LibreELEC 7.0 Ported to Amlogic S905 TV Boxes & ODROID-C2 Board

Most TV boxes are now sold pre-loaded with Android, but there’s still a fair amount of people who only want to play videos in their box, or only run Kodi, so they may prefer a Linux experience. Some companies provide ready-to-use solution such as ARNU Box Mach 10 64-bit Pure Linux, but in some cases it’s also possible to side-load OpenELEC or LibreELEC, with the main advantage being that it is usually quite cheaper at the cost of being a bit more complicated. Thanks to a comment by Sabai, I discovered LibreELEC 7.0.0 had been (unofficially) ported to Amlogic S905 TV boxes, and tested one devices such as NEXBOX A95X (S905), WeTek Hub, Beelink S905 Mini MXIII, MXQ Pro 4K, and others. If you own an ODROID-C2 board, you can load another LibreELEC 7.0.0 image. If you are unsure whether your Android TV box is supported, you should first try […]

Ugoos UT3+ Android TV Box with HDMI Input, Rockchip RK3288 Processor Launched

Ugoos has finally announced the official release of Ugoos UT3+ TV Box based on Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A19 processor with a much improved HDMI input function thanks to a Toshiba chip, and now supports DVR and PiP (Picture-in-picture) functions. Ugoos UT3+ specifications have not changed, but I’ll still reproduce them since it’s been 9 months since the device was unveiled: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 @ 1.8 GHz with ARM Mali-T764 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB NAND Flash + micro SD slot up to 32 GB Connectivity – 100/1000M Ethernet, dual band WiFi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) and 802.11ac with external Wi-Fi antenna Video I/F Output – HDMI 1.4 output up to 4k2k @ 30 fps Input – HDMI input up to 1080p60 Audio I/F – HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, and optical S/PDIF USB – 3x USB host ports Power Supply – […]

Morefine M1+ Review – A Dual Boot Windows and Android TV Stick

Karl here and I will be reviewing the Morefine M1+. It is an Intel based stick PC with an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor with 2GB RAM and 64 GB of storage. It dual boots Windows 10 Home 32 bit and Android 5.1. In this review, I won’t be doing many benchmarks because they have been done a lot in the past. Be careful when researching this product because there are 2 devices with same name with different specs. The other one has an Intel Atom z3735 and only 32GB storage and Android 4.4. The box came expertly wrapped and I have never seen a package delivered and protected so well. In the box was the stick, short HDMI extension, power cable, and instruction manual. No micro USB OTG cable is included. I didn’t find this an issue because I had several already. Specs OS Version: OS Windows 10 (Trial Version) […]

ARNU Box Mach 10 64-bit Pure Linux TV Box Review

In part 1 of ARNU Box Mach 10 64-bit Pure Linux review, I listed the specifications, and took some pictures of the Amlogic S905 based TV box, and its board. I’ve now completed testing of this Kodi Linux media player, going though setup and add-ons, and see how it works compared to ARNU Box Mach 10 Pure Linux based on Amlogic S812 processor. Setup, Cloudword and Configuration The setup part is basically the same as on the previous model, but I’ll go through it again. Please ignore the vertical white line on the TV in the photos below, as it’s just due to my 18 months old LG 42UB820T 4K UHD television being partially broken, and out of warranty. The boot will typically take 30 seconds, but the first time, you’ll go through ARNU Box Setup Wizard. You could skip it in theory, but it’s still a good idea to […]

Review of Vorke V1 mini PC Powered by Intel Celeron J3160 Processor

After checking out Vorke V1 mini PC hardware in the first part of the review, it’s now time to publish the review starting with system information, benchmarks, and user testing. The device competes with similarly priced devices based on Intel Atom x7 processor such as Voyo V3 and Beelink BT7, so I’ll also include some comparisons to those in the review. Setup and System Information I connected USB keyboard and mouse, an Ethernet cable, HDMI and VGA cables to check dual display support, as well as the power supply. I did not connect my USB 3.0 hard drive since, I’ve already fitted the mini PC with an internal 1TB hard drive. Pressing on the large power button on the top of the device will boot it, and after a few seconds, you’ll get to go through Windows 10 setup by first accepting the EULA. The next steps are Custom or […]

ROOFULL MRX 4K Android TV Box Review

CNXSoft: I’ve got many requests to review TV boxes, but I don’t always have time for them all, so from time to time I get people who help me do reviews, and this review of Roofull MRX TV box powered by Amlogic S905 processor had been done by Ray, who like me has been playing with many other Android TV boxes. ROOFULL MRX Specifications Operation System – Android 5.1 CPU – Amlogic S905 64-bit Quad core Cortex A53 up to @2GHz GPU – Penta Core Mali-450 RAM – 2GB DDRIII ROM – 16GB eMMC flash SD Storage expendable up to 32GB Bluetooth – BT 4.0 Antenna – Built-in antenna for WiFi Media UHD 4K x 2K: Support Full HD 1080P: Support HEVC H.265/H.264: Support Video/Picture Decoding Support: *.mkv,*.wmv,*.mpg, *.mpeg, *.dat, *.avi, *.mov, *.iso, *.mp4, *.rm and *.jpg file formats Audio Format Support: MP3,AAC,WMA,RM,FLAC,Ogg Communication WiFi: IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) Ethernet: […]

Unboxing and Teardown of ARNU Box Mach 10 64-bit Pure Linux TV Box based on Amlogic S905 SoC

While there are plenty of Amlogic S905 TV boxes, the vast majority is running Android, and albeit there’s been people successfully installing Linux or OpenELEC on such device, if you’d just like a TV box running Linux with 4K video playback without hassle, there’s almost no option. ARNU Box (previously ARMADA) has delivered such Linux TV boxes in the past, with products such as ARNU Box Mach 10 Pure Linux based on Amlogic S812 and running Linux based EmbER OS with Kodi 15, and I’ve now received the updated version simply called ARNU Box Mach 10 64-bit Pure Linux with Amlogic S905 processor instead. ARNU Box Mach 10 64-bit specifications SoC – Amlogic S905 quad core Cortex A53 @ 2 GHz with ARM Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash + SD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0 (Up to 4k@60fps) Audio Output – […]

Android TV 6.0 Ported to Raspberry Pi 3 with 2D/3D GPU Acceleration, but no Hardware Video Decoding (Yet)

Google might be working on Android or Brillo for Raspberry Pi 3, with a new repository created in AOSP, meaning that, if that’s Android,  you won’t probably get the Google Mobiles Services by default, but those can be side-loaded to get access the the Play Store, Youtube, etc… In the meantime, a group of developer have been working Android 6.0 TV port for Raspberry Pi 3. That’s the same team who worked on previous images for Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi 2 boards using “peyo” port, and that did not have any support for 2D/3D graphics acceleration, nor hardware video decoding. But they’ve made some improvements for their Android TV 6.0.1 release for Raspberry Pi 3, as 2D/3D GPU acceleration is enabled using the Mesa drivers, and Kodi user interface, game emulators, WelGL in Chrome browser all work relatively well using 1280×720 frame buffer resolution as you can see from […]