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Artway W8 Plus is a $100 Mini PC with HDMI and DisplayPort

Most mini PCs with Intel Atom Z3735F only come with HDMI output, while a few others feature both HDMI and VGA like MeLE PCG03, but if you need a cheap mini PC with both HDMI and DisplayPort as found in Intel NUC, Artway W8 Plus is worth a look especially since it sells for just $99 on Aliexpress. W8 Plus specifications: SoC – Intel Atom Z3735F quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Bust freq: 1.83 GHz) with Intel HD graphics System Memory – 2 GB DDR3L Storage – 32 GB eMMC  (16, 64 or 128GB optional) + micro SD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4b, and DisplayPort Audio I/F – HDMI, audio out and mic in jacks Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (RTL8723BS or AP6330), and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 4x USB 2.0 host Misc – Power Button, RTC Power Supply – 5V/2A Dimensions – 107 x […]

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Open Hour Chameleon RK3288 TV Box Gets (Partial) DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD HDMI Pass-through Support

People owning AV receivers capable of outputting 7.1 channels or more have had a hard time finding Android TV boxes that supports HD audio pass-through via HDMI. Many devices can pass through 5.1 codec like DTS or Dolby Digital (AC3 / E-AC3), but so far, none of the boxes I’ve tried could manage content with DTS-HD (MA / HR) and Dolby TrueHD with 8 channels properly. The one that came close was Zidoo X9 with support for Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and 7.1, but it downmixes 7.1 channels to 5.1 channels. So the only cost effective options to get proper 7.1 channel pass-through were Intel based mini PCs running Linux such as Asus Chromebox M004U or Intel NUCs. But recently, I’ve seen some progress. For example, yesterday Cloud Media released a new firmware for their Open Hour Chameleon media player based on Rockchip RK3288 processor. Their Android 4.4.2 firmware (version 1.0.23) […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Kodi 14.2 Linux Tested on MeLE PCG03 with Ubuntu 15.04

I’ve already tested Kodi 14.1 on MeLE PCG03 running Windows 8.1, with the Intel Atom Z3735F device performing greatly for 1080p videos, working DTS and Dolby pass-through (no HD Audio though) and automatic frame rate switching working at all frequencies I tested. Later I installed Lubuntu 15.04 on the mini PC, and I had planned to test Kodi 14.x in Linux to compare the performance in Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, I did not manage to mak HDMI audio, nor the audio jack work in Linux, so instead I purchased a cheap USB sound card from DealExtreme for around $2 US, and connected a pair of USB powered speakers to enable audio output. The USB sound card performs pretty well, and out of the 80 or so videos I used for testing, only one had some saturation issues likely due to the sound card itself. I installed Kodi 14.2 using the recommended […]

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Winbook TW700 Windows 8.1 Tablet with micro HDMI, Full Size USB Port Sells for $60

MeegoPad T01, Pipo X7, MeLE PCG03, MINIX NEO Z64, etc.. you could name a pretty long list of Intel Bay Trail-T Z3735 mini PCs running Windows 8.1… They all cost above $100, but the ones that include a valid Windows 8.1 license usually cost closer to $150. That’s because contrary to the Windows 8.1 with Bing on small tablets that comes free and with a one-year subscription to office 365, Windows 8.1 with Bing on mini PCs adds about $30 to the price, and it does not even include a one-year subscription. So using a tablet as a mini PC should be cheaper, even with the extra touchscreen display and battery. And as I checked out Liliputing’s list of cheap Windows tablets, Winbook TW700 stood out as it sells for just $60 on Micro-center (US only) or $70 on Amazon US, and features a mini HDMI port, a full-sized USB […]

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Connect Speakers to Any mini PCs with a $1 USB Sound Card

