For those of you curious about the inside of the Minix Neo X7...
To open the X7, push a small flat tip screw driver between the bottom and the case, above the android man's head. The bottom is latched at several points. You can use a second screw driver at the next latch, push both slightly until eventually is starts to get loose, continuing around the edge:
Inside you'll find the following:
Here's the whole PCB:
The PCB a little closer:
As you can see, there's a heatsink on the RK3188. This heatsink was not visible from the photo of geekbuying:
One thing I noticed though is that the case is completely closed, there are no ventilation holes. Die hard overclockers might want to drill some holes in the case.
You can also see a battery, probably for the realtime clock. Other sticks rely fully on network time to keep their clock accurate.
There's also a jumper, it's purpose is explained on the other end of the PCB next to the battery: auto power on/off
As you could see from the earlier photo, there's also a piece of metal on the top case:
It's located nearly above the RK3188, but not entirely aligned. I wonder what it's for, would be a strange way to provide extra cooling (where can the heat go?). Perhaps it's intended for RF shielding (then why is it not grounded?).
If we look at the bottom of the PCB:
One small "design flaw" is that it does not have any rubber feet or coating on the bottom of the case. This makes it easily slide around when placed on a smooth surface. It's easily solved by sticking a few small rubber feet on the bottom.
The X7 has quite a lot more hardware than the average RK3188 stick, such as: an ethernet adapter, SPDIF and analog audio connectors, built-in USB hub, external antenna, RTC battery, remote control receiver, soft power switch, etc. The overall built quality is also better than most sticks, on other words: you really get what you pay for!
I'm planning to write a more detailed review about the X7, but first I need to receive some information from Minix... to be continued!
To open the X7, push a small flat tip screw driver between the bottom and the case, above the android man's head. The bottom is latched at several points. You can use a second screw driver at the next latch, push both slightly until eventually is starts to get loose, continuing around the edge:
Inside you'll find the following:
Here's the whole PCB:
The PCB a little closer:
As you can see, there's a heatsink on the RK3188. This heatsink was not visible from the photo of geekbuying:
One thing I noticed though is that the case is completely closed, there are no ventilation holes. Die hard overclockers might want to drill some holes in the case.
You can also see a battery, probably for the realtime clock. Other sticks rely fully on network time to keep their clock accurate.
There's also a jumper, it's purpose is explained on the other end of the PCB next to the battery: auto power on/off
As you could see from the earlier photo, there's also a piece of metal on the top case:
It's located nearly above the RK3188, but not entirely aligned. I wonder what it's for, would be a strange way to provide extra cooling (where can the heat go?). Perhaps it's intended for RF shielding (then why is it not grounded?).
If we look at the bottom of the PCB:
One small "design flaw" is that it does not have any rubber feet or coating on the bottom of the case. This makes it easily slide around when placed on a smooth surface. It's easily solved by sticking a few small rubber feet on the bottom.
The X7 has quite a lot more hardware than the average RK3188 stick, such as: an ethernet adapter, SPDIF and analog audio connectors, built-in USB hub, external antenna, RTC battery, remote control receiver, soft power switch, etc. The overall built quality is also better than most sticks, on other words: you really get what you pay for!
I'm planning to write a more detailed review about the X7, but first I need to receive some information from Minix... to be continued!
).
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