Reviews - Page 107 of 127 - CNX Software

March 20, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Cubieboard4 (CC-A80) Unboxing and Getting Started Guide

A few samples of Cubieboard4 board may have been available in China in October 2014, but Cubietech only officially launched their Allwinner A80 development board about ten days ago, and you can buy it for $125 + shipping on sites like R0ck.me, Eleduino, Seeed Studio, and many other distributors. The company decided to send a sample for evaluation, and today I’ll start with a post showing some pictures of the kit, and explaining how to get started with assembly and first boot. Cubieboard 4 Pictures I received the board within two days after the company told me they would send a sample, as they used DHL. I also had to pay a bit of import tax and DHL’s handling fee. There should be CC-A80 box with the board and accessories, a white box for the power supply, and a power cord. There’s quite a few items to play with… The […]

March 16, 2015March 17, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Iocean M6752 Octa-core Cortex A53 Android Smartphone Unboxing, First Boot, and Benchmarks

I’m quite interested in testing 64-bit ARM platform, but since mini PCs and development boards are not quite there yet, GearBest give me the opportunity to check out Iocean M6752 smartphone based on Mediatek MT6752 Octa core ARM Cortex 53 processor with 3GB RAM, 16GB flash, but running Antutu 4.4.4 (32-bit). Today, I’ll provide the complete specifications of the phone, take a few pictures, and run CPU-Z and Antutu benchmark, before writing a full review in one week or so. Iocean M6752 specifications The smartphone may have multiple versions with up 16 or 32GB storage, and 1, 2 or 3 GB RAM, but the one I received has the following specifications: SoC – Mediatek MT6752 Octa-core 64-bit ARM Cortex A53 processor @ 1.7 GHz, with ARM Mali-T760 MP2 GPU and H.265 UHD capable video processing unit. System Memory – 3GB RAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC + micro SD slot […]

March 7, 2015February 1, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Sigrok and Pulseview in Ubuntu 14.04 with UNI-T UT61E Digital Multimeter

A couple of months ago, I received a new digital multimeter UNI-T UT61E that can send data to a computer via a serial cable, and allows you draw some nice charts. I’ve already done that in Windows 7 with the provided tools, and reported on the power consumption of some Chinese Android TV boxes. However, since I use Ubuntu 14.04 as my main operating system, Linux based tools would be more convenient, and open source sigrok-cli command line client and its graphical interface pulseview are supposed to support UT61E DMM, so I had to give it a try. A Quick Look at UNI-T UT61 Digital Multimeter Before going into Sigrok, I’ll quickly show what the multimeter received from DealExtreme . It took longer than expected to ship because of of included 9V battery, and at the first shipping attempt it was returned to DX, but after 8 weeks or so, […]

February 20, 2015March 20, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

SoundMate WM201 Wi-Fi Music Streamer (EZMusic) Review

Last year I reviewed SoundMate M2 Wi-Fi audio streamer, and Uyesee has sent me a sample of their new SoundMate WM201 powered by Actions Semi AM8253, and based on EZCast app for audio calld EZMusic (EZCast Music). SoundMate WM201 Unboxing Pictures That’s the package for the device. The device comes with two audio cables, a micro USB to USB cable for power, and “SoundMate WiFi Music Streamer” user manual. Let’s have a closer look at the tiny box. Two LEDs are located on the front for power and connection, a micro SD slot can be found on the side, and the rear panel has most of the connection: micro USB port for power, reset pinhole, optical SPDIF, 3.5mm stereo jack, and USB 2.0 host for mass storage. SoundMate WM210 Teardown Take out of four sticky rubber pad on the bottom of the case, and loosen four screws to remove the […]

February 16, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

HD18T Android DVB-T2 Receiver Mini Review

I’ve had HD18T Android TV box with a DVB-T2 tuner for several months, but I’ve only installed a roof antenna recently, so I’ve decided to give it another try since my indoor antenna did not pick-up any signal with that box. The set-top box is also known as EM6-T2 or HD18T2, and features Amlogic AML8726-MX dual Cortex A9 processor which has been used in numerous boxes in the past, so I will only focus on my experience with the DVB app in this mini review. If you want to use DVB-T2 go straight to the right and click on DVB app. Where you’ll then be greeted with a pop-up windowsasking if if you want to scan channels. You can do autoscan, manual scan (for one frequency), select the area (France/Taiwan/UK/Italy/Australia only), and enable/disable LCN (Logical Channel Numbering). At first I selected “Australia”, and the system did not find any channels, […]

February 11, 2015February 22, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Review of Zidoo X9 Android Media Player and Video Recorder

Zidoo X9 is quite a unique product on the market, as it’s the only low cost Android platform that I know of that features an HDMI input port with recording capabilities. The hardware is actually based on Kaiboer F5, with some modifications, but the latter focuses on the Chinese market, while Zidoo X9 targets oversea markets with an English firmware by default. I took pictures of Zidoo X9 and its board about a month ago, but a busy schedule and some initial issues with Google Play Store delayed the review. Finally, I’ve completed testing of the device, and ready to share my findings about performance, stability, and features in this review. OTA Firmware Update I’ve had to go through two firmware updates before carrying on with the review, and this part is working great, and they even include a detailed changelog with each release, which they also publish on their […]

February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Onkyo TX-NR636 AV Receiver Setup and Audio Pass-through with OpenELEC / Kodi

Following up on my LG 42U820T 4K TV review, I’ll know checkout the second item purchased for my reviews thanks to the help of my readers, with Onkyo TX-NR636 7.2 channel AV receiver combined with Pioneer S-11 speaker set. As this is my first AV receiver, I still have a lot to learn, I can’t really comment on audio quality (except it sounds much better than my TV speakers, and is more powerful), so I won’t do a full review, but I’ll show some details about the receiver, explain how to it setup with speakers, show how to setup OpenELEC / Kodi for HDMI audio pass-through, and test it with various Dolby and DTS video files. Onkyo TX-NR636 Specifications But before all that, I’ll list some of the specifications of this cool AV receiver. Amplified Rated Output Power: 95 watts minimum continuous power per channel, 8 ohm loads, 2 channels driven […]

January 31, 2015August 24, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 41 Comments

Kodi 14 Video Playback on Intel Atom Z3735F Computers Running Windows 8.1

I’ve already written a short review of Mele PCG03 mini PC powered by Intel Atom Z3735F processor, with 2GB RAM, and 32GB eMMC flash, where I found out that almost it’s not the fastest device around, it’s still usable for most tasks, albeit you can quickly run out of space with only 32GB storage, so if you really plan to use it as an actual computer using applications such as email clients, web browser and office suites, an external USB hard drive, or connection to a NAS is probably a must, or you’ll probably have to run Disk Cleaner fairly often. Mele PCG03 also have a valid Windows 8.1 license, and a VGA port, both of which are often missing on many other Bay Trail-T mini PCs. I’ve now installed Kodi 14.1 – downloaded directly from xbmc.org – on this low cost and low power computer, in order to go […]