For nearly a year, we’ve been waiting for Android TV media players based on the latest AMLogic quad core Cortex A9 SoC, that’s been known as AML8726-M8, then M801/M802, and there’s AMLogic S802, which is the set-top box version of the SoC. M must probably stands for MID, and S for STB. Geniatech ATV1800 seems to never become available, and instead I’ve found out about two other Android TV boxes powered by S802 called Tronsmart Vega S89 and Eny ES8 that should sell very soon. The specs look great, but if you are into rather standard enclosures you may be disappointed…
Tronsmart Vega S89
The first one is Vega S89. It will be sold on Geekbuying, and has with the following specifications:
- SoC – AMLogic S802 quad core ARM Cortex A9r4 at 2.0GHz with ARM Mali-450MP6 GPU
- System Memory – 2G DDR3
- Storage – 16 GB NAND Flash + micro SD card slot up to 64GB
- Video Output – HDMI 1.4b up to 4K2K (2160p = 3840×2160), and AV
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
- USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports + micro USB OTG
- Audio Output – HDMI, AV, optical S/PDIF
- Misc – IR Sensor, Power LED, power button, and recovery/update switch (via hole)
This hockey puck media player will come with a 5V/2A power adapter, an HDMI cable, and USB cable, and a user’s manual. It will run Android 4.4 Kitkat with stock home screen, support OTA function, Miracast, and DLNA. If 4K support is important to you, please note that it’s using HDMI 1.4b which limits the frame rate to 30 fps in UHD resolution. You’d need HDMI 2.0 for 2160p60 support. Price and retail availability is unknown at this point, but Geekbuying will received samples some time next week. You can check Tronsmart Vega S89 page for more pictures.
Eny Technology ES8
ES8 media player has similar specifications:
- SoC – AMLogic S802 quad core ARM Cortex A9r4 @ 2.0GHz with ARM Mali-450MP6 GPU @ 600 MHz
- System Memory – 2GB DDR3 @ up to 1600 MHz
- Storage – 8GB / 16 GB NAND Flash + micro SD card slot up to 64GB
- Video Output – HDMI 1.4b up to 4K2K (2160p = 3840×2160), AV
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
- USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports
- Audio Output – HDMI, AV, optical S/PDIF
ES8 will be available with either 8 or 16 GB, and miss Bluetooth support and a micro USB port found in Tronsmart Vega S89. Price and availability are not available either. You can check Eny Technology ES8 page for a few more 3D renderings. The company sells the device on Alibaba.
The Antutu scores on an early sample of Geniatech ATV1800 was 25,000, and it goes up to over 30,000 on M802 based tablets such as Onda V975m. Rockchip RK3188 based devices only get around 18,000 in Antutu. The higher score is due to a new revision of Cortex A9 core (revision 4) that allows M802/S802 to reach 2 GHz, a much faster 6+2 core GPU, and more memory bandwidth. Another advantage with AMLogic SoCs is that XBMC support is likely to be better than for Rockchip or other silicon vendors’ ARM SoCs.
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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Yes about time, been waiting so long for something better from Amlogic, was thinking it would be much later in the year we see anything.
Will these be able to 24p?
What are the prospects for decent Linux support for these chips/boxes? 🙂
@onebir
In theory yes. In practice it looks like the developer community around AMLogic is mostly interested in XBMC Linux, and I can’t remember having seen anybody run a full desktop OS.
Can’t wait for XBMC to get full Quad HD / 4K support in skins.
XBMC already supports Quad HD / 4K video playback using VAAPI and VDPAU on Linux, but there is not yet support for Quad HD / 4K skin resolutions in XBMC’s GUI engine, so for now you would have to only upscale 1080p skins to Quad HD / 4K resolution.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
I don’t have any problem with debian, ubuntu
some frameworks as Qt4 and Qt5 with direct framebuffer access don’t have problems.
Main problem is Mali GPU driver that isn’t really good with X.Org (same problem as RockChip and any other)
And Amlogic VPU driver is pretty much push data to this pipe and you will see result result on screen (no OpenMAX,..)
And that is reason why they get 4K without any problem (zero memory copy)
But latest kernel(for new SoC) and other integration stuff aren’t open source 🙁
classic chines SOC company.
@m][sko
In case you have instructions / documentation that can be made available publicly, I could write a post about Debian / Ubuntu on AML8726-MX.
This must be close to 60% of a Core i3 in processing power, if RK3188 with 18000 Antutu score is around 1/3 as powerful…
Can anyone tell me what is the best current Android box/stick that I should buy?
Should I wait for the Tronsmart Vega S89?
Mostly looking for something that can play 720p (at least) or 1080p really smoothly, via wifi if possible.
Thanks
@Marc Products based on new SoC often have problems during the first few months, but firmware improves overtime. I’d guess you’ll be able to buy Veg S89 in March, and receive it in April. For video playback many people complained about frame skip issue in RK3188, although there are some fixes in some of the ROMs, but not all… AMLogic AML8726-MX products are usually pretty good at video playback, but 1080p videos maybe not always play smoothly via Wi-Fi. It depends on your setup at home, and the bitrate of the video files you use. In my place, I can… Read more »
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
I took debian wheezy image from somewhere I think from beaglebone
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian
that you can easily burn on sd-card with fat(for kernel) + ext4 partitions (rootfs + kernel modules)
And I build kernel from amlogic sources.
