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Sunday, May 31, 2015

Review of the Tronfy MXIV Quad Core Amlogic S812 Android TV Box

Hello everyone,

This time i' m gonna review the latest Android TV Box from Tronfy, a very well known Chinese mini pc manufacturer, it is the MXIV and you can get it cheaper from Tidydeal using the DISCOUNT COUPON CODE: TRONFYMX4 (VALID UNTIL 20/06/2015)

Or order it directly from Tronfy's Amazon listings
Amazon US
Amazon UK



What's in the Box
It comes in a very nice package with some of the devices best features written on it which we'll analyze later

In the box you get:
  • The MXIV itself
  • An IR remote controller
  • An HDMI cable
  • The Power adapter with the cable
  • A MicroUSB OTG cable
  • A user manual
  • An operating instructions manual
  • An eshare software brochure


Looks & Ports
The device has a black matte exterior featuring the MXIV logo on top along with the Tronfy logo and the power on/off button

On the right side we find:
  • A ventilation grill
  • A MicroUSB OTG port
  • 2 x USB 2.0 

Looking at the back we see:
  • 2 more ventilation grills
  • The DC input
  • An A/V output
  • The ethernet port
  • The HDMI output
  • The SPDIF Optical Audio output

If we flip the MXIV around we have more ventilation grills and the device's rating which is 5V 2A


Hardware Specifications
From the CPU-Z software we see that the MXIV has sme very powerful specs which are:
  • CPU: Quad Core Amlogic S812 running at 2Ghz max
  • GPU: Mali-450MP
  • Total Ram: 1.6 GB
  • Internal Storage: 12.34 GB
  • Root Access: Yes
  • Screen Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels which means that it is running a 1080p kernel

Software
We have 2 launchers available, Lighthome launcher and Launcher3 which is closer to the stock android one


Lighthome launcher seems very polished, beautiful and basic, the home page consists of some standard apps, the eshare server, Flixuniverse where we can find a wide range of movies but it needs subscription, Browser, Play Store, Settings, File Manager, a task killer and the app drawer



On the top left corner we see the clock along with the weather, next to it it's the XBMC media center and on the right column we have a favorite apps list which we can configure with the apps we use the most


On the top right we have a google search button and our connectivity status and we also get two more pages where we can add several app shortcuts 


Switching to Launcher3 we are presented with a more stock android experience which i prefer because you can have your favourite live wallpapers running on the background like this one


You can of course add your app shorcuts and your favourite widgets and view your notifications and settings by dragging the top bars down


As we can see the device is running Android 4.4.2 but Tronfy has just released an update which i will show you how to install on my next video


The fact that this is an Android device gives you the freedom to do a lot of things like reading you emails, surfing the web, playing games, watching movies etc

Eshare Server
The MXIV has the Eshare Server preinstalled. This software is amazing and it can do a lot of things.

So if you have an iphone, Android or Windows smartphone, you can view your photos, videos and documents on your TV (Note that you can view your videos on your TV even if your smartphone's screen is off which is a big plus for battery life and lcd protection), control the TV box, use it as a flymouse, mirror the MXIV's screen on your phone or tablet or even cast your phone's camera on the TV






It is very responsive and advanced functions like pinch to zoom work excellent

Benchmarks
I ran some benchmarks to show you how the device performs

Antutu Benchmark gave me 42219 points, a good score among android tv boxes



Although 3D Mark couldn't be competed it constantly gave me 34-38 fps which is pretty good


And Antutu video tester showed us how good the MXIV is at video playback on various videos formats giving us a perfect score


Kodi & Video Playback 
Kodi runs very smooth and fast and i tried some test videos running from an external 1 TB 2.5" HDD





They all ran perfectly fine without frame loss proving that the Amlogic S812 renders this TV Box as the perfect media player

Games
Android devices have great potentials to be very capable gaming platforms

This is exactly the case with the MXIV as you can play games from the play store or use emulators to play other platform games like PSP

You can also use external wireless gamepads like the Dual Shock 4 and this is a demonstration of what this TV Box can do




All the games i tried played great and you won't be dissapointed on this field

Conclusion
The MXIV is a great device from a very responsible manufacturer, its powerful specs make it a nearly perfect media player and entertainment platform given that you can also play very nice games on it. You can also use it as a desktop pc because android has now matured and has great applications you can use

Pros
  • Small Size
  • Great Build Quality
  • Powerful Specs
  • 1080p Kernel
  • Great video Playback
  • Good Kodi support
  • No heat issues
  • Smooth operation

Cons
  • It could have more than 2 USB ports (you can use a USB hub though)

Watch my Unboxing and Video Review 

This was my review guys, stay tuned for more and as always for more unboxings, reviews and tutorials subscribe, share and follow me:
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