Beelink GT1 Mini TV Box powered by Amlogic S905X2 was launched with Android 8.1 in October 2018, and the company informed us they have an upcoming upgrade, the Beelink GT1 Mini 2, with the same form factor by an upgraded Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor.
GT1 Mini 2 is not the first TV box announced with S905X3, as we previously covered Elebao X3 that was supposed to launch at the end of May. So there clearly has been delays, but this time the launch should be closer as Beelink also shared benchmarks and system information from Android 9.0.
Beelink GT1 Mini 2
Beelink GT1 Mini 2 preliminary specifications:
- SoC – Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.9 GHz with Arm Mali-G31MP2 GPU
- System Memory – 4GB DDR4 RAM
- Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, Micro SD slot
- Video & Audio Output
- HDMI 2.1 up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDCP 2.2, 3D, ALLM (Auto low latency mode) support
- 3.5mm AV jack for composite video (480i/576i) and stereo audio
- Video Playback
- 10-bit H.265 up to 4K @ 60fps, VP9 Profile-2 up to 4K @ 60fps, AVS2-P2 up to 4K @ 60fps, H.264/AVC up to 4K @ 30fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p60, MPEG-4 ASP up to 1080p60 (ISO-14496), etc..
- HDR – Dolby Vision optional, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG, and PRIME HDR processing
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.0
- USB – 1x USB 3.0 port, 1x USB 2.0 port
- Misc – Digital LED display on front panel, upgrade pinhole
- Power Supply – 5V/2A
- Dimensions – 77 x 77 x 17mm
- Weight – 125 grams
The device runs Android 9.0, and ships with a voice remote control, an HDMI cable, and a power adapter for the US, EU, or UK. Pricing has not been revealed yet, and it’s still unclear when it will launch exactly
GT1 mini 2 / Amlogic S905X3 Benchmarks and System Info
But let’s see what we can learn from some of the screenshot provided by the company.
I combined two CPU-Z screenshots above to have a quick overview. We can see the system reports the Cortex-A55 cores can be clocked between 100 MHz and 1.91 GHz. The operating system is the latest Android 9 with Linux 4.9.113, but security is still an afterthought in TV boxes with the security patch level dated from nearly one year ago. The board name is franklin as shown in the build ID string, and confirmed by AIDA64.
Beelink GT 1 Mini 2 got 63,573 points in Antutu, and Beelink compared it to X96 Max (S905X2) TV box which got 61,835 points, a difference that’s quite lower than I would have expected since Arm claimed “up to twice the performance” over Cortex-A53 when it announced the new Cortex-A55 core in 2017. At the time, we could see the new core achieved this extra level of performance in memcpy benchmarks, while other benchmarks would see a 14% to 38% boost. However, the Antutu benchmark we have here only shows a 3% improvement that’s insignificant.
With 3DMark’s Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL ES 3.1 we’ve got a slight improvement with the S905X3 scoring 342 points against 312 points for the S905X2 model. The GPU should be the same so maybe the ~9% performance improvement is due to a higher GPU clock.
Beelink explained GT1 Mini 2 will replace GT1 Mini, so maybe the price will be a bit lower since performance and other features are almost the same. [Update: GT1 Mini 2 is now sold on GearBest for $79.99 with 4GB RAM, 64GB storage. See pinned comment below]
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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