And with standard kernel bootcmd you can point kernel to right partition with rootfs
this is pretty standard
linaro tools do it same way but with nice scripts that install kernel + modules + GPU drivers 🙂
Eny S8 costs $103.79, lower price than I expected…
http://shrsl.com/?~55uw
@m][sko @CNX It’d be great if there were some tutorials &/ readymade images available to encourage people to develop Linux on these processors, given how powerful they are. (I guess though maybe they’re only ahead at the moment by releasing a quad core processor so late compared to other companies?)
I more trust Eny Technology XBMC product.
they have experience on Amlogic Single M3, Dual Core MX. Then M8 ,
Keep waiting for EnyBox
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
And you can now buy Vega S89 for $120 – http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Tronsmart-Vega-S89-Amlogic-S802-2-0GHz-Quad-Core-Android-TV-BOX-2G-16G-Dual-Band-WIFI-2-4G-5G-Bluetooth4-0-XBMC—Black-324676.html
S802 devices will all start to ship at the end of March.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
Who manufacture for S89?
Do you have selling link for ES8 or EM8 ?
I would have bought this but I can’t help thinking about the Allwinner A80 which is much more powerful and there’s also the good Allwinner community support.
Since I don’t care about the GPU the A80 is just fine for server duties.
And here’s another one with a more standard case called M8. 2G RAM / 8 Gb Flash $104 – http://www.geekbuying.com/item/M8-Android-TV-BOX-Amlogic-S802-2G-8G-XBMC-USB-2-0-Android-4-3-Android-4-4-KitKat-OS-Black-324690.html
The two devices are listed now at Aliexpress starting at about 100$, search “Amlogic S802”.
to cnx
free kernel on amlogic website
it is kernel 3.10.10 🙂
thx amlogic
thx you
they also release gpu drivers and uboot
Some benchmark results (Antutu, passmark, 3dmark, vellamo…) on M802 tablet. Clocked @ 1.6 GHz only.
Antutu score is 21800, pretty decent, especially for high res display. I suppose it should be similar in S802 Android TV boxes.
http://androidpc.es/blog/2014/03/10/analisis-tablet-onda-v975m-con-soc-quad-core-amlogic-m802/4/
Here’s another one Ronben MP-40. No price yet. http://www.ronben.com/product/4K-Media-Player-Android.htm
first clone guys
http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/amlgoic-8726-M8-quad-core-android_1662943364.html
he he its the same one
i had a chat with the guys from your link cnx and they said next week they will inform me about selling mp-40 and that the price was $150USD which i think is over kill no way will i buy this box for that price when you dont know what kind of support they offer. also they recon in may they will have a allwinner octa core tv box
GIEC X6 4K is another one – http://androidpc.es/blog/2014/03/19/giec-x6-4k-un-tv-box-con-el-nuevo-soc-amlogic-s802-quad-core/
I don’t understand audio pass trough support in SOC
S802= NO dispone de HDMI pass through para audio
S802D =SOLO sonido Dolby, NO tiene soporte DTS
S802DD (S802-H)= Soporta audio pass through DTS y Dolby
I hope that this is pretty much software problem, if anybody implement it or not 🙂
@m][sko
It’s because of Dolby/DTS… If you want pass-through you have to pay up. Not sure if this hard coded in the SoC (e.g. bootROM), or if it is just the firmware, or a combination of both.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
If you want to pass-through you need to pay
If you want to decoder you need to pay too.
That is business model aaaaaaaa:)
I really don’t think that intel, amd, raspberry pi, pay for pass-through
But you maybe right as packing DTS and Dolby to HDMI is really algorithm that cost money and it is standardise .
There’s also Measy B4A 4K which looks like Tronsmart Vega – http://androidpc.es/blog/2014/03/25/measy-b4a-4k-el-tv-box-con-soc-amlogic-s802-de-measy/
Until a unit with the S802-H chipset is available, I will not be buying.
I like the design of the eny M8 and S8, not so keen on the round s89 vega.
With a decent wifi chipset in the M8 and bluetooth(same as in the Trosmart) it has almost everything Icould wish for, but until I have seen a review and confirmed DD+DTS passthrough I will be holding off on buying.
Hopefully with the next generation of kit, we will get proper 4k with HDMI2.0, gigabit LAN and USB 3 connections.
I would pay $250 for a device like that.
A new Amlogic M8 box with metallic case:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2014-NEW-Amlogic-S802-Quad-Core-Android-4-4-Smart-TV-Box-2G-8G-Mali450-GPU/1882994894.html
And another one called QYS S802 with a case made of aluminum metal & acrylic (Similar to IteadStudio IBOX) – http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1pcs-android-tv-box-quad-core-amlogic-s802-Cortex-A9-Quad-core-DDR3-2G-8G-Flash/1889839646.html
Another box called MXIII for $90:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Amlogic-Quad-Core-S802-Android-TV-BOX-4K-VIDEO-and-Dual-Wifi-XBMC-Smart-Android-TV/1962911540.html
Giec R11 for $100:
http://www.dx.com/p/giec-r11-quad-core-android-4-4-2-google-tv-player-w-1gb-ram-8gb-rom-wi-fi-dolby-dts-golden-331042#.U9oAoWM0-vg
$80 from the usually somewhat overpriced Chinavasion: https://www.chinavasion.com/china/wholesale/Android_Media_Players/Android_TV_Box/4K_Android_4.4_Smart_TV_Box_-_1.6GHz_Quad_Core_CPU_2GB_RAM_8GB_Internal_Memory/
$74:
http://www.banggood.com/S802-Amlogic-Android-Smart-Player-Quad-Core-Memory-8G-TV-Box-p-923207.html