Tronsmart Vega s95 Amlogic s905 Series: Pro, Meta and Telos

[bluesmanuk]

Just played around with WiFi settings on my router and saw that the 5Ghz channel is set to operate on the 80Mhz bandwidth, which, if I understand things correctly is required for WiFi ac.

Changing it to operate on 20/40Mhz bandwidth enables it to be seen by the S95 but I never had an issue with any other ac supported devices seeing the 5Ghz channel when operating on the 80Mhz bandwidth.

[trebor]

Good to read
I guess somewhere in Lollipop there would be similar settings in one of the Config / build prop/ system or what ever they're called.
They could be up the creek, and then I guess you could be well and truly up the creek and no paddle. All good
Cheers

[bluesmanuk]

It gets weirder though lol

I turned 80Mhz back on in the router and now the S96 sees the 5Ghz channel with that setting.

Bizzare but good.

[bluesmanuk]

Bluetooth

The surprising star of the show so far.

I have always found bluetooth to be very flaky with these kind of devices but the S95 paired and connected with all my devices and without having to wait an eternity for it to happen, so thumbs up for this feature.

Browsers

A little slow when it comes to populating pages with a lot of graphical content but nothing to worry about and pretty much the same performance from stock browser and Chrome.

WiFi speeds

With my broadband rated at about 38Mb/s at the top end I carried out a few download file tests to determine average speeds across wifi options.

2.4Ghz - Average download speed of around 3.2Mb/s, topping out at around 4Mb/s and bottoming at around 2.8Mb/s
5Ghz (20/40Mhz bandwidth on the router) - Average download speed of around 3.6Mb/s, topping out at around 4.2Mb/s and bottoming at around 3.0Mb/s
5Ghz (80Mhz bandwidth on the router, so assuming AC) - Average download speed of around 3.8Mb/s, topping out at around 4.5Mb/s and bottoming at around 3.4Mb/s

So the differences between the options is not as great as I would expect but at the bottom end, pretty much as I would expect based upon previous uses of the AP6*** WiFi series.

[bluesmanuk]

SATA port

Connected an NTFS formatted 250Gb 5400rpm 2.5" drive.

I like the option to turn the SATA port on and off as it means that you can have a drive connected and not have to have it continually active all the time when not required.

Some oddities when looking at the drive with ES file explorer though.

The drive as a whole is initially seen as udisk0 but then shows a top level folder called part1.

I can see all the contents of the drive under part1 but if I attempt to write anything to it, it states that the drive is full, which it isn't (settings/storage shows 78Gb being available).

If I then drill upwards from / Device, through mnt, then media_rw, I then see the drive as udisk0 and udisk1

udisk1 is empty and allowed me to write a video file there but if I then attempted to play the file from this location all of the players would complain that the file could not be played.

Writing speed by the way was pretty good with average speeds of around 18Mb/s, which considering that the SATA is tied to the USB controller is pretty good for these kind of devices.

I can play any of the videos I have stored that are being shown located under udisk0 although considering the general write speeds to the drive, there were still some minor hiccups in playback through any of the players and if Dolby audio was present then all I hear is the sound of silence.

I'm not sure if any of the issues may be related to NTFS permissions

Before receiving the S95 I alsowondered about the potential fragility of the SATA cable but happy to report that it feels very robust.

[bluesmanuk]

USB port(s)

As reported earlier, I am unable to get anything to operate via the rear USB port.

The side USB port next to the SD card had a Logitech unifying receiver, which works (with a little lag)

Into the other side port I inserted a Grixx 64Gb USB 3.0, NTFS formatted flash drive.

I then copied a large file from the Sandisk 64Gb SD card to the Grixx and at the start was exceedingly concerned when the transfer rate was only just over 2Mb/s but this gradually increased and towards the end maxed out at a top speed of just over 9Mb/s, which is not stellar but fairly typical for this kind of device.

Copying the same file from the Grixx to my hard drive connected to the sata port was more impressive, starting off as things continually went at between 19 and 20Mb/s.

Copying the same file back from the hard drive to the Grixx though was not as pleasant, with write speeds all over the place, the lowest being 1.9Mb/s and topping out at just over 9Mb/s. It was up and down like a tarts knickers though.

Copying the file from the hard drive to the SD card was extremely slow too, with a general consistency of just about 2Mb/s and rather like watching paint to dry, topping out towards the end at around 3.5Mb/s.

Copying the file from the Grixx to the SD card seemed to go well at the start with an impressive enough 11Mb/s but by half distance it was down to less than 2Mb/s

By far the best results came when copying to the internal storage, where there were consistently fast transfer rates of between 25 and 30Mb/s when copying from the Grixx and hard drive and around 15Mb/s when copying from the SD card.


