Good day everyone, and welcome back.
Today I have my first RockChip TV box for 2020 the DQ6 Android 10 4K TV box.
This box runs on the RockChip RK3328 CPU and the Mali 450 GPU, on 4GB of RAM and 32GB of
internal storage on Android 10 operating system.
So is this box something to be excited about, or does it fall within the budget category.
There’s only one way to find out.
Stay tuned a full review is up next.
So I’m back and in the box you have nothing out of the ordinary.
You have the DQ6 TV box itself.
One IR remote.
One HDMI cable.
A 5V 2A DC power adapter.
An external antenna.
And a user’s manual.
And now for its design and ports.
The entire body is made of plastic with the DQ6 branding printed to the top.
To the rear, you have one HDMI port, One RJ45 Ethernet LAN port,
One optical audio port, One AV jack,
and your DC power input.
To the side you have one USB 3.0 port, one USB 2.0, and a micro SD card reader.
To the opposite you have an external antenna and some cooling vents.
To the front you have an LED clock display.
And below the box you have lots of ventilation holes.
So I will now set this up on my 4K TV and capture card and continue.
So I’m all set, and this is the startup of the DQ6.
You have a short bootup animation then you are taken directly to the launcher.
The launcher has a different layout than what we have seen in the recent times, consisting
of a vertical main panel to the left and horizontal shortcut bars to the right.
You have a one click memory cleanup button for killing apps running in the background
and the freeing up system resources.
And this launcher does not have a navigation bar or status bar for easy navigating with
most pointers.
Features of this firmware include.
4K display up to 2160 P at 60 Hz.
CEC options.
Dolby Atmos and DTS audio options under sound settings.
And the ability to change the wallpaper.
There is no root switch, HDR setting, Dolby vision, screen rotation, or hardware monitor
settings.
In the apps section here is a look at apps that comes preinstalled.
You have an app called RKTV which is your Kodi media player, and you have Plex, and
Netflix.
The rest of apps are your regular browser and social media apps.
So I will install my usual set of apps needed to complete my review and continue.
So I’ve installed all my apps, and the first let’s take a look at its system and hardware
information.
The manufacturer of this box is RockChip and the main board used in this box is the RK30.
It comes with 4GB of DDR3 RAM according to the product description, and 32GB of internal
storage from which this is the remainder after the android installation and all the apps
installed.
The Bluetooth version is 4.2 also according to the product description.
On the Amazon page it says that the CPU is the RK3318, and the hardware information here
it shows that the CPU is the RK 3328.
So it appears that the Amazon page has the wrong CPU information.
The CPU is a quad core 64bit CPU clocked at 1.1GHz, with support for 32 and 64bit ABIs.
So the CPU speed here is clocked very low, and will see how this affects its performance.
The GPU is the Mali 450 with a refresh rate of 60 Hz and open GL ES version 2.0 which
is not ideal for gaming.
The box has dual band Wi-Fi support, and the 5GHz band is supported.
The operating system is android 10, and it shows a that the box is rooted but that is
incorrect as you will see in the root checker app.
The box hovers around 70°C under regular activities, and this will increase during
more intense activities.
The box has all the decoders for the playback of 4K videos but there are no decoders to
support Dolby and DTS audio formats.
And that’s it for system and hardware information, and let’s now take a look at some benchmarks.
First the results from the test ran on its RAM copy speed and its internal storage read
and write speeds.
The DQ6 has a RAM copy speed of 2701 MB/s.
It’s internal storage has a read speed of 39 MB/s and write speed of 46.
These scores are low scores and it signals that this box falls within the budget category.
These are the results of the Wi-Fi bands and the ethernet LAN speed tests.
In this test I got some really strange results where on my 100Mbps Internet network, the
5GHz band clocked lower speeds than the 2.4 GHz band.
The LAN port also clocked the same low speeds as the 5 GHz band.
What to make of this I’m not quite sure, but none of the tests was able to hit the
maximum speed of my network.
Next in the Antutu benchmark the DQ6 got a score of 40,060.
This is not a very high score and we will see in a moment where this places it on the
chart.
In the Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark the box got a score of 538 single core and 1119 or multi-core.
These are also low scores and they continue to show that this box falls within the budget
category.
In the 3D Mark gamers bench GPU benchmark, the box only qualified for the ice storm extreme
test, and in this test the scored 1213.
It only has support for open GL ES version 2.0 so it didn’t qualify for the slingshot
test.
So that’s it for the benchmarks, and after entering the scores on my rankings chart the
DQ6 took position number 31 which is last in this list.
You can view this chart on my website in full spreadsheet format where you can interact
with it and compare various scores see the link in the description below this video.
So after that analysis of its hardware performance and firmware features, it’s safe to say
that this box falls within the low performance budget category, and it should only be used
for streaming movies and TV shows.
However, for the sake of some of you who still would like confirmation on its performance
in other areas, I would briefly run through these tests regardless of the results.
So first, here’s the confirmation from the root checker app that shows that the box is
not rooted.
Next here is a look at its DRM information showing that you have Google Widevine level
3 with no HDCP protection, this limits Netflix to basic 480p quality regardless of the subscription
you have.
Alternative launchers failed to work as apps refuse to launch, and the same applies for
screen rotation apps.
When it comes to Netflix and Amazon prime video, as stated a while ago this box does
not have the required DRM support to protect against piracy and to play these premium paid
services in HD and 4K quality, even if you have a premium account.
You can still however watch Netflix in basic 480p quality which is clean and a very watchable.
For users of the Kodi media player, they have preinstalled a custom skinned version which
they have called RKTV.
This version comes blank and operates and works the same as any other Kodi build, and
here you can see I’ve installed all my third-party add-ons for free streams of movies and TV
shows.
You can also install your favorite streaming APKs and watch free streams of movies and
TV shows in as high as HD and 4K quality.
The android TV version of YouTube the comes preinstalled, and it plays up to 4K 1440 P
quality without issues, and when you attempt to play 4K video.
at 2160 P the picture freezes.
Also you have to disable the android text-to-speech feature in the settings area, as this will
make any video unwatchable as it will continue to speak in the background.
I installed the Airscreen and attempted to cast my mobile phone using a Miracast, but
after many attempts it failed to connect.
So this box does not have screen mirroring.
When it comes to playing 4K videos in HDR format I attempted one of the videos from
my list and it tried to play, but the video just froze up while the audio continued playing
in the background.
Also there is no HDR display feature in this box.
I played a 1080p video and it plays smoothly but still no HDR display.
I also attempted to play my Dolby Atmos and DTS audio videos and all of them failed to
play.
For My final demonstration I connected my gamepad via Bluetooth and play a game to test
its 3D graphics capability.
Most of the regular game titles that I usually play are unavailable on the Google play store
because the box does not meet the requirements to play these games.
So I installed real racing 3 that is compatible with open GL ES version 2.0, and it played
with choppy graphics and lots of throttling due to overheating.
So I applied the Dr. cool cooling fan below the box, and the temperature dropped significantly
and game-play also improved.
In summary the DQ6 is a TV box that falls into the budget category with low-end hardware
and should only be used for streaming movies and TV shows, because that’s all I can identify
that it’s good that.
Here is a list of all the cons I encountered during this review, and as I indicated in
one of my previous videos that I would resume reviewing these models regardless of my prior
knowledge of what to expect.
In my opinion the price tag attached to this box should be lowered to reflect what was
a shown in this video today.
And with that said if you’re looking for a budget TV box for basic streaming of movies
and TV shows and would like to get your hands on the DQ6, links can be found in the description
directly below this video.
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