Put some actual smart in your TV
We have some bad news for you and you're
not going to like it, as few parents ever want to hear anything negative about
their baby. Well, here it is: Your so-called Smart TV really isn’t that smart.
Sure, the guy in the blue shirt said that
your fab 60-inch plasma was top of its class and graduated cum laude, but the
truth is, your TV spent most of its schooling playing beer pong and is a
actually a class-A moron. The only reason it's called "Smart" is
because it was pledged as a legacy.
MiniX
Neo X5
That's where MiniX’s new Neo X5 comes in.
Running Android Ice Cream Sandwich, this inexpensive black box gives your TV an
actual browser and access to applications that aren't coded in the language
Ass++.
The Neo X5 sports a dual-core Rock chip
RK3066 ARM processor with a quad-core Mali 400 graphics chip, 1GB of RAM and
16GB of storage. For connectivity, it has 802.11 n, Bluetooth. HDMI 1.4a, Fast
Ethernet, and an optical S/PDIF out. For additional storage, the Neo X5 has an
SD slot. MiniX even includes a short HDMI cable and USB OTG cable. For those of
you who don't subscribe to Obscure Ports Quarterly, OTG lets you use the box's
Micro USB port as a standard USB port, or if we could figure it out hook the
Neo X5 to a PC’s USB port to use as a storage device. Think of it as a USB port
that swings both ways.
The
Neo X5 sports a dual-core Rock chip RK3066 ARM processor with a quad-core Mali
400 graphics chip, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
As we said, we couldn't figure it out and
that's perhaps one of the most vexing problems with the Neo X5. It's pretty
much stock Ice Cream Sandwich, but a lot of things were simply not intuitive or
not working. We couldn't, for example, figure out how to zoom in or out, and
many apps that are intended for touch just didn't work correctly for us.
Granted, we were using it with a wireless keyboard and mouse, but that's how
the device would normally be used in a living room since the remote it ships
with feels like it came out of a gumball machine.
The performance of the Neo X5 didn’t
impress us, either. It felt sluggish in most instances, with a subpar user
interface. Some benchmarks told us otherwise. We compared it to a Tegra 3-based
Nexus 7 (admittedly not the most direct comparison, but a good measure of
relative Andro id performance) and the X5 took most of the wins. The Nex7
certainly felt smoother but that’s likely due to Jelly Bean and its Project
Butter improvements.
The
performance of the Neo X5 didn’t impress us, either. It felt sluggish in most
instances, with a subpar user interface.
Overall, the Neo X5 feels under spec’d to
us. Even the display at 1080p output looked so soft we had to double-check
which mode it was in. Security is also an issue, as there is no way to secure
the unit. Since you'd be logged into your Gmail account at all times on it,
you're leaving your email fly down for anyone on the device.
The Neo X5 is mainly marketed as a media
player and it does fine there to an extent. We could play various MP4 files,
from GoPro cams to Handycams to still images without hiccups, and there is an
extensive set of codecs supported. NetfLix was also fine but did exhibit more
compression artifacts than we expected. YouTube videos were also pretty low-res
despite being checked off as "HD.”
The
Neo X5 is mainly marketed as a media player and it does fine there to an
extent.
What we have here is essentially a work in
progress. As is, it’s still far more usable and much faster than 95 percent of
the "Smart” televisions on the market, but there’s much improvement to be
had. MiniX is promising a Jelly Bean update at some point that may greatly
change the experience which it needs.
Specifications
Info
§ Price:
$110
§ Website:
www.polywell.com
Processor
§ Dual-Core
Cortex A9 Processor
GPU
§ Quad-Core
Mali 400 (Open GL ES2.0/1.1, Open VG1.1, Flash 11.1)
§ Supports
Flash hardware decoding by exclusive FTR technology
Memory
§ 1GB
DDR3
Internal Storage
§ 16GB
NAND Flash
Wireless Connectivity
§ 802.11
b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth V4.0
OS
§ Android™
ICS 4.0.4 (4.1.1 upgradable)
Video Output
§ HDMI™
1.4a, Full HD 1080p, 3D movie file format supported
Audio Output
§ HDMI™
1.4a, Optical S/PDIF
Peripheral Interface
§ RJ-45
Ethernet jack (10/00Mbps) - Supports hotspot sharing via Wi-Fi
§ SD/MMC
card reader (SD 3.0, MMC V4.41)
§ USB
2.0 port x 3
§ Micro
USB OTG port (also serves as the 4th USB port)
§ Headphone
jack
§ Microphone
jack
§ IR
receiver
Power
§ DC
5V, 3A adapter included (NEO X5 required less than 1A to operate)
Supported Video Format
§ AVI/RM/RMVB/MKV/WMV/MOV/MP4/WEBM/DAT(VCD
format)/
§ VOB(DVD
format)/MPEG/MPG/FLV/ASF/TS/TP/3GP…etc
Supported Audio Format
§ WMA/WMV/APE/OGG/FLAC/AAC…etc
|