So we definitely have a mixed bag of the good, the bad and the ugly

[RISCy Dude]

.......
Some movies tested Digital Dolby 5.1 can have Clipping or clicks every 10 ~ 20 seconds.
Used HDMI pass through Kodi, to Sony amp to Sony 40in 1080 TV. more testing to confirm....

Never mind.
Disregard, further testing reveled this did not help. Could be an Add-on issue, as I don't experience the issue everywhere.

[geekbuying]

@bluesmanuk
Thanks for the comment, and we are watching your problems.

First HDMI CEC is working here without any problem, never change to chinese language in my Xiaomi 4K TV. maybe tell us your TV Model? or try in another TV if you can.

Second Rear Usb problem should not happen, i will work with you to solve this asap. i will ask my quality test person to check that in future to make sure never have problem again;

Third 5Ghz wifi problem, we are checking with them, if other TV box has no problem, then just wait for a OTA update to fix that. More information about your routers will be helpful;

This time tronsmart use very good hardware according to our suggestions, and amlogic is updating the SDKS, and tronsmart is also working hard for software updating. I am sure this vega s95 will not let you down . we will watch your problem, and fix them one by one.

Eric

[bluesmanuk]

@bluesmanuk
Thanks for the comment, and we are watching your problems.

First HDMI CEC is working here without any problem, never change to chinese language in my Xiaomi 4K TV. maybe tell us your TV Model? or try in another TV if you can.

Second Rear Usb problem should not happen, i will work with you to solve this asap. i will ask my quality test person to check that in future to make sure never have problem again;

Third 5Ghz wifi problem, we are checking with them, if other TV box has no problem, then just wait for a OTA update to fix that. More information about your routers will be helpful;

This time tronsmart use very good hardware according to our suggestions, and amlogic is updating the SDKS, and tronsmart is also working hard for software updating. I am sure this vega s95 will not let you down . we will watch your problem, and fix them one by one.

Eric

No worries Eric.

All constructive feedback is good and as we know, there are often many variables that can make one users experience a little different from another's and I'm sure that things will get better as the firmwares are improved upon.

The router is a Huawei HG635 VDSL 802.11ac and the fact that by switching between 80Mhz to 20/40 and back again does at least mean that there is a solution, if albeit a strange one indeed.

The TV is an LG 42LN575V

The rear USB port failure I'm just putting down to bad luck and so far I've not heard of anybody else with the same issue, so hopefully a one off.

There are some highlights there too such as bluetooth and what seems like a decent quality EMMC on board.

Lots more specific testing yet to come and as with every product that I have, I stick with it to help take it as far as it can go.

[temp0]

@geekbuying:
Hello. I have to agree with complains. Two different TV and enabling HDMI CEC will switch language to Chineese. Remote is almost unresponsive. Sometimes it has lags, other time it seems some remote commands are totally lost. In other cases it buffers them so two tries are ignored but third try will make all of them so very very badly controlled. Right now using mobile app to control device what works without problem.
I also spotted same hickups when HDMI passthrough is enabled with intermittent audio. Also some HD audio is detected by receiver but other one which is almost the same but muxed in other file, receiver can't detect so no sound (DTS-HD MA 7.1 as an example). Disabling passthrough will play audio correctly.
So the smallest problem on device is missing rubber legs from bottom for better stability.
Hopefully some can be fixed.
Thanks for support

[RISCy Dude]

......

I've also inserted a flash drive into the rear port but that wasn't recognised either, so I'm wondering whether there is a hardware fault.

I am curious, does a powered USB hub work in the rear port?

[bluesmanuk]

I am curious, does a powered USB hub work in the rear port?

I've just tried one but no activity at all.

I'm fairly certain that I have a hardware fault and will be taking it apart later to see if I can spot anything.

[RISCy Dude]

I've just tried one but no activity at all.

I'm fairly certain that I have a hardware fault and will be taking it apart later to see if I can spot anything.

I was curious because another member(different box) had lost a micro USB port, possibly due to overloading. It would not work with USB devices requiring port power, but using powered hub would work.
I realize the likelyhood that yours had a fractured or poorly soldered 5vdc connector on the port was low, but I thought we might get lucky. I assume by hardware fault, you suspect a port has not been soldered properly. Or do you think it may be something deeper? I guess until you make your visual exam, this cannot be known.
Good hunting, I hope you find it.

[viggen66]

I have ordered this model as a new TV Box, probably that USB port must be owing to some bad soldering, I will post my experience as soon I get my unit

[RISCy Dude]

I have ordered this model as a new TV Box, probably that USB port must be owing to some bad soldering, I will post my experience as soon I get my unit

Hello, Welcome to Freaktab. I have the Meta and USB ports all work, I think he was unlucky and hopefully it is an anomaly. As bluesmanuk has stated, he has not seen others with this issue.
So far it has been an interesting little box.
Have fun!