giveaway News - Page 12 of 15 - CNX Software

November 5, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 243 Comments

Giveaway Week – A80 Optimusboard Development Board

Together with Rockchip RK3288, Allwinner A80 is one of the most powerful Chinese ARM processors for mini PCs or development board, and today I’m starting a giveaway for A80 OptimusBoard development board based on Allwinner octa core big.LITTLE processor. When I got the board last year, it was indeed powerful as shown in benchmarks. But unfortunately after Allwinner provided me with a new firmware supposed to fix some NTFS write performance issues, I quickly discovered it also had some stability issues whose reasons were not clear, and Merrii Technology support is not very good to say the least, at least for hobbyists, and even now there’s no operating system for download on the board page. Luckily PcDuino Arches (previously known as PCDuino8) is basically the same, and you can download some Lubuntu & Android images on Linksprite website instead. The firmware has not been updated since 2014 however. To enter […]

November 4, 2015November 6, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 203 Comments

Giveaway Week – M-195 Android TV Box

The third TV box of this giveaway week is a one year old device based on Realtek RTD1195 dual core Cortex A7 processor with a Mali-400MP2. However, beside relatively weak CPU and GPU, M-195 Android TV box features some fast interfaces like USB 3.0, and Gigabit Ethernet, as well as 4K video decoding and output, HDMI audio pass-through up to 7.1 channels, an HDMI input port, and H.265 video codec support. While I found out the device was quite slow at times during the review, video playback quite good using XBMC with an external player, and USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet interface provides a boost, albeit limited, compared to other devices with only USB 2.0 and Fast Ethernet. At the time of review, 7.1 audio pass-through did not work, nor SAMBA in XBMC (now Kodi), and HDMI input was not very useful, but M-195 has got several firmware updates, including […]

November 3, 2015November 5, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 232 Comments

Giveaway Week – ARNU Box Mach Q Pure Linux Media Player

The second device for this giveaway week is ARNU Box Mach Q TV box that runs Kodi 15.2 on an Amlogic S805 quad core processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB flash, the little brother of ARNU Box Mach 10 powered by the more powerful Amlogic S812 processor. Due to lack of time I did not review ARNU Box Mach Q, but I did review ARNU Box Mach 10, which is loaded with a similar firmware based on Linux based EmBER OS. Video playback was very good with Kodi 15.2 with automatic frame rate switching support, working audio pass-through via S/PDIF, but HDMI audio pass-through did not work with my AV receiver. Since it’s the same firmware base, I fully expect the same good video experience on ARNU Box Mach Q minus support for 4K videos. You can find more pictures on ARNU Box Mach Q unboxing and teardown post. To […]

November 2, 2015November 4, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 262 Comments

Giveaway Week – Zidoo X6 Pro Android TV Box

Time for another giveaway week that will take place on November 2 – 8, with one device or board given away per day. The first device is Zidoo X6 Pro TV box powered by Rockchip RK3368 octa core SoC with 2GB RAM and 16GB Flash. Zidoo X6 Pro review showed a capable device, and pretty good, although not perfect yet, Kodi 15.1 implementation, however the device tends to overheat pretty quickly leading to very poor performance at times. So the company will have to work on improving thermal management in their firmware, beside fixing a few other bugs. I received two Zidoo X6 Pro samples due to miscommunication: one from Zidoo directly which I used for the review, one from GeekBuying which I’m giving away today, and is basically new, although I’ve quickly tried it to make sure it boots. You can find more pictures on Zidoo X6 Pro unboxing […]

July 30, 2015July 30, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

200 EZCast LAN & Music Free Samples Up for Grab

EZCast is a technology that allows screen mirroring and expansion over WiFi or Ethernet, and based on Action Micro SoCs. The products also usually include Miracast, AirPlay, and DLNA support, and work with Android and iOS devices, as well as Windows and Mac OS computers. The company behind the products has now launched a giveaway campaign where it plans to giveaway 100 EZCast LAN (aka Tronsmart T3000) and 100 EZCast music devices until August 20th. You’ll need a Facebook or Google+ account to participate: Facebook entry: Like EZCast page Share the giveaway announcement from EZCast page on your Facebook timeline (publicly) Google+ entry: Join EZCast Google+ Community Share the giveaway announced from the EZCast Google+ community (currently pinned at the top of the community) Winners will be selected randomly each day, with their name posted on G+ or Facebook. Good luck. Thanks to VMG for the tip. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc […]

June 8, 2015June 8, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

$59 Zidoo X1 Android TV Box Powered by Allwinner H3 SoC

Allwinner H3 based Android TV boxes have been selling for a few months for $80 or less, and Draco H3 HDMI TV stick even goes for just $35. Zidoo has been working on their own Allwinner H3 platform called Zidoo X1 for a little while, and they are about to launch it for $59 (MSRP). Zidoo X1 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core ARM Cortex A7 @ 1.5GHz with quad core Mali-400MP2 @ 600 MHz System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – 8 GB NAND flash (16GB in option) + micro SD slot up to 32GB Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi Video Output – HDMI up to 4K2K @ 30Hz, AV Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF Video Codec – H.265/HEVC up to 4K30, 1080p60 decoding for H.264, VP8, MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4, H.263. WMV9, VC1, etc… USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Misc – […]

March 18, 2015March 18, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Giveaway Week Winners Announced (March 2015)

The latest Giveaway week has come to an end, and I’m just coming back from the post office, having sent a few Android based TV boxes, a Linux development board, and one wireless audio streamer to the lucky winners. I’ve already announced winners daily in the comment section of each contest, but here’s the list again with the device, winners’ nickname and their country of residence: Nagrace HPH NT-V6 – Rizwan, Canada Vidon Box – bazsi, Romania RipplTV – driv3l, USA Freescale SABRE Lite – biasio95, Italy Vidon.me AV200 – cityF, Portugal HD18T – Sean, Canada SoundMate WM201 – Orel, France So people from Canada got lucky, but still no winner from Asia or Oceania. The parcel have been send via registered Small Packet Airmail, all the winners should receive them in a few weeks, and certainly I hope they’ll have fun enjoy with their devices. If you haven’t won […]

March 15, 2015March 17, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 114 Comments

Giveaway Week – SoundMate WM201 Wireless Audio Streamer

All good things must come to an end, and this is the last day of Giveaway Week on CNX Software with Uyesee SoundMate WM201 wireless audio streamer that adds Wi-Fi connectivity to your speakers or old AV receiver, so that you can stream audio via EZMusic or a DLNA app in Android, iOS or, desktop computers. If you’ve ever used an EZCast dongle, the app looks just the same except it’s limited to audio streaming. I’ve tried it with an optical audio cable connected to the S/PDIF input of the device and Onkyo TX-NR636 AV receiver. It worked pretty well, as long as your device is in the same room, but if you move to another room, the connection become unreliable, and audio may cut from time to time. You can read SoundMate WM201 review for details. imply leave a comment below to enter the draw, with other rules as […]