What’s up everyone and welcome back to another TV Box stop review. Featured in
today’s video is a certified model from Mecool running on Google TV OS version
11 with full Netflix ESN certification and digital rights to stream official
movie services in HD and 4K with HDR. This is the new Mecool KM7 plus and it
runs on the Amlogic S905Y4 CPU on 2GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 16GB of internal storage.
So as usual in this review we take a detailed look at its hardware and features and based on
its price we’ll see if it’s a good option for streaming in comparison to devices such as the
Fire Stick or the Google Chromecast. So don’t go anywhere that’s up next.
And
welcome back. So in this purchase
you get the KM7 plus model itself. One Bluetooth voice remote with Google
assistance feature and dedicated buttons for Netflix prime video Disney+ and YouTube.
One HDMI cable.
A 12V 1A 12W DC power supply. And a user manual.
For its design its entire body is made of a black-and-white plastic
pattern which adds a modern appearance with the Mecool branding at the top.
For input-output ports it comes with one HDMI 2.1 port with support for HDR 10 and HDR 10+.
One RJ-45 Ethernet LAN port up to 100 Mbps so it’s not a gigabit LAN port.
One AV port. One optical audio port.
It’s DC power input jack. A pair of USB 2.0 ports.
And a microSD card reader with a maximum read capacity of 128GB.
To its front it has three LED indicators for IR signal network activity and power indication.
And its bottom panel has four antiskid rubber feet and lots of ventilation holes.
So the first startup process includes the pairing of the Bluetooth remote
logging in using your Google account credentials configuring Google Assistant
and the option to set up the remote to control the volume and power on your TV.
So this is your Google TV launcher and if I open the settings area under the About
section here you can see it’s built using the Android 11 TV OS SDK here
is its firmware build information and it also shows that it has a Netflix ESN certification.
For firmware features you get 4K display up to 2160p at 59.94hz according to my capture card.
You get HDR display with the option to set it to adaptive HDR.
It has 10-bit and 12-bit color formats. It has HDMI CEC options.
Surround sound audio options. Google assistance feature.
Google casting feature. Ambient mode options.
And 52 various languages to choose from.
And now a quick look at its system and hardware information.
So the manufacturer of this hardware is Skyworthdigital and it’s an Amlogic
chipset with 2GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Its Bluetooth version is 5.0.
Its CPU is the Amlogic S905Y4 quad-core cortex A35 model configured in 32-bit mode with a
maximum CPU clock speed of 2.0 GHz. It also only has support for 32-bit apps and games.
For display and graphics it comes with the Mali G31 GPU and here it shows when
connected to my TV it has a refresh rate of 60hz with open GL version 3.2.
Its wireless network adapter delivers dual-band 2.4GHz + 5GHz AC Wi-Fi connectivity.
Under Android it shows that is Android 11 operating system is not rooted.
Under devices it shows that its GPU has Vulkan API version 1.1 support. This will provide
standard performance with most Android games. You can’t get its temperature reading because
they have disabled the temperature sensor. This is not a good thing for them to do as
there is no way of monitoring the CPU’s temperature during intensive activities.
I recommend placing a cooling fan below the box during Android gaming if that’s your intention.
Under codecs it comes with all the decoders for the playback of 4K HDR HLG and AV1 videos
and it also has decoders for surround sound audio such as Dolby Atmos eac3 and
DTS HD. However it lacks Dolby vision decoders. So that’s its system and hardware information.
So moving on to streaming from premium movie streaming services.
Under the About section we already saw that it comes with a Netflix ESN
certification which ensures that if you have an HD or 4K Netflix subscription you
can watch movies in the highest resolution. And if you take a look at its DRM information
it shows that it has Google Widevine L1 with the latest HDCP 2.3 protection. This encrypts
the outgoing HDMI signal to protect these streaming services from piracy.
