD card […]

October 28, 2019February 29, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NanoPi M4V2 Kit Review – Part 2: FriendlyCore Desktop

We’ve already seen how to assemble NanoPi M4V2 metal case kit which offers an Arm mini PC solution with support for NVMe SSD. The new NanoPi M4V2 Rockchip RK3399 SBC is an evolution of the M4 board that brings faster LPDDR4 memory and adds power & recovery buttons. Since we’ve already tested several RK3399 SBC‘s and TV boxes, I planned to focus the review on thermal design evaluation (i.e. see how well the board cools), and see how memory bandwidth evolved from LPDDR3 to LPDDR4. I wanted to do so both with Linux and Android, since I could compare NanoPC-T4 (LPDDR3) benchmarks in Android. But this requires an eMMC flash module, and I don’t own any. So instead I planned to run Armbian because of support for armbian-monitor for nice temperature chart but it’s not working just yet, so instead I’ve done all tests with FriendlyCore Desktop (rk3399-sd-friendlydesktop-bionic-4.4-arm64-20190926.img) based on […]

October 23, 2019November 24, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Khadas VIM3L SBC Review with Android 9 Firmware

Khadas VIM3L is the first and so far only Amlogic S905D3 SBC on the market, so I first ran some benchmarks and checked system info. But it is also designed to be an HTPC, I’ll continue the review with some 4K video and audio playback testing, some gaming, and I/O benchmarks. Khadas VIM3L Unboxing As you may remember (or not), VIM3L ships either as a bare board pre-loaded with Android 9 or as an HTPC kit with the board running CoreELEC. I’ve received the bare board which also comes with two WiFi antennas. It can do much more than a simple TV box however, since it also comes with an M.2 NVMe socket (extra adapter board required), and sockets with MIPI DSI + touchscreen, and MIPI CSI camera. It’s one of the few boards with a low profile Ethernet connector, so if you ever wanted to build a farm of […]

October 20, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Amlogic S805X2, S905X4, and S908X AV1 Full HD/4K/8K Media Processors to Launch in 2020

Amlogic S905X4, S905X8, S805X2 AV1 8K Processors

AOMedia AV1 open, royalty-free video codec has come a long way since it was first introduced in 2016, and we’ve recently seen AV1 hardware video decoding integrated into higher-end STB SoCs such as Broadcom BCM7218X or Realtek RTD1311/RTD1319 processors. But AV1 codec is also coming to lower-cost media processors as shown by Amlogic 2020 roadmap below. We should expect at least three new AV1 capable processors in 2020. Amlogic S905X4 Specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor GPU Arm Mali-G31MP2 Video 4Kp75 H.265, VP9, AVS2 4Kp120 AV1 HDR support Smart Audio Voice Activity Detector (VAD) Asynchronous Sample Rate conversion (ASRC) Equalizer (EQ) Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) 2x DSP for audio front end (AFE) and wake word engine (WWE) Amlogic S905X4 looks like an update to Amlogic S905X3 with AV1 codec support, and maybe extra audio features. Amlogic S908X We’ve previously seen Rockchip RK3588 with Cortex-A76 / A55 cores, 8K video […]