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June 5, 2016June 27, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 35 Comments

Beelink BT7 Review – Windows 10 mini PC Based on Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Processor

Beelink BT7 mini PC powered by Intel Atom x7-Z8700 processor offers an interesting alternative to the fanless Voyo V3 mini PC, as it is actively cooled by a small fan, supports (Gigabit) Ethernet, and comes with three full USB 3.0 ports. There are three versions with either 64, 128 (64+64) or 320 (64+256) GB stortage, and I got Beelink BT7 128GB to play with. Since I’ve already checkout the hardware, I’ll focus on the performance and stability of the device on Windows 10 in the second part of the review. Setup and System Information I placed the mini PC on my desk, made use of the three USB 3.0 ports with a USB keyboard, a USB mouse, and a Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive, and connected Ethernet, HDMI and the power cable. However, if you happen to own a TV or monitor that supports VESA mounts, you can use the […]

May 31, 2016May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Pine A64 Board Quick Start Guide & Benchmarks with Android 5.1

Pine A64 is one of the development boards with the best cost/performance ratio, as it sells as low as $15 + shipping. I received Pine A64+ board with 2GB RAM at the end of last month, and decided to start playing with Android, as Linux distributions such as Longsleep Ubuntu appear to require a little more work. So in this post, I’ll report my experience with installing and running Android 5.1 on the board, and share some Android benchmark results. Pine A64 Board Pictures You’ll receive the board in cardboard package with Pine64 branding. You can check which version of the board you’ve been sent on the side of the package: PA64512 (512 MB RAM), PA641GB (1GB RAM), or PA642GB (2GB RAM). The top of the board has been photographed often but here it is again. I’ve been sent the 2GB version without wireless module. The bottom of the board […]

April 21, 2016 by Karl Johnson - 5 Comments

Matricom G-Box Q2 Android TV Box Review

Another guest review from Karl, this time, with Matricom G-Box Q2 Android 5.1 TV box based on Amlogic S812 processor. First Impressions Today I will be reviewing the G-Box Q2 by Matricom. This is a follow up device to the popular G-Box Q. The first day I plugged it in and did some basic first impressions I thought it was laggy…..but after using it and setting up the way I am accustomed to using it…I found it very fast and responsive. From the time power is applied to launcher is loaded is about 33 seconds. The software seems solid and I ran into only minor issues. It got very respectable scores between 38000 and 42000 on Antutu. The box does have a lot of software that I am not a fan of, but these can be easily uninstalled. The launcher that comes with it is ok but I prefer a […]

April 20, 2016April 20, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Android and Linux Benchmarks on MiQi Development Board

MiQi is an upcoming low cost development board powered by Rockchip RK3288 SoC that will sell for $35 with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage, and $69 for the version with a 2GB / 32GB combination. Since Rockchip RK3288 was launched in 2014, most available benchmarks were made on Android 4.4, and since MiQi is the first low cost board based on the processor, other RK3288 based board such as FireFly have not been that popular. So I’ve decided to run updated benchmarks in MiQi both in Android 5.1 and Linux (Lubuntu 14.04), which was easy since a dual boot image is pre-installed. But since I received an early sample without heatsink, I found a spare heatsink added some thermal paste and placed it on top of the processor and partially on RAM and eMMC flash. MiQi Board Android 5.1 Benchmarks I ran Antutu both using 1080p60 and 2160p30 video output, […]

April 12, 2016April 14, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 41 Comments

Xiaomi Mi Box 3 Enhanced / Pro (Mediatek MT8693) Benchmarks and System Info

Xiaomi Mi Box 3 Enhanced is the first TV Box I’ve tested with a processor featuring ARM Cortex A72 cores, so I’m very eager to see how its performs, and I’m expecting it to be quite faster than Rockchip RK3288, but still not quite matching Nvidia Tegra X1 processor found in Nvidia Shield Android TV box. But first let’s check the system information with CPU-Z app. First, it looks like CPU-Z does not detect big.LITTLE processor very well, as it detect a six core ARM Cortex-A72, instead of a six core processor with two Cortex A72, and four Cortex A53 cores. The clock speed ranges between 507 MHz and 1.57 GHz, but that’s likely the number for the Cortex A53 core, as the marketing materials report the Cortex A53 cores run at up to 1.6 GHz, and the Cortex A72 cores up to 2.0 GHz. Antutu info reports the frequency […]

April 11, 2016April 11, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Zidoo X1 II 4K Android TV Box (Rockchip RK3229) Review

After skipping MXQ-4K TV box review due to severe issues with video playback, Zidoo X1 II is actually the first device powered by Rockchip RK3229 processor that I’ve fully tested. I’ve already taken pictures of the box, and opened it up to check the board in Zidoo X1 II unboxing and teardown post, and confirmed 4K videos could play pretty well from my USB hard drive using Zidoo Media Center after disabling Media Scanner process. So today, I’ll review other parts of the firmware, as well as video playback with ZDMC 16.0, Zidoo’s fork of Kodi 16.0. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions The device only has two USB ports, and I used one for a USB hard drive, and the other for RF dongles for MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse, a USB keyboard, and the RF dongle for Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad via a USB hub. I also […]

April 5, 2016April 5, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Review of U4 Quad Hybrid Android Set-top box with DVB-T2/C and DVB-S2 Tuner

U4 Quad Hybrid is an Android 4.4 satellite, cable and terrestrial TV receiver powered by HiSilicon Hi3796M V100 quad core Cortex A7 supporting video decoding for H.264 and H.265 up to 4K @ 30 Hz. I’ve already taken a few pictures of the device and the board and tuner, shown how to easily configure another device or computer to stream live TV from this Android TV box, so today, I’ll write more about the Android and DVB parts both in terms of features and performance in the full review. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions I’ve started by connecting USB peripherals and cables: USB 3.0 hard drive to USB 3.0 port, USB keyboard, and RF dongles for MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse and Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad, as well as Ethernet and HDMI cables, and the terrestrial and satellite antenna cables. The DVB-T2 connector is using an F-connector, so […]

March 29, 2016April 16, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Intel Core m3 Skylake Compute Stick Benchmarked, Tested with Ubuntu 16.04 and Chromium OS

Intel unveiled five new Compute Sticks for 2016, with two Cherry Trail models, and three Skylake Core M models namely STK2M3W64CC and STK2MV64CC based on Intel Core m3-6Y30 processor, as well as STK2MV64CC with a more powerful Core m5-6Y57 vPRO processor. Ian Morrison (Linuxium) managed to get an early sample of STK2M3W64CC running Windows 10 on 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, and posted some benchmarks, as well as results of his experimentations with Ubuntu and Chrome OS in the Intel section of G+ MINI PCs community and his own website. He started by running some standard benchmarks in Windows 10 including CrystalDiskMark (storage performance), Passmark8, and 3DMark, and while the storage performance is underwhelming, the processor is clearly and noticeably faster than Braswell, and Cherry Trail processors in terms of CPU and GPU performance based on comparisons with Tronsmart Ara X5 (x5-Z8300), Kangaroo Mobile Desktop (x5-Z8500), Voyo V3 (x7-Z8700), and […]