Reviews - Page 125 of 126 - CNX Software

July 24, 2012July 24, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 46 Comments

$40 CX-01 mini PC Unboxing and Review

I’ve just received the CX-01 Mini Android PC I ordered 3 weeks ago on Pandawill website using Togetho.ru group buy coupon and paid $41.89 as I selected “Singapore Post” shipping option. Today, I’ll post some unboxing pictures and provide a review of this tiny and cheap device. I received the device in the box below. The device characteristics are listed on the back on the package. Telechips TCC8925 does not support 1 GHz (max 833 MHz), and I’m unable to play some of the video container format listed, but more on that later. You’ll just find the TV Stick and a microUSB to USB cable to power the device in the package. Now let’s connect it to the TV. The device can plug neatly into on the HDMI port of my HDTV (Samsung LA328450), and it’s powered by the TV’s “USB service” port. $40 is a low price to turn a […]

June 18, 2012June 3, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Getting Started with Emcraft Systems Cortex M3/M4 Starter Kits Running uCLinux

A few months ago, I wrote a post about running uCLinux on Cortex M3/M4. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to play a with Cortex M3 & M4 boards capable of running Linux, as last week, I received Emcraft Systems Freescale K70 Starter Kit together with their MicroSemi (previously known as Actel) Smartfusion SoM. Today, I’ll show some pictures of the baseboard and modules I received in the kit, and some details about the documentation and how to get started with the modules. Unboxing Pictures Here’s the baseboard with Ethernet, USB interface using USB-UART bridge connected to the UART0, JTAG connectors (P3 and P5), two push-buttons and a breadboard for easy access to unused signals (ADC, I2C, SPI, UART and GPIOs). P4 and P6 are the sockets to plug in the SoM. There is a lithium-ion battery (CR2016) at the back of the board for the RTC clock. As previously […]

June 15, 2012May 25, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 129 Comments

WM8850-MID Android 4.0 Tablet Unboxing and Review

I recently bought an Android 4.0 tablet with a 7″ capacitive touchscreen based on the new WonderMedia WM8850 processor (Cortex A9 + Mali-400). In my first post, I called this tablet UGoos UG-LMW70, but I just received a no brand package with nothing mentioning Ugoos or the model number UG-LMW70 anywhere. Android settings just show WW8850-mid for the model number. The tablet comes with a 5V power supply, a miniUSB to USB cable, a short miniUSB to USB female adapter, headphones and a user manual in English explaining how to use Android, but nothing about the tablet itself. The tablet has vol-/+ buttons and a power button (left side below), and a power jack, microSD slot, headphones jack, a USB host port, a mini HDMI port, a miniUSB port and a microphone (right to left). They did not include a mini HDMI to HDMI cable, so I did not try HDMI […]

May 25, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Rikomagic MK802 Android mini PC Unboxing and Review

Youtube user Zaatour36 has received the low cost MK802 Android 4.0 mini-PC based on AllWinner A10 processor and has uploaded 2 videos. The first video gives an overview of the device connectors and show the different cables (mini HDMI to HDMI, USB) and adapters (microUSB to USB and power) that are provided with the MK802. The second video is more like a review, and shows how to connect the device, go to the setup menu to change the settings and language and play around with the different Android applications. You’ll also be able to get a feeling of the performance. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)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. www.cnx-software.com

May 16, 2012May 16, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Energy Micro EFM32 Tiny Gecko (Cortex-M3) Starter Kit Unboxing

I’ve been lucky recently, after winning a TI Piccolo controlStick last month, I’ve just received Energy Micro EFM32 Starter Kit (EFM32-TG-STK3300) based on EFM32 Tiny Gecko MCU. This development board include: EFM32 Tiny Gecko Cortex-M3 MCU 8×20 LCD A light sensor A touch slider A battery compartment SEGGER J-Link mini USB port 2 Button + 1 reset button 1 User LEDs 2 expansion ports. Lots of through holes to access the different pins of the MCU Today, I’ll just show the content of the kit and next time, I’ll post more about the things I’ve done with it. Here’s the package of the EFM32 Starter Kit. The 2 gecko eggs were not included… Actually, those are house geckos eggs which are smaller than real geckos. We’ve got those here as well, but there are very shy, whereas house geckos just run around the walls and ceilings all day. Well, it’s […]

April 23, 2012August 12, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Texas Instruments F28069 Piccolo controlSTICK Unboxing and Review

I’ve recently received a TI F28069 Piccolo controlSTICK evaluation kit after winning a game organized by Mouser and Texas Instruments on Facebook. I’ll show what’s the content of this C2000 MCU development kit and play around with the development tools provided. Mouser sent the development tools by Fedex which took 6 days to arrive in Thailand, and the package with the development tools looks like the one below. You’ll find the following in the package: F28069 Piccolo controlSTICK USB Cable 6x Jumpers 2x Cables to connect to external hardware CD with Piccolo F28069 controlSTICK development tools Here’s a closer look to the top of Piccolo controlSTICK, with (left to right) the JTAG emulator chip, C2000 MCU (320F28069PNA) and connector… …and the bottom of Piccolo controlSTICK. Now let’s have a look at the content of the CD: The Drivers directory contains the drivers needed for the controlSTICK development kit (also used […]

April 8, 2012May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 137 Comments

Mele A1000 Android 2.3 STB Unboxing and Review

I’ve finally received the Mele A1000 media player I ordered 3 weeks ago. I mainly plan to use it as a Linux development platform for Allwinner A10 processor, but today I’ll just post some unboxing pictures and provide some feedback about the Android software running on the box. I received the device in the box below. (Sorry about the picture quality, I took pictures with my smartphone). Once you open the box, you’ll get see the set-top box, related accessories, a (not so useful) user guide in English and Chinese and what looks like a warranty card. Once you unpack everything you get the set-top box, 2.5″ hard drive case, composite cable, remote control (infrared) and 5V power supply. You’ll noticed some buttons on the remote control have markings in Chinese, this is where the user manual can be useful. You may already have seen the box itself (with clearer […]

December 10, 2010 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Software Code Review Study and Best Practices

Many companies perform software development without code reviews – the systematic examination of source code intended to find and fix mistakes overlooked by the original developer – or at least without formal reviews. I’ve recently come across The Value and Importance of Code Review white paper from Klocwork who commissioned an independent company to survey IT professional. This paper shows code review practices have not changed much over the years even though software development have dramatically evolved. Here are the key findings of the study: Code reviews are valuable, but approaches tend not to be formal. Modern development is increasingly complex, and code reviews are not keeping pace. (i.e. Code reviews are low priority tasks) Code reviews don’t always include the right people. (e.g. Architecture and QA Team are left out, only only software engineer are part of the review) Tools don’t play a significant role in reviews. (e.g. code […]