It also shows to the top a list of supported audio and video decoders. Its HDR display types. Here
it shows that it supports HDR 10 and HLG and it does not support HDR 10+ or Dolby Vision.
It shows that it does not have a wide color gamut and it confirms
that it has a maximum refresh rate of 59.94 Hz.
And for a demonstration here on Netflix it shows in 4K HDR resolution with
Dolby Atmos. It also triggers the HDR 10 feature on this TV but not Dolby Vision.
In Prime Video the same applies. You get 4K UHD display with HDR
and Dolby Atmos. You don’t get Dolby Vision.
For watching YouTube videos with the Android TV version as standard in this operating system you
can watch videos in 4K 2160p at 60hz with HDR. This box comes with Google Assistant and one
of its uses besides voice search and voice commands is that it integrates
easily into your Google Home ecosystem. Once you have Google Home set up on your mobile
phone and the box is connected to the same network as your phone your phone will automatically detect
it which in turn allows you to control the box’s volume as well as cast your mobile phone to the
box so you can watch YouTube videos and other content in as high as HD 1080p resolution.
Let’s now take a look at its 4K video playback and we are
looking for HDR 10 AV1 and HLG video decoding playing smoothly.
This is the AV1 video.
So the videos played smoothly and the HDR 10 and
HLG features triggered on my TV and the AV1 video played without issues.
For surround sound formats you have to set the audio settings to passthrough to get various
formats as setting it to automatic results in the Dolby surround format being output continuously
no matter what you are playing. So here it outputs Dolby Atmos.
When set to front surround you get Dolby Digital plus.
When you play a DTS HD-MA video you get DTS virtual X
instead. In
this video you get Dolby surround and Dolby TrueHD.
And when you attempt to play a DTS X video you get DTS virtual X instead.
So using the MX player it can output Dolby Atmos Dolby Digital plus Dolby
surround Dolby TrueHD and DTS virtual X. You don’t get DTS HD-MA or DTS X.
For playing Android games you are very restricted in what you can play due to
its limited RAM and internal storage. If you attempt to install games such as
Real Racing 3 Dead Affect 2 or Asphalt 9 they will install but will not run
due to insufficient RAM. Only smaller games such as a Beach Buggy will run.
Now
for some benchmarks and where it
places on my rankings chart. First its RAM and internal
storage read and write speeds. It has a RAM copy speed of 3784
MB/s. An internal storage read speed of 126 MB/s and a write speed of 50 MB/s.
For Wi-Fi and Ethernet LAN speeds its 5GHz band based on my network of 154 Mbps achieved
the maximum speed of my network. The 2.4GHz band performs pretty
well also clocking 100 Mbps which is 65% of my network speed and this is above what we would
usually get from models in this range. Its LAN port which is not a gigabit LAN
port could only muster an average of 94 Mbps which is 61% of my network speed.
And in the Antutu benchmark it scored 83219. Here’s a look at the scores from its
CPU single-core and multicore performance. And these are the results of its GPU performance.
I will now place these scores on the chart and let’s see where it places.
So here’s a look at my rankings chart and the new Mecool KM7 plus is at position 51 based on
its Antutu benchmark score and I gave it a 3/5 star rating based on its pros and cons.
It’s currently priced at $78.99 but you can get
it for $71.09 with a 10% discount coupon using this link right here.
To access this chart see the link in the description below this video.
So In summary. Mecool has released another
certified model to view premium movie streaming services in HD and 4K. But some might be wondering
why these certified models are limited to 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.
Information coming to me from developers reveals that this limitation is due to a
Google certification requirement that mandates models to have 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal
storage which makes no sense to me at all. Nonetheless what I can’t understand on the
part of Mecool is why they couldn’t include Dolby Vision decoders in this model.
So friends this brings to an end another TV Box review. Special thanks go out to
Mecool for sending their model for review and if the information contained in this
video was of value then I kindly ask that you give it the thumbs up
to support this channel and use the links and coupon in the description to purchase.
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