What’s happening everyone Nick here from TV Box stop and welcome back to another Android
TV Box review.
Today’s model is another recent release running on the Allwinner H618 quad-core CPU
on Android 12 operating system.
This is the T95Z Plus and it is sold in by the HKMLC brand on Amazon.
This model runs on 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage and it comes with a mini
touchpad keyboard as an accessory.
So to find all there is know about this box stay tuned my full review is up next.
So am back and to get started let’s take a look at what’s in the box.
You have the T95Z Plus model itself.
One infrared remote.
One HDMI cable.
A 5V 2A power adapter.
A wireless mini keyboard and charging cable.
A user manual for the T95Z Plus and a manual for the mini touchpad keyboard.
So the design of this model is one we have not seen in a long time since the launch of
an their first model back in 2016 which is also called the T95Z Plus.
It adopts a hexagon shape with a honeycomb pattern to the top.
For input output it has one HDMI port one AV port its DC power input one USB 2.0 port
one RJ-45 Ethernet LAN port one optical audio port another USB 2.0 port and a microSD card
reader.
At the front it has an LED display.
And below the box has four antiskid rubber pads and ventilation holes.
So its startup process consists of a T95Z Plus animation for a few seconds then you
are taking directly to the launcher.
So this launcher is called the softwinner launcher and has a very basic layout with
these large highlighted icons the next row is for some system tools to access apps such
as Miracast and a one click cleanup button.
And the last row consists of shortcuts to its system settings.
There is the option to change its wallpaper from a preloaded selection and you also have
the option to use custom images.
And this launcher does not feature a navigation bar or status bar.
This firmware was built on the Android 12 SDK and here is its firmware build information.
And it features 4K 2160p display up to 60hz and this is true 60hz as detected by my capture
card.
You get up to 10bit color depth.
It has HDR display with auto HDR feature.
Under display formats it shows that it has HDR 10 and HLG and it does not support Dolby
vision or HDR 10+.
It has auto framerate switching.
You have text scaling.
This can come in handy for viewing and further distances and for persons with the vision
challenges.
It has HDMI CEC options.
Power key definition options.
An app to control its LED lighting feature.
Audio passthrough and advanced surround sound audio options.
Taking a look at its apps section these are what come preinstalled and I’ll be testing
this official Miracast feature in just a moment.
But before I do let’s first take a look at its system and hardware information.
So the manufacturer of this chipset is Allwinner and it has 4GB of DDR3 RAM and 64GB of internal
storage.
Its Bluetooth version is 5.0.
Its CPU is the Allwinner H618 and it’s a quad-core cortex A53 CPU clock at 1.4GHz configured
in 32bit mode which means it can only run 32bit apps and games.
Its low CPU clock speed is to curtail overheating which is a known Allwinner issue.
Its display is powered by the Mali G31 GPU with open GL version 3.2 support.
It comes with dual band 2.4GHz + 5GHz Wi-Fi.
Its operating system is Android 12 and it shows that the firmware is not rooted.
Its GPU has Vulkan support API version 1.1.
Its temperature sensor is enabled and it shows that it idles around 67°C.
Under codecs it has decoders for the playback of 4K HDR videos but no AV1 decoder.
There is also no surround sound audio decoders so that will have to be done at the software
level.
And that’s its system and hardware information.
So to get the obvious out of the way this box is not Google certified with only Widevine
level III with no HDCP protection and it also shows that the box is not rooted.
What this simply means is that paid subscription services such as Netflix Disney+ and Amazon
For watching YouTube videos you can install the Android TV version or you can install
the mobile version from the play store.
However it plays best at 1440p resolution as 4K 2160p freezes up a lot.
It comes with the official version of Miracast that mirrors your mobile devices in HD quality.
This feature works without issues which is quite surprising because I’ve seen it fail
so many times in these boxes.
So here I am mirroring my Android cell phone in HD without issues.
For customizing your launcher and navigation experience I installed the menu button navigation
bar however due to no root access the recent apps feature is not working.
If your box does not have a navigation bar you can view my tutorial in the description
below this video.
As mentioned you can change its wallpaper from a selection of preinstalled ones and
it has the option to use a custom image.
However when I attempt to read images from external storage it does not read.
For alternative launchers you can install your favorite alternative launchers however
there is a weird scenario where when you install an alternative launcher there is no way for
you to switch between launchers not even from the navigation bar.
The good news is with your alternative launcher you can use custom wallpapers or live wallpapers.
So I’ll now play some 4K HDR videos and I’ll be testing for HDR and HLG HDR video
playback.
So this test shows that it has 4K HDR playback.
However I did not get HLG HDR.
For surround sound audio we have already seen that it does not come with any hardware decoders
so let’s see what software decoders we can get via the MX player.
So via software decoding it can play Dolby Atmos Dolby Digital plus and DTS Neural X.
I it cannot output Dolby surround DTS X DTS HD-MA or Dolby TrueHD.
So I connected my gamepad via Bluetooth and its Bluetooth 5.0 connection is stable.
And I will now use it to play an Android game to test for graphics rendering and for overheating.
So the game plays best at medium graphics settings as any higher results in throttling.
The temperature of the CPU rose into the 80s during gameplay so it’s recommended that
you use a cooling fan.
When you apply a cooling fan temperature drop into the low 70s.
Let’s now take a look at its benchmarks.
Starting with its RAM copy speed and its internal storage read and write speeds.
Its RAM copy speed is 2772 MB/s.
Its internal storage has a read speed of 149 MB/s and a write speed of 139.
Next its Internet speed tests.
Based on my network speed of 154 Mbps neither of its Wi-Fi bands or its LAN port could achieve
the maximum speed of my network.
The 5 GHz band reached 56% the 2.4GHz band reached 39% and the LAN port which is not
a gigabit LAN port reached 61%.
Its CPU in benchmarking its single-core and multicore performance it got a score of 103
single-core and 339 multicore in the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark.
In benchmarking the performance of its GPU with Vulkan support I got a score of 128 in
the wildlife test and 265 in the slingshot extreme test.
And in the Antutu benchmark it scored 69262.
So with these benchmarks it placed at number 84 with a 2 star rating based on my user experience.
And to view this chart see the link in the description below this video.
In summary the new T95Z Plus has the same performance as those we have seen running
on the Allwinner H618 chipset thus far.
It’s a great budget option for streaming movies and TV shows but not so much for gaming.
If you do decide to game on it please apply a cooling fan for safety.
And that my friends concludes this review.
If you were interested in this model you can get it at a reasonable price using the link
in the description below this video.
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