Tronsmart TV Box Ara X5 in August with Cherry Trail Z8300 Windows 10

[bluesmanuk]

Continued use over the past few days has shown the X5 to be completely stable.

Kodi continues to breeze through anything that I throw at it.

It has worked well with every USB stick and external hard drive I have used up to 1Tb (don't have anything larger).

Bluetooth works OK and connected with my soundbar, headset and phone.

I can't determine what capacity of Microsd card it takes or whether it supports SDXC but it works well with a 32Gb Samsung SDHC class 10 card, although transfer speeds were not quite as expected.

Other than when I need optical audio out, where I shall use an Android box, this is going to be the device for day to day use for me, although if you have an HDMI passthrough receiver then that should work just fine.

Whilst VLC, Potplayer and Zoomplayer all struggled to play 4k content, it made me wonder about the one player that I had not given any thought to, the one built into Windows 10, which plays them very well.

No custom ROM's, no messing about, less tweaking to get things to work as advertised, no issues with services such as Netflix, Sky Go, Now TV, 4oD etc that can be problematic on rooted android boxes, virtually complete compatibility with anything that I plug in with drivers available pretty much anywhere.

There isn't really a downside if you want guaranteed stability, more or less complete functionality, easier access to wider support and a system that you have been familiar with for a very long time now.

My advice is that if it falls within your budget and the specs match what you want to do with it, then go for one.

A Tronsmart box that works out of the box.

I've never been able to say that before, so well done Tronsmart.

[bluesmanuk]

does anyone have wifi drivers for this? i cant get mine to work

I'll see if I can backup the drivers from mine.

What are your symptoms?

Here you go, backed up up with Double Driver, which I have included in the zip file.

https://mega.nz/#!L8QQVTTJ!FwJUlcM85...CUSC-d7ht2b6qI

[elim]

does anyone have wifi drivers for this? i cant get mine to work

[clarkss12]

If I keep buying these boxes, I am going to have to refinance my home........arggggggggg.

[bluesmanuk]

Keep those reviews coming. Thanks

I will.

I'm in the process of creating some Youtube reviews too, which will show off what it can do.

If this had SPDIF optical and HDMI 2 ports then I think that I would ditch everything else that I have right now.

[clarkss12]

Keep those reviews coming. Thanks

[bluesmanuk]

I was looking at the few MKV files that had the colour issues in Kodi today to see if there was any correlation in their construction that was common to them but could not find anything.

Installed Kodi 16.0 Jarvis Alpha just to see what the latest version looks like and the colour issues are gone, so it must have been an issue in the version of Kodi that I was using.

I also found that CPU usage was generally less than it is in 15, so I'm sticking with it.

One of the reviews that I have seen talked of issues after about an hour of playback but after 6 hours of almost continuous playback of various files it never skipped a beat.

Switching display modes using the Intel control panel causes Kodi to load up only showing half a screen interface until the box is rebooted.

If you are sitting a fair distance away from your screen then the Windows interface can be a little harder to read than in android but this is where the 'Metro' tiles interface now comes into it's own.

[trebor]

Well said yes they are a great unit, remembering whats under the lid, smooth and yes often have some trouble with .MKV depend on who and how it was done, and yes they do just work.
Cheers

[bluesmanuk]

Just being having a first play with the X5 and it has become my new best friend.

Just after a couple of hours use I'm extremely impressed with the overall package.

Was supplied with a dedicated UK ac adapter, not a 2 prong one with a separate adapter.

Immediately got the Windows updates out of the way.

Then installed Kodi 15.2 RC1.

Ir breezed through pretty much all my video test files that I expected it to play and is as smooth as butter in general operation with great colour rendition and depth.

There were a few MKV files where there was some issue with colour rendition, so more investigation required there.

I was expecting Kodi performance to be less than that of VLC and Potplayer but it is actually much better.

In fact I am rather disappointed with the performance of both VLC and potplayer but don't care that much right now.

General performance of Windows is good, just don't expect Core i series speeds.

Boots up in around 30 seconds.

Logitech K400 Plus works like a charm.

Bluetooth paired with my soundbar, headphones and phone without issue.

Internet browsing is fast and smooth in Chrome and Edge over 5ghz WiFi .

Transfer of large files to the internal storage via a flash drive on the USB 3 port yielded an average transfer speed of about 42 Mb/s.

Transferring the other way gives me around 50 Mb/s for a flash drive that tops out at 60 on my laptops and desktops, so pleased with that.

The box gets warm but never hot.

Love the 2 USB ports and headphone/microphone jack being on the front of the box for easy and logical access (would have liked one of them to have been the USB 3 port).

They say that you only get one chance to get a first impression and my first impression is seriously impressive.

No other stick/box has given me a better out of the box experience than this one, Windows or Android.

It will be interesting to see if Tronsmart come up with a dual boot option as it would be interesting to see how Android would perform on the X5.

I've only scratched the surface but am so looking forward to really putting it through it's paces.

I had wondered whether the extra expense over an Android box would be balanced out by the fact that it just works and so far I would say yes.

[bluesmanuk]

Did u get it for free?

The only free thing in my life is the air that I breathe.

[Lude]

Did u get it for free?

[bluesmanuk]

Received one today.

Thanks for Geekbuying and DHL for a stunning 2 day delivery.

Will be putting it through it's paces over the next week and producing a full review.

[trebor]

This can happen out of the box, should not happen but does.
Sorry for your loss.
You will have to mow the lawns this weekend
Cheers

[Scooberdanje]

My friend got his today. Plugged it in, didn't start. Nor do the led light turns on. The unit itself got like fry-egg warm. Probably a faulty unit and he will tell GB. What a turn down, a weekend that could be full of tinkering and now the usual tronsmart feeling. The let down kinda feeling.

[bluesmanuk]

I would go for minix tv box when it comes to windows based tv box, I don't think Tronsmart can make a decent Windows based tv box now as the compatibility between windows and TV still to be improved. I personally would pick a Android TV Box shipped with Amlogic s812, and I had a good experience with Tronfy. http://www.tinydeal.com/tronfy-px30zkj-p-154403.html

What compatibility needs to be improved?