Testing Category - Page 105 of 169 - CNX Software

July 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 40 Comments

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 […]

July 1, 2016July 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Stress Testing Windows mini PCs with OCCT Overclock Checking Tool

I’m mostly a Linux user, but the marketplace has chosen Windows 10 as its preferred operating systems for mini PCs, so I’ve been reviewing fanless (or not) mini PCs running Windows 10 for around two years since Intel decided to provide low cost and low power processors. I normally run some benchmarks such as PCMark 8 or 3DMark, as well as typical user tasks, while monitoring CPU temperature and throttling using HWInfo64 utility, but those benchmarks are not really pushing the device to its limits. However, I’ve just learned out about OCCT “Overclock Checking Tool” that’s just doing that, and installed OCCT 4.4.2 on Vorke V1 to check it out. The tool has four taps: CPU: OCCT, CPU: Linpack, GPU: 3D, and Power Supply to stress test different part of the system. I just let it run for over 3 hours after pressing the ON buttons, and you can see […]

June 30, 2016June 30, 2016 by Ray - 5 Comments

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: […]

June 29, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Improve YouTube Video Playback on Low Power Intel mini PCs by Disabling VP9 Support in Chrome or Firefox

I’ve been reviewing several Intel Bay Trail, Cherry Trail, and Braswell mini PCs in the last year or so, and I always end up recommending Microsoft Edge browser over Firefox or Chrome for people wanting to watch YouTube videos, as the last two browsers always drop many frames with the video stuttering regularly. However I noticed that while Edge is playing MP4/AVC (H.264) video, the other two browser would normally stream WebM/VP9 videos, and it could be the cause of the problem as H.264 can be hardware accelerated, but VP9 not, and the low power processor might not quite powerful enough to handle 1080p VP9 video decoding smoothly. So I investigated the issues with Vorke V1 mini PC powered by an Intel Celeron J3160 processor (6W TDP) with the three browsers by first checking enabled codecs in YouTube HTML5 page. Microsoft Edge has both VP8 and VP9 disabled When I […]

June 27, 2016July 5, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Review of Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Activity Tracker

I’ve been using Xiaomi Mi Band 2 for a little over two weeks now, so I’m not ready to report my findings, and the results are mixed. If you are interesting in checking out the accessories, and physical aspect of the watch, feel free to read Xiaomi Mi Band 2 unboxing post first. Since the new model adds an OLED display, let’s first see what options it has to offer. The display is off by default, and pressing the capacitive touch button (please note that it’s not a real physical button, so it won’t work with most gloves for example) will turn on the display for 5 seconds. You can keep pressing to go through time, step count, distance, calories burnt, heart rate monitor, and battery level. Except for time, there’s a icon shown before display the actual value. If you find that the display does not look clear, that’s […]

June 25, 2016June 26, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Review of PocketCHIP Hackable Handheld Linux Computer

It’s not that easy to describe PocketC.H.I.P in a couple of words, as it’s so versatile. It’s a Debian based portable Linux computer with a resistive touchscreen and battery, but also a retro gaming console thanks to PICO-8, as well as a hardware development platform for IoT application with expansion header providing access to I/Os including GPIOs, I2C, SPI, UART…, and WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Furthermore you can easily dismantle the device, in order to use the CHIP board, based on Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor, for a different project. So when Next Thing asked me if I was interested in reviewing Pocket CHIP, I was pretty excited, but when I received it, I scratched my head as there are so many ways to review the item, and it works out of the box with the firmware pre-loaded inside the internal flash, so a getting starting guide would have been […]

June 24, 2016June 24, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Does Amlogic S905X Support USB 3.0?

Despite Amlogic roadmap claiming none of the upcoming Amlogic TV box SoCs will support USB 3.0, I’ve been informed that Amlogic S905X might already support USB 3.0. So I had a check with NEXBOX A5 TV box. First we can see dwc3 (DesignWare USB3) module is loaded:

lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
dwc3                   17981  0 
mali                  233433  36

lsmod

Module Size Used by

dwc3 17981 0

mali 233433 36

then this happens when I connect a USB 3.0 hard drive or flash drive:

[ 4812.378262@0] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 7 using xhci-hcd
[ 4812.798557@0] usb-storage 1-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 4812.801416@0] scsi1 : usb-storage 1-2:1.0

[ 4812.378262@0] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 7 using xhci-hcd

[ 4812.798557@0] usb-storage 1-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected

[ 4812.801416@0] scsi1 : usb-storage 1-2:1.0

The important point here is xhci, which stands for “eXtensible Host Controller Interface” and supports USB 1.x to USB 3.x devices. The next step is to check performance, but since S905X is running Android 6.0, I went through permission issues with both A1SD bench and Disk Speed apps, so I reverted to using dd to read a large file to /dev/null. Result with USB 3.0 hard drive:

dd if=Sintel-Bluray.iso of=/dev/null bs=1024*1024*32                           
47+1 records in
47+1 records out
1593180160 bytes transferred in 42.681 secs (37327620 bytes/sec)

dd if=Sintel-Bluray.iso of=/dev/null bs=1024*1024*32

47+1 records in

47+1 records out

1593180160 bytes transferred in 42.681 secs (37327620 bytes/sec)

That’s about 35.6 MB/s, which would be an excellent USB 2.0 transfer rate, but not quite USB 3.0 material, […]

June 21, 2016January 16, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

WeTek Hub TV Box Unboxing and Teardown

WeTek Hub is the latest TV box by WeTek running Android 5.1 or OpenELEC, with support for Widewine Level 1 allowing Netflix HD in Android as well as Microsoft Playready DRM, and featuring Amlogic S905-H Rev. C processor that fixes video playback issues on some 4K H.265 DVB streams, and includes Dolby and DTS licenses. The company has now sent me a unit for review, and I’ll check the hardware first before reviewing the TV box in a separate post. WeTek Hub Unboxing The device comes in a blue and black retail package showing some of the key features including WiFi, Dolby, DTS, HDMI, and Bluetooth support. The QR Code on the package redirects to http://www.wetek.com/qr/201603, which just looks like WeTek main page. The top cover of the package can slide to reveal more small boxes with the device and accessories. The device ships with a basic IR remote control […]