BBen MN10 TV Stick Review – Windows 10, Ubuntu 17.04, Benchmarks, and Kodi

The BBEN MN10 is the second Apollo Lake device to be released in the stick form-factor and on paper looks to have a lot to offer: It features an Apollo Lake N3350 SoC, an unusual 3GB of RAM, 64GB of storage and is cooled by a ‘mute’ fan. The devices comes in a plain box with a power adapter, and a leaflet style manual. It also included a three-pin UK power adapter, as this was advertised as the ‘BBen MN10 Mini PC  –  UK PLUG  BLACK’. Looking at the detail specifications: We can immediately see discrepancies as the device does not have a ‘RJ45 Port Speed: 1000M LAN’ port, and was not supplied with ‘1 x HDMI Cable’ nor ‘1 x Remote Control’. Powering on the device and the ‘mute’ fan is also a miss-representation as it starts immediately and is noticeably noisy. It also runs at full speed regardless […]

BenQ W1700 4K HDR Video Projector to Sell for Less than $2,000

[Update: The project is now for sale on Amazon for $1,499 shipped] 4K UltraHD TVs have now become affordable, with prices not that far from HD television sets for a given size. But what about 4K projectors? We first find out about development in this space with a demo for Texas Instruments 4K DLP chip in January 2016 at CES. Close to the end of that year, I had another look while writing about a $70,000 Canon 4K projector based on laser technology, and found out the cheapest true 4K projector would sell for around $10,000. I did not pay to much attention to 4K projectors this year, but I’ve been informed that Benq has come up with an affordable 4K HDR projector: W1700 / HT2550 (US) that will start selling for 1,599 Euros including VAT (around $1,885 US) next January. This could well mean $1,600 once it is launched […]

Zidoo H6 Pro (Allwinner H6) TV Box Review – Part 2: Android 7.0 Firmware

Zidoo H6 Pro is the very first Allwinner H6 based 4K TV box. The Android 7.0 device support H.265, H.264 and VP6 4K video decoding, comes with fast interfaces such as USB 3.0, and network connectivity with Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac WiFi. I’ve already checkout the hardware in the first part of the review entitled “Zidoo H6 Pro (Allwinner H6) TV Box Review – Part 1: Unboxing & Teardown“, and since then, I’ve had time to play with the TV box, and report my experience with Android 7.0 in this second part of the review. First Boot and OTA Firmware Update I’ve connected a USB keyboard and a USB dongle with RF dongles for an air mouse and gamepad on the two USB ports, a USB 3.0 hard drive to the single USB 3.0 ports, as well as HDMI and Ethernet cables before powering up the TV box. I also […]

HiMedia Q10 Pro TV Box Review – Part 1: Unboxing and 3.5″ SATA Bay

HiMedia Q10 Pro Android TV box was launched in March of last year, equipped with a HiSilicon Hi3798CV200 quad-core ARM Cortex A53 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB flash, and a SATA bay for 3.5″ drives. When I wrote a post about the Best Android TV boxes, on commenter mentioned that while NVIDIA Android Shield was the best box for streaming, he felt HiMedia Q10 Pro offered the best quality for media playback. With now 18 months since launch, you may wonder why I would do a review now. That’s because Himedia keeps updating the firmware, and they asked me to check out and test their latest feature: 4K Blu-Ray navigation on Android 7.0 OS. As usual, I’ll start by checking out the hardware, and will publish a review focusing on Blu-ray playback in a few weeks. The package is more like a suitcase that your usual tiny box, but that’s common […]

Rikomagic RKM V3 Rockchip RK3328 TV Stick Launched for $63

We’ll know find plenty of devices powered by Rockchip RK3328 from TV boxes to development boards, but if you are interested in getting an Android TV stick based on the processor, I’m only aware of Rikomagic RKM V3 which the company unveiled in September. However, at the time the TV dongle was not for sale yet, and the company has just launched it for $62.90 including shipping on Aliexpress. RKM V3 specifications have not changed since the announcement, except we can have info about size and weight: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash + micro SD card up to 32 GB Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDR10 and HLG support Video Codec – 4K VP9, H.265 and H.264. 1080p VC-1, […]

Arm Announces Mali-D71 for 4K/120 Hz Displays, Assertive Display 5 with HDR

Arm has just announced Mali-D71 display processor optimized for 4K120 displays used for virtual reality, Assertive Display 5 display management core which adds support for high dynamic range (HDR10 / HLG), as well as CoreLink MMU-600 system memory management unit to handle data feed to Mali-D71, with the integration leading to a 55% area saving for the combined solution and a 50% latency improvement. Mali-D71 Display Processor The main advantages of D71 display processor include: 30% system power savings by fully offloading GPU workloads before output such as composition, rotation, high-quality scaling, and other imaging processing in fixed function hardware. 2x area efficiency compared to Mali-DP650. When driving a single display, it can re-use the resources of a secondary display, doubling the performance. 4x latency tolerance – Mali-D71 can sustain up to 4x the delay on the system bus for the same throughput, helping maintaining high refresh rates up to […]

A95X R1 4K Android TV Box Sells for $20 (Promo)

Rockchip RK3229 quad Cortex A7 processor powers some of the cheapest TV boxes on the market. One of them is A95X R1 with 1GB RAM, 8GB flash, which likeother RK3229 boxes supports both 4K H.265 and H.264, and outputs up to 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz via its HDMI 2.0 interface. GearBest is now selling the device for $19.99 shipped using coupon AA95XR1. A95X R1 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.5 GHz with  ARM Mali-400MP2 System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB flash + micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 fps, and 3.5mm AV output (composite) Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and coaxial S/PDIF Connectivity – 100Mbps Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (RTL8189) USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Power Supply – 5V Dimensions – 9.3 x 9.3 x 1.5 cm Weight […]

MeLE PCG35 Apo Apollo Lake Mini PC Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 17.10

I completed the review of MeLE PCG35 Apo with Windows 10 Home a few days ago, and as promised, I’ve now installed the freshly released Ubuntu 17.10 in the Intel Celeron J3455 “Apollo Lake” mini PC. I’ll start by shortly explaining the step to install Ubuntu 17.10 in the M.2 slot, although you could also install it to the internal eMMC flash replacing Windows 10, then show what works and what does, and finally include a video reproducing the tests I usually do in Windows 10. How to Install Linux in MeLE PCG35 Apo This partially follows the procedure I used to run (not install) Ubuntu 16.04 on MeLE PCG03 Apo mini PC. First you’ll need to download the ISO of your choice (ubuntu-17.10-desktop-am64.iso in my case), and prepare a bootable USB flash drive with the software of your choice be it Rufus, Startup Disk Creator or others. I did […]

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