If you thought the 74 USD MK802 Android mini PC was cheap, think again. One of my reader informed me that Pandawill started selling a similar product for 52.99 USD (inc shipping). The “CS-01 Mini Android TV Box” features a Telechips TCC8923 dual TCC8925 Cortex A5 processor clocked at 1 GHz 800 MHz with 512 MB RAM and 4GB NAND Flash, and runs Android 4.0.4.
Here are the specifications of the device:
- SoC – Telechips
TCC8923 (dual core Cortex A5)TCC8925 @1GHz800 MHz with Mali-400 GPU - System Memory – 512MB RAM
- Storage – 4GB NAND flash
- Video output – HDMI (Up to 1080p60)
- Video formats – AVI, RMVB, MKV & FLV (1080P)
- Audio formats – MP3, WMA, WAV, APE, AAC, FLAC, OGG
- Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
- USB – 1 x USB 2.0 port + 1 x micro USB port
- Dimensions – 90 x 40 x 29mm
- Weight – 80g
The package is said to include one USB Cable, so it is apparently not sold with a power supply and you are expected to power it with your own or with the TV USB port.
Contrary to the MK802, it has a male HDMI connector and can just be plugged into the TV like that:
There are 2 main other differences compared to MK802 mini PC.
The first and most important one is that there isn’t any microSD card slot, which means you won’t be able to easily add external storage. After you’ve connected a USB wireless dongle for your mouse and keyboard, and the power supply, you won’t have any available USB ports for a USB Thumbdrive. The only solution would be to use a USB hub (preferably powered).
Whereas MK802 features an Allwinner A10 with an ARM Cortex A8 core, the Telechips SoC embeds a Cortex A5 core. I initially believed Cortex A5 was a low cost and low power version of the Cortex A8 that would yield lower performance. However, some synthetic benchmarks show that Cortex A5 may actually be faster than Cortex A8 and only slightly slower than Cortex A9.
The lack of microSD card slot and developer community around Telechips TCC8925 will also make it much more tricky to run Linux on that platform.
Nevertheless, if you are mainly interested in having an Android mini PC to browse the web, read emails and watch online videos, this product is really at the right price point which performance which should be similar to MK802. You can buy it for 52.99 USD on Pandawill Store including international shipping by China Post. However, if you don’t want your device to get lost on the way, it might be wiser to use registered mail with Hong Kong or Singapore post which only costs slightly more (about $2). If you are a distributor, you can also buy in quantities (500 to 1000 pcs) for about $30 per piece.
[Update: It’s now also available on Aliexpress for the same price with free international shipping via Hong Kong Post]
[Update 2: Dealextreme added it for $51 inc. shipping and they have both White and Black versions.]
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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