What’s happening everyone Nick here from TV Box stop with a new and exciting TV Box review. Today
I have a new high-end release called the X96 X9 and this one is running on the Amlogic S922X CPU
on 4GB of DDR4 RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. The S922X is known for its high performance and
high benchmarks and it’s one of the recommended SOCs when looking for a gaming TV Box.
So in this review let’s look at the pros and cons of this latest release and let’s see if
the S922X which first appeared in 2019 is still the high-performance CPU when
compared to recent TV Boxes today. So that’s up next stay tuned.
So I’m back and in your purchase you get the X9 model itself one Bluetooth voice
remote control one HDMI cable a 12V 2A power adapter one external antenna and a manual.
The box itself has a very nice design with an aluminum body and the X96 logo over a
polyester fabric that’s fingerprint resistant. For connecting ports you get one HDMI port one
RJ-45 gigabit LAN one optical audio port one AV port its DC power socket and an
external antenna to its rear. To the side it has one USB 2.0
one USB 3.0 and a microSD card reader. At the front you have an LED display.
And to its base it has four antiskid rubber pads with no ventilation holes.
So the startup of this model features an X96 animation for
a couple of seconds followed by the launcher.
This launcher features a horizontal scrolling panel of
all the apps installed on the box to the center. To the top you have a shortcut bar. And below the
panel you have shortcuts to access your various settings and a shortcut to access the app section.
This launcher does not have a navigation bar or status bar.
With this firmware you get two sets of settings device preferences and droid settings.
And with these you get 4K display up to 2160p at 59.94 Hz 12 bit as confirmed by my capture card.
It has adaptive HDR display feature which can come in handy for non-HDR TVs.
You get Dolby vision. HDMI CEC options.
Power key definition options. 54 various languages.
Dolby Atmos and DTS audio surround sound options. This firmware does not feature a root switch
hardware monitor Samba server built-in screen rotation navigation bar or status bar options.
So these are apps that come install on the box and you have full access to the mobile version
of the play store. So I’ll install some additional apps for testing and continue.
So I’ll first start with its system and hardware information.
It manufacturer is Droidlogic and it runs on 4GB of RAM and this is DDR4 memory and
this version is the 32GB model. There is also a 4GB 64GB model. Its Bluetooth version is 4.2.
Its CPU consist of two cores a dual core cortex A53 and a quad-core cortex A73.
Both cores are clocked at 1.7 GHz and the system can only run 32bit apps and games.
Its GPU is the high-performance Mali G52 with Open GL version 3.2 support.
It has dual band Wi-Fi and the 5 GHz band is supported.
Its operating system is Android 9 pie and it’s not rooted. This bit of information here is incorrect.
It has Vulkan GPU support version 1.1 a feature of a gaming GPU.
With its CPU clocked at 1.7 GHz and its aluminum design it
idles is around 38°C and I’ll monitor how high it increases during gaming.
It comes with all the decoders needed for the playback of 4K HDR Dolby vision
videos and videos with surround sound audio formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS audio.
This model does not support the AV1 decoder. And that’s its system and hardware information.
So the included Bluetooth remote is actually an air mouse with voice commands feature.
However the sensitivity of the cursor is too high which makes it a bit difficult
to control and the voice feature does not seem to work when I attempted to use it.
For installing and playing your paid subscriptions from your favorite movie
services such as Netflix Disney+ and Amazon prime video these require no root
access digital rights and Google certification. The X9 is not Google certified it’s not rooted
and it does not have the required digital rights to play these services in HD or 4K.
Here I installed the modified version of Netflix and even though it says HD the
test patterns video quality test shows that it can only go as high as 480p. This is due to the
lack of Google certification and the digital rights to protect these services from piracy.
For watching YouTube videos you can install both the mobile version and the Android TV
version and they both show in the 4K 2160p resolution with HDR triggering on my LG TV.
For casting your mobile devices it comes with the official version of Miracast that mirrors
your mobile devices in HD quality. Here I’m casting my Android cell phone without issues.
