Gadgetory

hello there my name's Gary Sims my header Authority earlier this year I reviewed the cubox I a mini PC and media player that can run Android and Linux and now solid run the devices manufacturer has released a new version the cubox TV so let's see how the old version compares with now let's see how the new version compares it ok let's see how the new version compares at just 2 inches by 2 inches by 2 inches the cubox TV is a marvel of engineering on one side of the cube is a set of ports including the power socket HDMI Ethernet and 2 USB ports while the rest of the cube is fairly bland except for a few labels logos and LEDs the cubox TV comes in three variants with different amount of ram one gig two gigs and four gigs all three models pack a quad-core processor and you have the option of adding a Wi-Fi module and buying an IR remote control my test unit is the cubox TV 4gb with Wi-Fi and the remote control as the TV part of the name implies the cubox TV is designed to be a media center and there are two ways of doing this one is to use Android with apps like Netflix and YouTube and the other is to use Linux with programs like Cody solid run provides a couple of linux distros boot straight into cody one of them is geek box XBMC and the other is open elec openelec is a small Linux distribution that turns the cubox TV into a cozy media center when you buy the cubox team it comes with an 8 gigabyte micro SD card preloaded with cody this makes using Cody a breeze just boot up the cubox and you're straight into the media player since the cube count of two years be ports you can connect flash drives or external drives packed full of your media I did a brief test by connecting up a transcend 2 terabyte external hard drive with some mp4 files on it the hard drive was recognized by the cubox without any problems navigate to the files from within Cody and play the videos the playback was smooth and the sound comes through the HDMI cable to the TV cody itself is quite sophisticated piece of software and offers easy ways to view your videos and pictures as well as listen to your music however it also has a powerful add-on system which allows third-party developers to create plug-ins for example there is a youtube plug-in available I downloaded it and installed it by a Cody's internal installation system and I was able to access YouTube without any problems there are a myriad of add-ons available however your mileage may vary in terms of which commercial services you can access you can opera by an infrared remote control which works specifically with the cubox and cody the remote is easy to use and allows you to perform simple navigation with a set of Direction keys and OK button in the center to perform actions there is also a back button a menu button and a play/pause button the cubox TV also work with a variety of kodi remote controls that you can find in the google play store although open Elect comes by default it isn't your only choice of os if you want to try another operating system then solid run has a special boot image called ignition to allow you to easily download new firmware version is a download ignition from the cubox TV website unrest onto a memory card using win32diskimager then you move the cubox TV with ignition and use its simple UI to pick which operating system you want to use ignition will then download the OS and write it onto the micro SD card once a copied you just reboot the cue box and the new OS will start up the cubox TV is compatible with Android and currently runs Android 4.4 KitKat is one of the official firmware you can download fire ignition I understand the slide run I'm working on Android 5 for the cubox TV however there is no official release date yet the Android experience of the cubox is pretty good and for the most part you get the same experience as you would as from a smartphone or a tablet of course without the touchscreen like the humming board and the previous generation of the cubox the new model includes boo apps so you can access the Play Store as well as Google services like Gmail Google+ YouTube and so on the performance of the cubox TV is better than the humming board I to e^x and the cubox I mainly because of the jump from dual core 2 quad core processor the cubox TV scored fourteen thousand eight hundred and twelve on m2 to some two thousand five hundred more than the previous generation and the Epic Citadel you get frame rate of around 27 or 28 fps there are two minor problems of using Android on the cubox TV the first is that only the first two gigabytes of RAM are recognized even on the four gigabyte model now from what I understand so later on are working on them via point X release of Android and that should fix this particular problem the second problem is that external hard drive and external USB drives aren't recognized when they're plugged into the USB port on one way that's understandable because isn't something that normally happens on an Android device people don't often plug hard disk drives into their smartphones there are several different Linux distributions available for the cubox TV many Magnusson on the list you will find popular names like Debbie an arch and open SUSE unfortunately many of the distros come without a desktop and you to log in via the command line interface that doesn't mean you can't pad a desktop but some extra effort is required one exception is open SUSE during the ignition installation you can opt to install X f c/e there's quite a strong community behind all of SOI brands products including the humming board and the cubox range there's no shortage of the next distributions for those who want to hack port code in tinker this means that the cubox offers just as many opportunities as any of the other popular SBC's and mini pcs however i would say it is only a mini pc and you probably can't replace your desktop pc with this particular machine a two-block TV is certainly an interesting mini pc and media center it offers lots of flexibility since its support for Android and Linux an excellent and it does it sell out running kollene the new iteration updates the internals of the box and has the options for a 4 gigabyte this isn't a major revamp just a further development of the previous generations but as with most tech a bump in specs is always welcome the design of the little cube is neat and elegant the box is certainly unpretentious but yet when notice it will surely impress it's certainly a tidy way to turn a normal TV into a smart TV or a media player you can purchase the cubox TV starting at $99 $99 drums cubox TV website okay so they have it the cubox TV the fact you can get 4 gigabyte variant is a great option for this little device it's very versatile excellent running linux exit running Android but really comes into its own when it runs a code if you're a fan of Kodi you should definitely consider one of these if you love the cubox I your definitely loves the cubox TV the main sticking point however is still the price it is more expensive than other products that are available well my name is Gary Sims reminder authority I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please do give it a thumbs up also don't forget to subscribe to Andrew authority's YouTube channel and please leave some comments below tell me what you think about the cubox TV have you tried one did you have a cue box I there doesn't know your experiences below and as for me I'll see you in my next video