Unboxing and Teardown of Ugoos UT4 Android TV Box with a Cooling Fan

Most Android TV box ship with simple heatsink, which may lead to performance degradation due to throttling if you push your device a little too hard, and Ugoos UT3s was one of the few Android TV boxes to feature a fan. The company now have a new model model with Ugoos UT4 powered by Rockchip RK3368 octa-core processor, and they’ve sent me an early sample for review. Today, I’ll start by taking pictures of the device, and taking it apart to check the hardware and how cooling is implemented, before reviewed the unit in a few weeks.

Ugoos UT4 specifications

Before this, since I’ve only shortly mention Ugoos UT4 in Rockchip RK3368 TV boxes list, I’ll go through the specifications:

SoC – Rockchip RK3368 octa core Cortex A53 processor with PowerVR G6110 GPU up to 700 MHz
System Memory – 2GB DDR3
Storage – 16GB eMMC + micro SD slot up to 32GB
Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60Hz
Audio Output – HDMI, optical S/PDIF, 3.5mm headphone jack
Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (AP6335 module), Bluetooth 4.0
USB – 4x USB 2.0 ports (including 1x OTG)
Misc – Power button, recovery pinhole, IR receiver
Power Supply – 5V/3A
Dimensions – 116 x 115 x 22 mm

Ugoos UT4 runs Android 5.1.1 like all other RK3368 devices.

Ugoos UT4 Unboxing

I received the device in its retail package, but they had to cover “Quad core” with “Octa core”. This should probably be fixed once the device ships to end users.

A 5V/3A power supply, a flat HDMI cable (Ugoos branded), an high gain WiFi antenna, a short USB cable (for OTG), an IR remote control, and a user’s manual in English are included with the box. The remote looks exactly the same as the one included with GeekBox replacing blue keys by orange ones, and a different branding.

The devices looks to be made of ABS plastic. One of the side has the WiFi antenna connector, some ventilation holes, and a power button, with the others featuring a 3.5mm AV output hack, a recovery pin hole, a micro SD slot, and two USB ports, including one supporting OTG. The rear panel comes with Gigabit Ethernet, two more USB ports, HDMI 2..0 output, optical S/PDIF and the power jack.

You can also to watch the unboxing video.

Ugoos UT4 Teardown

I had to loosen four screw on the bottom of the case to open UT4. It was easy, and there are no easily breakable clips holding the two plastic parts together.

The board is called XZH-TV13_V1R2, and the bottom of the board mostly includes two Samsung K4B4G1646Q-HYK0 DDR3L chips (2x 512MB). We have also find an unused display or camera connector on the bottom of the board, as well as a MAC Address stating with 98:00:00 that does not look up to any company.

You can then easily take the board out as no other screws are holding it in place.

I had not read about the device in details before taking it apart so I was quite surprised to find a fan inside the device. There’s also a small battery for the RTC on top of what must be the WiFi module. The fan, heatsink and battery are all glued to the board, so I did not tried to remove or displace them before the review. Mnova MS00731NL transformer confirms Gigabit Ethernet is implemented in the device, Samsung KLMAG2WEMB-B031 eMMC 5.0 flash provides internal storage with 170MB/s and 11 MB/s theoretical read and write speeds, and USB hub chip is also included.

If you are interested in hacking the board, two I2C and two UART connector footprint can be found on the side of the board.

I’d like to thanks Ugoos for providing a sample for review. If you are a distributor, and are interested in buying in quantity, you may find out more and/or contact the company via Ugoos UT4 product page. I could not find the device listed on the usual e-retailers, but for reference Ugoos UT3s (2GB/16GB) with is now sold for $119 shipped, so I’d expect UT4 to be slightly cheaper. [Update: Ugoos UT4 sells for $103.90 on Ugoos Aliexpress store]

Update 2: The review is now up @ Ugoos UT4 Android 5.1 TV Box Review.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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.