For customizing your Android experience you can install any alternative launcher
and you can also install the menu button navigation bar and surprisingly with no
root access its fully functional with starting up upon restart and the recent apps feature.
With the alternative launcher here I installed ADW launcher 2 and you get
long click menu pop-ups and drag-and-drop shortcuts and you can even change its
wallpaper to custom images and beautiful live wallpapers. However on the default launcher
you cannot change the wallpaper. For those that use screen rotation
to portrait mode with vertical monitors please note that this box does not supported feature.
Let’s now take a look at how it handles some 4K HDR videos.
The videos played smoothly and on my LG TV I got HDR and HLG HDR display feature.
I’ll now test for surround sound audio formats.
So this test shows that via its HDMI port you get
Dolby Atmos DTS X DTS HD-MA and Dolby surround. You don’t get in Dolby TrueHD.
Its Bluetooth feature works perfectly here I connected
my Bluetooth gamepad and it connected quickly and the connection is stable.
And to test the power of its GPU here I installed an Android game and set its
graphics to the highest detail and using the Bluetooth gamepad I’ll running for it couple of
minutes and monitor the onscreen temperature overly for possible signs of overheating.
So with its CPU clocked at 1.7 GHz and with its aluminum body with no ventilation holes
the game ran on its highest settings smoothly and its temperature remained below 70°C at all
times. I would have preferred they maxed out the CPU at 2.0 or2.2 gigahertz and used one of those
new CPU cooling fan designs or the external heatsink design with saw in recent models.
Let’s now look at some benchmarks and where it places on the chart.
First its RAM and internal storage. It has a RAM copy speed of 4686 MB/s.
Its internal storage has a read speed of 169 MB/s and a write speed of 125 MB/s.
For Wi-Fi and LAN speeds. From tests based on a network speed of 154 the Mbps the 5GHz band
and the LAN port has maximum bandwidth. The 2.4GHz band achieved a dismal 13%.
In the geekbench CPU benchmark I depreciated the Geekbench 4 test and now I’m using Geekbench 5.
And in this test it scored 219 single-core and 693 multicore.
In the 3DMark graphics benchmark it only qualified for the slingshot extreme test and it scored 1027.
And in the Antutu benchmark it scored 125216. So all these benchmarks are
reflective of a high-end TV Box model. So let’s now see where it places on the chart.
So the scores are in and the new X96 X9 is at position 10 based on its Antutu
benchmark score. This chart contains all his benchmarks and features in comparison
to other models. You can also find purchase links and links to its video right here.
To view this chart see the link in the description below this video.
In summary the new X96 X9 is a high-performance model ideal for watching movies and TV shows and
it’s great for gaming. It has good Wi-Fi reception on the 5GHz band and maximum bandwidth on its
gigabit LAN port. Its Bluetooth connectivity is stable and the box does not overheat.
What’s lacking in this model is root access with a root switch especially when you are
running the mobile version of Android. If you are not running Android TV OS then it makes
no sense leaving the box not rooted. Also due to mobile version it does not have the
digital rights play paid subscriptions in HD and 4K causing a 480p resolution restriction.
Its 2.4GHz band got some really low speeds during the speed tests and for
those interested in gaming using keymapping apps those will not work as the box is not
rooted. Most of these issues can be solved with either a firmware update or changing
the firmware completely to a custom ROM. But the hardware itself is excellent.
So friends that brings to an end this review. This box is currently being sold on AliExpress
for $98 with a $10 discount coupon and you won’t find it on Amazon or other retail stores.
So if you like to take advantage of this discount coupon see my special
link in the description below this video. Special thanks go out to the brand Reyfoon
for sending this model for review they are one of my loyal sponsors and they
continue to send new TV boxes for review. So show them some support by using my links
and in doing so you also provide monetary support to this channel for future videos.
So give this video the thumbs up if you enjoyed the video. If you are new to this
channel don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and the ring the notifications bell
to be notified each time I release a new TV Box video or decide to do a giveaway.
Thanks for taking the time to watch as video stay tuned and see you in the next one.