What’s happening everyone
Nick here once again from TV Box stop with another new TV Box from A95X.
This is the A95X F3 Air II RGB TV Box and it’s another Amlogic S905W2 model running on Android
11 operating system on 4GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage with AV1 decoding.
In this review we take a look at what it’s made of, and what unique firmware features
it possesses, and let’s see if A95X does a better job than some of the recent models.
So stay tuned.
So welcome back and in the box you have your standard TV Box contents
consisting of. The TV Box itself.
One infrared remote. This is not an air-mouse and if you would like air mouse features you would
have to purchase one separately. You get one HDMI cable.
A 5V 2A DC power adapter. And a user manual.
Let’s take a look at its design. His body is made of plastic with the A95X
branding and the RGB lighting feature to the top. To its rear it has one HDMI 2.1 port,
one RJ-45 Ethernet LAN port, one optical audio, one AV port and the DC power input.
To its side it has two USB 2.0 ports and a microSD card reader.
At the front it has an LED display.
And below it has antiskid rubber pads and ventilation holes.
Its startup consist of a simple A95X splash screen
and the default Android boot up animation. There is no startup wizard before taken to launcher.
Its launcher is called the lean back launcher
and it’s designed to be navigated primarily by the direction pad and OK button on the stock remote,
but you can use a wireless air-mouse if that’s your preference.
This launcher does not have a navigation bar or status bar which comes in handy when using
an air-mouse. However, I will install the menu button alternative navigation bar in a moment.
This launcher has the option to change its wallpaper from a selection of
preloaded backgrounds, however you don’t get the option to add your own custom wallpaper.
Included in this model as in all previous A95X Air models is an RGB lighting feature
along with an application to change or adjust the color LED settings.
The app presents 3 LED lighting modes for work video and music,
and under each mode has 64 patterns with the option to set the speed and brightness of each
pattern. There is also the option to disable this LED feature whereby you get to turn it off.
This firmware unlike the other S905W2 models is not a hybrid firmware
and it was built on the mobile version of Android 11 SDK. Here is the firmware build
information and I’ve completed one update with a simple fix for multiple languages.
It features 4K display up to 2160p at 60hz, but it’s actually 59.94 Hz
up to 12bit as shown by my capture card.
It features HDR display with the option to set it to adaptive HDR this means
the HDR feature will only activate when you try to play and HDR video.
Under advanced display settings there is a switch to enable gaming mode.
It has HDMI CEC options and I have tested it on my LG TV and it works to switch off
your TV simultaneously with the box, and when you restart the box the TV also starts simultaneously.
There is no power key definition options, however when you press and hold the power
button on the stock remote you get the option to shut down or restart the box.
Also from an off position the remote turns on the box without issues.
Under sound settings you have the option to enable audio through the optical audio port.
And you have surround sound audio options.
I will test for these later in the video to see if they actually work.
In the apps section for preinstalled apps, for streaming you have Netflix,
Plex, TVMC Kodi media player, and the Android TV version of YouTube.
Four media you have the official version of Miracast,
Cetus Play for TV, the EXO player For AV1 videos, and the default movie player.
The rest of apps are your file browser’s, Google play store, and Internet Explorer’s.
And now a look at its system and hardware information.
The developer is A95X and here’s the main-board information.
It has 4GB of DDR3 RAM, And 64 GB of internal storage from which this is the remainder
after the Android installation and apps installed. Its Bluetooth version is 5.0.
Its CPU is a quad core cortex A35 CPU clocked at 1.8 GHz with support for only 32bit applications.
Its GPU is the Mali G31 with open GL ES version 3.2 support.
Under network it shows that it has 5 GHz Wi-Fi support.
Its operating system is Android 11 red velvet cake and it shows that the box is rooted.
Under devices it shows that it does not have Vulkan support.
Under temperature it shows that it idles around the 65°C.
And under codecs it shows all the decoders for the playback of
4K HDR videos, AV1 videos, and surround sound audio formats such as DTS HD.
However there are no Dolby decoders in this list, but I will test for them later in the video.
And that’s its system and hardware information.
To verify its root access information
here the root checker app shows that it’s not rooted, and there is no root switch.
So the only way you can get root access is if they release a firmware update doing so.
A very critical feature of a TV Box is its streaming capabilities and more so,
Google certification with the digital rights to run premium movie services in HD and 4K quality.
Where that is concerned this box is not Google certified nor
that have the digital rights to play premium movie services in HD and 4K.
Here it shows that it only has Google Widevine L3 with no HDCP protection. It will require Google
Widevine L1 with HDCP 2.2 protection for it to stream apps like Netflix in HD and 4K,
as this level of protection prevents users from copying and pirating their content.
You can however install some of these premium services, but they
will be restricted to basic 480p resolution even if you have a premium HD subscription.
