MXIII - G II TV Box Amlogic S912 Octa-core

[trebor]

Android 6.0 System Bluetooth 4.0 Dual Band 2.4G + 5.8G WiFi

Gearbest

[Teddybee]

Can somebody show pictures from it's inside? Heatsink, chips, reset button...

[gearbest]

Coupon: GBMXG2

Only $62.99

[bluesmanuk]

I have one of these arriving tomorrow.

The case looks identical to the one used on the MXIII-G for the old S812, with what looks like good use of ventilation with lots of holes on the bottom and slits on the right and rear.

Should probably have given it a slightly updated name though to avoid any possible confusion.

[Lurker]

Will be very interested to see what changes have been made regarding the heatsink, protective circle etc. and whether there have been any improvements to the WiFi/LAN speeds. The Antutu Video Tester reported a very good score on the previous S812 version.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/android-stick--console-computers/amlogic/mxiii-g-review-t3160863

[trebor]

Tricky Case
Get the grinder and hammer ready

[scooter2014]

oh my....

[bluesmanuk]

I am pretty certain that the antutu video test results will be the same as all the others.

27, 3, 0

The S812 is the only one that I can recall passing all 30.

But fingers crossed for a decent firmware to take the S912 forward.

The inclusion of a dedicated OTG port is very welcome and I always did prefer a physical power button.

[bluesmanuk]

Tricky Case
Get the grinder and hammer ready

Maybe a plunger will help.

[bluesmanuk]

Some UI screenshots and benchmark test results.

These plus more can also be downloaded for your offline perusal

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zvpqsm6aol1d8dm/MXIII-G%20II%20Screenshots.zip?dl=0

[scooter2014]

Hmmmmm 107 firmware again.... I think these guys borrow each others software... . alf may work on this one too. Nice review. Waiting for the open box tour.

[bluesmanuk]

Hmmmmm 107 firmware again.... I think these guys borrow each others software... . alf may work on this one too. Nice review. Waiting for the open box tour.

I'm going to tell you more about it next.

Tomorrow I shall attempt to open it up.

Don't hold your breath lol

[scooter2014]

No problem blues /Trebor send you his secret box opening tool.

[scooter2014]

[bluesmanuk]

Early impressions


What's in the box

As usual, apart from the box itself you get an HDMI cable, 5v2a AC adapter, basic remote control and a basic user guide.
Additionally with the MXIII-G II, you get a short male OTG to full size female USB cable, handy for adding a USB drive (or so you would think)

The box itself is quite meaty in terms of how heavy it feels in the hand. I don't have a set of scales to test but it feels about 10-20% heavier than the Alfawise S92.
The case seems identical to the one used on the original MXIII-G with the S812 SOC, so somebody has had the thought of not needing to reinvent the proverbial wheel, as the scalloped base has many vent holes, as well as 3 additional cut out slits on the right and rear. With the internal temp never going beyond 49C it would seem to do it's job.
All the usual ports that you find on most other S912 boxes are there, with the addition of the micro usb OTG port.
There is also a dedicated physical power button, which I do like to see, especially as I never use the supplied remote controls.


Bootup

First boot takes around 25 seconds, so comparable with other boxes that I have used.


UI and apps

There is a very typical boxed based launcher with many familiar style buttons.

I was pleased to see that there was no Kodi addons option, although when loading Kodi, was still rather annoyed to see that a great many addons and repos were installed by default.

There is a very limited range of applications, without the usual set of weird or non functioning TV and Movie apps.

There is however one that I have not seen added before, Sky Live. This seems to give you a free 7 day access to TV channels available from Sky, although it doesn't look legitimate to me and the actual range of available streaming channels is tiny, so not really of any great use.

Kodi is a stock version that gets updated to the latest final 16.1 from the Play Store.

Full root is provided by SuperSU, which requires an update to complete functionality.

The Youtube TV version is as standard but requires Google Play Services to be updated to run correctly.

Fishing Joy is a fishing game added as seen in some other firmwares.

The UI is very smooth and fluid.

There is no clear all button for background tasks, that is present in other firmwares, so one feature to be improved upon.

As you can see from the screenshots, there is a dedicated on screen power off button too (although an addition to reboot would be useful)

And of course we have the full navigation and notification bars with screenshot button already provided as default.



Settings

The usual array of options, just as you will find in all other S912 firmwares is present.

Also as usual, HDR and Auto adjust frame rate are not yet working and HDMI CEC is only partially functional. These 3 features seem to be generally dysfunctional on all S912 boxes and it's now overdue for AMLogic to resolve these important requirements.

All other features that you expect to work, do so, just as with other S912 devices.



Kodi

16.1 gives exactly the same performance as on other S912's, although instead of the occasional crash on exit when AMCodec is switched on, this time it would happen when switched off but was not consistent.

I ended up installing 17 Beta 6, which works perfectly well considering the features that are missing to enable near perfect playback and I prefer it to 16.1.

All the comments that I have made for playback on the Yundoo Y2, Alfawise S92 and others remain exactly the same here, although I have noticed that colour reproduction looks a little better, although still not being matched to the RK3229 and considering that the S912 has a superior GPU, AMLogic still needs to make optimisations in this area too.



General video playback with other apps

Just as with the other S912 boces, playback with stock player, MX player etc is exactly the same too.

Youtube playback at 1080p was very good and near perfect.

iPlayer was a little disappointing when it came to panning shots and was so evident when playing the opening credits to Planet Earth II



Network

Ethernet and WiFi performance is just about identical to the Alfawise S92, so can be considered as very good.



Power button

The physical power button does it's job and when turned off, the blue light turns to red, so not a true power off that I would like to see with no power being delivered at all but still, I am glad to see it present.



OTG Port

I was rather excited to see this being present but sadly, at the moment it turns out to have no functionality at all.

First I plugged in a cable to my PC but there was no connectivity of any kind, whether for file transfer or ADB access.

Then I plugged in the supplied OTG cable and a USB flash drive but there was no activity here either.

Checked the cable and drive in my phone and it worked perfectly.

So either I have a box with a faulty port or, as I suspect, there is no facility in the firmware at this present time to enable it's functionality.

Rather disappointing for now but hopefully we can see an update soon to enable it (assuming that it's not an internal hardware issue in my case).



General

Accepted and using a 64Gb MicroSD card, as well as an assortment of USB flash drives and external bus powered hard drives up to 1Tb.

I did find the general experience in terms of speed to be a little better than other S912 boxes and updates from the Play Store (at least over my preferred connection of ethernet) just seemed to get installed in a faster way, although I can't provide any hard data, just a feel when in use.

All the missing/non functioning features that you will find in every other S912 box is also the same with the MXIII-G II, so we still await AMLogic to make the necessary improvements to make the S912 the box that it can be.

So all in all, at least on par with any other S912 box in terms of performance.

A tweak or 2 required to match some firmware features found elsewhere.

The hardware power button is an addition that may appeal to some and the OTG port, when functioning, will at the very least give users a 3rd USB port to play with.

So at the moment is does have a little more potential than other models out there.

I shall be using it exclusively over the next few days and will update more as I use it and uncover more things, which I shall update here as appropriate.




http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_580669.html