Last year, I made a poll to find out what kind of audio output people used with mini PCs, and one person commented “USB audio to av receiver”, but at the time I did not investigate. Recently somebody asked me for mini PCs with audio output for stereo speakers, and I recommended something like MINIX NEO X6 with a dedicated 3.5mm audio jack, but I’ve just discovered USB sound cards with stereo output and microphone input are incredibly cheap, even less than $1 shipped on Aliexpress, and just above $1 on Ebay. The features for the model above are listed as follows: Real USB Plug & Play Drive 2-channelsspeakers directly Support 3D positional sound and virtual 5.1 channels sound track Powered via USB port Digital Class-B power Amplifier inside Speaker Shifter –  5.1x earphone,  2 speaker virtual theater Software Value-added for Music:  27x Environmont Effects,  3x Environment sizes, 10-Band/Pre-set Equalizer […]

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OpenELEC For Amlogic Media Players – MXIII, Tronsmart Vega S89, TV110 and CX-S806 (S812)

XBMC / Kodi is now working pretty well on Android devices, and even automatic frame rate switching is available on some Android platforms such as MINIX NEO X6. But if you want a pure XBMC experience, you may consider XBMC/Kodi Linux distributions such as OpenELEC also providing support for some USB DVB tuner dongles and PVR function, both of which are currently unavailable in Kodi for Android. We’ve also seen OpenELEC released for M8 TV Box, but  Kerber, a Russian developer (or at least a Russian speaking developer) has also released OpenELEC 4.97.x for MXIII (Amlogic S802), Tronsmart Vega S89 (Amlogic S802), TV110 (Amlogic S805) , and CX-S806 (Amlogic S812) media players. The forum post is dated on August 2014, but it has been updated on December 12 with more up-to-date images: OpenELEC-Amlogic.MX3.arm-4.97.2.zip for MXIII (1GB) OpenELEC-Amlogic.S82.arm-4.97.2.zip for Tronsmart Vega S89 (2GB) OpenELEC-Amlogic.TV110.arm-4.97.2.zip for TV110 OpenELEC-Amlogic.S806.arm-4.97.2.zip for CX-S806 (Amlogic S812 […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Unboxing of Amlogic S812 based Sunchip CX-S806 Android Media Player

Sunchip CX-S806 is my third Android media player based on Amlogic S812 processor, after Eny Technology EM8S (which I haven’t received yet, because the firmware is not really ready yet), and MINIX NEO X8-H Plus with a stable firmware, but some disappointment with regards to peripherals performance (eMMC, Ethernet,…), and poor support for H.265 / 4K videos in XBMC/Kodi, at least for now, since I’m sure they’ll work out the video issue with subsequent firmware / Kodi releases. CX-S806 has lower specs compared to NEO X8-H Plus, and does not come with an air mouse, but it costs about half of the MINIX box, so we’ll have to see how it performs. For now, I simply post pictures of the device and the internal board, since I’ve already posted CX-S806 specifications previously. CX-S806 Unboxing Sunchip sent me the box via DHL, and I received it in the black and gold […]

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U-Boot and Linux Source Code for ODROID-C1 Board Has Been Released

Hardkernel ODROID-C1 board, a more powerful $35 alternative to the Raspberry Pi, garnered a lot of attention when it was announced last week. At the time source code was not available, but as scheduled, U-boot and Linux source code is now available, and the full Android SDL should be released on February 2015. Instructions to get the code, and build both Linux and U-boot are available on ODROID-C1 Wiki, and I’ve just given a try to Linux instructions myself to see if I would encounter any issues in Ubuntu 14.04. Download Linaro GCC 4.7 toolchain from Linaro or Odroid website. Install the toolchain. They install it on /opt/toolchain, but instead I’ve installed in ~/opt/toochain, so I don’t need superuser permissions: mkdir -p ~/opt/toolchains tar xvf gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.7-2013.04-20130415_linux.tar.bz2 -C ~/opt/toolchains/ Add the following lines to ~/.bashrc export ARCH=arm export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- export PATH=~/opt/toolchains/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.7-2013.04-20130415_linux/bin:$PATH To apply change, log out and log in, or run: […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC