Review of Probox2 EX Quad Core Android TV Box and Remote+ Air Mouse

Probox2 EX is an Android TV box powered by Amlogic S802-H processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB eMMC, an hardware very similar to MINIX NEO X8-H, and an upgrade to the Tronsmart Vega S89 Elite and Shenzhen Tomato EM8 / Enybox M8 TV boxes I’ve reviewed previously, with more storage (16GB vs 8GB), dual band Wi-Fi, and S802-H instead of S802 for hardware DTS and Dolby audio decoding. I’ve already published an unboxing post for Probox2 EX, so today I’m going to test the firmware, including overall performance and stability, video playback, gaming, and most hardware features, as well as Remote+ air mouse with audio and gaming capabilities, which comes with the device. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions I’ve found two AAA battery to insert into Remote+ air mouse, connected an HDMI cable, an Ethernet cable, the Wi-Fi antenna, the RF dongle for Remote+, and the power adapter to […]

Review of WeTek Play Android DVB-S2 Satellite Receiver

[Update, December 29, 2014: You may want to read the updated WeTek Play Review with newer firmware including IPTV services, and bug fixes] I’ve already posted pictures of WeTek Play and its boards, and now it’s time to do a full review of this Android DVB-S2 receiver / media player. I’ll start by giving my first impressions, going through the system settings, testing my library of video test files, as well as DVB-S2 support via WeTek Theater, and check most of hardware features. I’ll also test network and storage performance, before running Antutu benchmark to make sure the device runs at optimal speed. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions Contrary to the vast majority of devices, WeTek Play does not come with a basically useless infrared remote, but instead an RF air mouse with an IR transmitter in order to provide true power ON/OFF capabilities. The remote is very nice […]

Rockchip RK3288 Temperature Testing and Antutu Benchmarks

There are many upcoming Rockchip RK3288 based devices, and in the listing the CPU frequency varies from 1.6 GHz to 2.0 Ghz. so it’s difficult to know exactly what to expect. Ugoos has done some testing with their UT3 board measuring temperature after Antutu benchmark for different CPU clock frequencies and fan/fanless combinations. The board comes with a rather tiny heatsink which may explain some of the results below. They also added a small fan on top in about half the tests to compare the temperature against an heatsink only solution. Without further delays let’s go through the results: Frequency Antutu Score Temperature (heatsink) Temperature (Back of PCB) Heatsink only Heatsink + fan Heatsink only Heatsink + fan 1.608 GHz 38655 67 °C N/A 70 °C N/A 1.704 GHz 39853 72 °C 50 °C 75 °C 60 °C 1.800 GHz 41440 83 °C 52 °C 85 °C 62 °C 1.920 […]

A Quick Look at Antutu 5 Alpha 2 Benchmark

Antutu Labs has released an alpha version of Antutu 5 on XDA Developers, and although I can’t share it directly,you can request a copy by sending an email to Antutu. I did that, received the apk (antutu-benchmark-v5-alpha2.apk). and decided to try it on Tronsmart Vega S89 Elite TV Box and ThL W200 smartphone They’ve added three new tests, replacing the 2D and 3D benchmarks in the process: Added CPU single thread benchmark (integer and float) Real Game engines used for graphics benchmarks: Cocos2D, and Havok Vision HTML5 Test The user interface is very similar to Antutu 4, but you’ll notice the new HTML5 Web Test before starting a full test. You’ll start seeing more changes with the 2D graphics tests which are very similar, but you can still feel it’s different, and the test resolution is now clearly shown during the benchmark. But it’s the 3D graphics benchmarks that’s completely […]

VidOn.me AV200 Android TV Box Review

After providing some pictures of VidOn.me AV200 media player, and its PCBA, it’s now time for a review. I’ll start by giving my first impressions, and checking out the system settigns and user’s interface, go through my library of video test files, and cover most hardware features. As usual, I’ll also test Wi-Fi performance, but I’ve now added more tests including Ethernet performance, and USB hard drive support and performance with NTFS, FAT32, EXT-4, and BTRFS partitions. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions The device comes with an IR remote control with lots of buttons, including shortcuts, D-Pad control, digit keys and trick modes (play/pause, fast forward and rewind, next and previous), but the two required AAA batteries were not included, and I did not have spare batteries, so I did not use the remote control, which looks pretty OK for XBMC, and just control the device with my Mele […]

Onda V989 Tablet Powered by AllWinner A80T Achieves Close to 50,000 Points in Antutu

Teclast T97 was one the first tablet based on AllWinner A80, an octa-core CortexA15/A7 big.little processor with PowerVR G6230 GPU. It was announced way too early last December… There’s now another tablet much closer to an actual retail availability called Onda V989 featuring AllWinner A80T with a 9.7″ display and 2 or 4 GB RAM that come close to the top of the Antutu scoreboard with 48102 points. Unfortunately that’s all we know about this tablet at this stage. I’m not sure what A80T means, AllWinner A80 Tablet version?, or AllWinner A80 Turbo, with higher clock frequencies? There has also been some sort of silly season with benchmark related to AllWinner A80 with scores ranging from 23674 to 48102 points in Antutu as shown below for Onda V989. The low score was achieved when A80’s Cortex A15 cores were allegedly clocked at 1.2GHz , but it should be closer to […]

AllWinner A80 To Support 5 Operating Systems, Products To Become Available in May

AllWinner has released some more materials about their AllWinner A80 Ultracore octa core big.LITTLE SoC ahead of the Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2014, and we’ve learned more about OptimusBoard, as well as tablets and TV boxes availability through a video interview shot by Charbax at the exhibition. Part of the release was more detailed specifications: CPU Octa-Core big.LITTLE Cortex-A15/7 Low-power CoolFlex power management architecture 2MB + 512 KB L2 Cache GPU – Imagination Technologies PowerVR 64-core G6230 with support for OpenGL ES 3.0/2.0, OpenCL 1.x, RenderScript, DX 9.3/10.0 Memory Supports dual-channel DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR3/LPDDR2, up to 8GB Supports Raw NAND with 72-bit ECC Supports eMMC V4.5 Video Supports UHD H.264/VP8 4Kx2K@30fps video playback Supports multi-format FHD video decoding, including MPEG 1/2/4, H.263, H.264. WMV9/VC-1, etc Supports H.265/VP9 1080p@30fps video playback Supports H.264 HP/VP8 4Kx2K@30fps video capture Supports 3840×1080@30fps 3D decoding, BD/SBS/TAB/FP supported Supports 3840×1080@30fps 3D encoding Supports RTSP, HTTP, HLS, RTMP, MMS […]

Review of M8 Android Kitkat TV Box Powered by Amlogic S802 SoC

A few days ago, I wrote an Unboxing and Specs post about the M8, an Android TV Box powered by Amlogic S802 quad core Cortex A9 processor. The review took a little as I was waiting for a new firmware. I’ve now upgraded this S802 Box, and been able to complete a review. As usual , I’ll start by giving my first impressions, have a look at the user interface and settings, test different king of video files, evaluate Wi-Fi performance, and try to cover most hardware features including Bluetooth, external storage, USB webcam, and so on. The overall user’s experience, is very similar to Tronsmart Vega S89, but there are some notable differences I’ll go through during the review. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions Shenzhen Tomato sent me a sample unit which they call TM8 (Tomato M8?), but I’ll just refer to the device as M8 in the […]