The box comes preinstalled with two versions of Netflix,
but I uninstall both of them Because they were not updating from the play store.
Instead I installed the modified version of Netflix that can play in HD quality,
but due to the lack of certification and DRM support it’s still limited to basic 480p.
For watching YouTube videos you have the option of three versions.
First there is the Android TV version that can play videos in 4K 2160p resolution with HDR,
and is designed primarily to be navigated with a direction pad and OK button,
but you can also use a mouse pointer if you so choose.
Next you have the mobile version that’s now upgraded and can also play in 4K 2160p resolution
with HDR. However this version was designed to be navigated with touchscreen function
and when applied to TV boxes it’s ideal for mouse pointers.
And then there is the smart YouTube TV version.
What sets it aside from the others, is that it’s the only version that currently gives you
the option to watch videos in 4K 2160p resolution with HDR and AV1 decoding. here’s a video sample.
During testing all three versions triggered the HDR feature on my TV.
For casting and screen mirroring it comes with
the official version of Miracast that can cast your mobile devices in HD quality.
I discovered that if your mobile device has an EMUI or MIUI desktop mode,
when you cast using the Miracast feature you can mirror your display,
as well as you can access the phones desktop mode without the need for a USB type C hub.
For customization I previously stated that you cannot change the wallpaper
on the default launcher with a custom wallpaper. But that is incorrect. What
happens is once you insert a flash drive with your custom wallpaper it appears below
the list of preloaded ones. And here as you can see I have changed the default wallpaper.
I also installed the menu button alternative navigation bar but unfortunately the recent apps
feature is not working because the box is not rooted and the feature is disabled on the box.
For alternative launchers I installed the ADW launcher 2, plus the new Nova 7 launcher and they
both work without features working such as long click menu pop-ups and drag and drop shortcuts.
I attempted to install and run a live wallpaper but this box does not support live wallpapers.
For screen rotation to portrait mode a feature that is used on
vertical screens for advertising. That feature works on this box.
I attempted to format a 32GB and a 64 GB SD card to shared internal storage
in similar fashion to my previous S905W2 TV Box the formatting process failed.
When I attempted to format a 128 GB flash drives
via USB to shared internal storage it was successful.
To test its 4K and AV1 video playback
using the included EXO player I will now play my list of 4K HDR videos and one AV1 video.
So the 4K videos played okay with the HDR feature activating on my TV.
The AV1 video also played okay activating the HDR feature.
Let’s now see if this box can output Dolby Atmos, DTS X, DTS HD-MA, Dolby surround, or Dolby TrueHD.
So from this test it reveals that it can output the Dolby Atmos, basic DTS, and Dolby surround.
You don’t get DTS X, DTS HD-MA, and Dolby TrueHD.
I will now play an Android game and test for graphics rendering quality and overheating.
So the games played okay the graphics is not the smoothest because it does not have
Vulkan support, and the temperatures rose into the 80s so it’s recommended
that you use a cooling fan during gaming.
Another important thing you should know is that the Google play services is not updating
so there are lots of games that cannot access your Google play games profiles.
Let’s now take a look at its benchmarks and where it places on my ranking chart.
First its ram and internal storage. In this test scored 3249 MB/s.
Its internal storage has a read speed of 125 MB/s and a write speed of 93.
In its Internet speed tests based on my Internet speed of 250 Mbps its 5GHz band achieved 100%
of my Internet speed. It’s 2.4 GHz band only achieve the 11%.
And the LAN port which is not a gigabit LAN port achieved only 38%. So for the best Wi-Fi speeds
use the 5 GHz band with an appropriate dual band router.
In the Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark it scored 596 single-core, and 1623 multi-core.
These scores are average consistent with other boxes in its class.
In the graphics benchmark it shows that the box does not have Vulkan support
which only qualifies it for the ice storm extreme test and the slingshot test.
And it scored 5150 in the ice storm extreme test, and 532 in the slingshot test.
And in the Antutu benchmark the score that I use to place boxes on my chart scored 71,891.
And that’s the last of the benchmarks.
So when I entered the scores on my chart It took position 60 in reference to its
Antutu benchmark score along with a two star rating for its limited root access,
Google play services not updating, and its no navigation bar and status bar.
You can view this chart using the link in the description below this video.
So viewers in summary the A95X F3 Air II is not much different, and it didn’t provide
any improvements compared to similar models have reviewed. In fact it has a few more cons than the
others such as the Google play services issue, no root access, and no navigation bar and status bar.
And this brings to an end my review. Whether they release a firmware update in the future to rectify
some of these issues I do not know for sure if they will, but if they do manage to grant root
access and fix the update for Google play services then I would have to take a look at it again.
If you are interested in this model
you can get it at a very low price using the link in the description below this video.
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