CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 20, 2014December 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Android 5.0 Lollipop Running on Amlogic AML8726-MX Based WeTek Play STB

Last month as Android Lollipop was shown booting on a Rockchip RK3188 tablet, and a few days later several companies such as Allwinner and Rockchip announced Android 5.0 ports were in progress for their latest processors, a few people asked me: what about Amlogic? I had no news at the time, but I expected the company to port Android 5.0 to their recent processor such as S802, S805, or S812, so I was surprised when I saw WeTek Play might be the first Amlogic device to boot Android 5.0 (CyanogenMod version), since it features the old dual core Amlogic AML8726-MX processor. The company has just released their latest Android 4.2 firmware, so this Android 5.0.1 version is most probably an early firmware, just not quite ready for prime time just yet, but hopefully they’ll release a stable version within a few weeks. That’s the boot and About WeTek Play video […]

December 19, 2014December 30, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Unboxing of BuyForSure 4KH 2160p/H.265 Android Media Player Powered by HiSilicon Hi3798M SoC

BuyForSure (BFS) is a company that sells various item on Aliexpress and Ebay, and then might also be involved in some product development (TBC). A couple of weeks ago I wrote about an inexpensive HiSilicon Hi3798M based TV box (quad core Cortex A7) supporting 2160 (4K UHD) video output and decoding, HEVC/H.265 video decoding, and featuring a USB 3.0 port. The company asked me if I wanted to receive a sample, and I accepted because few companies promote HiSilicon and MStar based products for oversea markets. So they send me their BFS 4KH TV box, my first HiSilicon device, and early next year, I’m likely to receive Zidoo X9 based on Mstar MSO9180 from another company, so that’s another story… Today, I’ll start by taking pictures of the media player and its board, and in several days I’ll post a review showing what this $50+ box is capable of (or […]

December 19, 2014December 19, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Giada F110D and Asus E210 Fanless mini PCs Feature Intel Bay Trail Celeron N2807 Processor

We’ve seen many small computer based on Intel Atom Bay Trail-T (Tablet) Z3735F/G processor lately including MINIX NEO Z64 and MeegoPad T01, which should ship by the end of the month (it keeps getting postponed). But Intel also makes Bay Trail-M (Mobile) processor for laptops, including Celeron N2807 dual core processor found in ECS Liva. Two new products based on N2807 processor has recently surfaced: Giada F110D and Asus E210. According to CPU Boss (see Google cache if link has problem), Z3735F has slightly greater multi-core performance than N2807, but the latter has better single thread performance based on Passmark. One key advantage of the Celeron processors over the Atom ones is that they support up to 4GB RAM instead of 1 or 2 GB for the Bay Trail-T processor. Giada F110D also has one version with a more powerful Intel Bay Trail-D (Desktop) Celeron J1900 quad core processor. Giada […]

December 19, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 14.12 Release with Linux 3.18 and Android 5.0

Linaro usually releases images and source code on the last Thursday of the month, but since most people will have long holidays for Chritsmas and New Year, the last working Thrusday of this month was yesterday (18th). Linaro 14.12 release includes Linux kernel 3.18 (baseline), Linux 3.10.62 & 3.14.26 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.18-2014.12 Based on v3.18 release GATOR topic: version 5.20 updated topic from Qualcomm LT (includes IFC6410 board support) updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP Base and Foundation models, and Juno support) updated LLVM topic (uses the community llvmlinux-latest branch) included ILP32 patch set v3 rebased on 3.18. Boot tested with aarch64 userland. Work is in progress to test with aarch64-ilp32 userland. config fragments updated – SELinux related config options enabled in linaro-base.conf, device tree runtime self tests enabled in distribution.conf Linaro […]

December 19, 2014December 24, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Android TV Launcher is Now Available on Google Play

If you own one of the many Android media player available on the market, and wanted to get Google Android TV on your device, the good news is that Google has just published Android TV Launcher on Google Play. So even though you can’t install Android TV on you device just yet, at least you should be able to run the launcher. But unfortunately, there’s also a bad news: Android TV Launcher is only available for Android TV devices such as ADT-1 Devkit or Nexus Player. I wanted to side-loaded to one of my Android devices, so I tried APK downloader to retrieve the Android TV launcher apk, but it can’t be downloaded unless your use a “Device ID” from ADT-1 or Nexus Player. So if you want to give it a try, you’ll have to patiently wait for the apk to show up somewhere. One place where it might […]

December 18, 2014December 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 63 Comments

OpenELEC For Amlogic Media Players – MXIII, Tronsmart Vega S89, TV110 and CX-S806 (S812)

XBMC / Kodi is now working pretty well on Android devices, and even automatic frame rate switching is available on some Android platforms such as MINIX NEO X6. But if you want a pure XBMC experience, you may consider XBMC/Kodi Linux distributions such as OpenELEC also providing support for some USB DVB tuner dongles and PVR function, both of which are currently unavailable in Kodi for Android. We’ve also seen OpenELEC released for M8 TV Box, but Kerber, a Russian developer (or at least a Russian speaking developer) has also released OpenELEC 4.97.x for MXIII (Amlogic S802), Tronsmart Vega S89 (Amlogic S802), TV110 (Amlogic S805) , and CX-S806 (Amlogic S812) media players. The forum post is dated on August 2014, but it has been updated on December 12 with more up-to-date images: OpenELEC-Amlogic.MX3.arm-4.97.2.zip for MXIII (1GB) OpenELEC-Amlogic.S82.arm-4.97.2.zip for Tronsmart Vega S89 (2GB) OpenELEC-Amlogic.TV110.arm-4.97.2.zip for TV110 OpenELEC-Amlogic.S806.arm-4.97.2.zip for CX-S806 (Amlogic S812 […]

December 18, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Jesurun Maxone Allwinner A80 mini PC with 4GB RAM Sells for $184 (Promo)

Yesterday, I discovered DealExtreme listed four versions of new Allwinner A80 mini PC called Jesurun Maxone, with a combination of 2GB RAM/16GB Flash, or 4GB RAM/32GB flash, and US or EU power adapters, for respectively $167.40 and $207. But after a closer look, I found out those boxes are probably based on the same hardware used for Tronsmart Draco AW80 Meta and Telos, minus the external Wi-Fi antenna, and the price was a little higher so I did not feature this device in a new article. But today, GearBest provided a coupon code (JM4GCN) allowing to get Maxone 4GB RAM for $183.99, or about $15 discount compared to Draco AW80 Telos. They’ve also provided JM2GCN coupon for the 2GB RAM version, but the price ($149.99) is almost exactly the same as Draw AW80 Meta. Remember that when shopping online from oversea websites, you may be hit by custom duties back […]

December 18, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 29 Comments

Unboxing of Amlogic S812 based Sunchip CX-S806 Android Media Player

Sunchip CX-S806 is my third Android media player based on Amlogic S812 processor, after Eny Technology EM8S (which I haven’t received yet, because the firmware is not really ready yet), and MINIX NEO X8-H Plus with a stable firmware, but some disappointment with regards to peripherals performance (eMMC, Ethernet,…), and poor support for H.265 / 4K videos in XBMC/Kodi, at least for now, since I’m sure they’ll work out the video issue with subsequent firmware / Kodi releases. CX-S806 has lower specs compared to NEO X8-H Plus, and does not come with an air mouse, but it costs about half of the MINIX box, so we’ll have to see how it performs. For now, I simply post pictures of the device and the internal board, since I’ve already posted CX-S806 specifications previously. CX-S806 Unboxing Sunchip sent me the box via DHL, and I received it in the black and gold […]