What’s happening everyone Nick here from TV Box stop and welcome to another new and
exciting review. On today’s video I feature an Android 11 TV stick from the X98 brand.
This model is called the S500 and it’s a budget model priced at only $32 yet it offers great
value running on the Amlogic S905Y4 chipset with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.
In this review we take a look at how it performs its firmware features
and if for price it offers value for money. So don’t go anywhere my full review is up next.
Welcome back and thanks for staying tuned during that quick unboxing.
So in this box contains the TV stick itself. One infrared remote control.
A 6 inches HDMI female to HDMI male extension cable.
One IR extender cable. A 5V 2A power adapter.
A USB A to USB C charging cable. And a user manual.
So the stick itself has a very simple design with the HDMI male connector to the top a USB 2.0 port
on the other end a port for the IR extender to the side a USB type C power delivery port
and reset button to the other side and to the top you have an LED indicator with the X98 branding.
So the TV stick starts with is simple X98 splash
screen then you taking directly to the launcher with no startup wizard.
This launcher has a standard layout with large main shortcuts to gain access to key applications
and below here you have a shortcut bar. This launcher does not feature a navigation
bar or status bar. I will however install an alternative navigation bar in just a moment.
So let’s take a look at this firmware. This firmware was built on the Android 11 SDK it’s
the standard mobile version and here is its firmware build information and you have access
to developer options. So with this mobile
version you get 4K 2160p up to 59.94 Hz. You get HDR display with adaptive HDR feature.
So HDR display only activates when needed. You get up to 12 bit color space settings.
You get HDMI CEC options. And the option to switch
surround sound audio on or off. You don’t get a root switch hardware
monitor built-in screen rotation Samba server navigation bar or status bar options.
Out of the box these are apps that come preinstalled. I’ve checked for online
updates and there were none available at the point of making this video.
So to complete this review I will install some additional
apps and let’s first take a look at its system and hardware information.
So the manufacturer of this chipset is Droidlogic and here is the model of the mainboard.
It runs on 4GB of DDR4 RAM and 32GB of eMMc internal storage. Its Bluetooth version is 5.0.
The Amlogic S905Y4 CPU is a quad-core cortex A35 CPU clocked at 1.8 GHz configured in 32bit mode.
It displays powered by the Mali G31 GPU with a maximum refresh
rate of 60hz with open GL version 3.2 support.
Its network adapter is a dual band 2.4GHz +5 GHz AC Wi-Fi adapter.
As we have already covered it’s operating system is Android 11 and it shows here that is rooted.
Under devices shows that its GPU has Vulkan API version 1.1 support.
Its idle operating temperature is around 55°C.
And under codecs it comes with all the decoders for the playback of 4K AV1 HDR videos and it
also has decoders for the playback of Dolby Atmos eac3 and DTS HD surround sound audio.
For watching paid subscription services This TV stick is not fully Google certified and its DRM
information shows that it only has Google Widevine Level 3 with no HDCP protection.
What this means is that official paid streaming services will be limited to basic 480p resolution
even if you are paying for an HD or 4K account. There is no workaround for this and the stick
needs Widevine level I with HDCP protection to successfully play these services in HD and 4K.
For root access the root checker app shows that is rooted this means
apps that require your box to be rooted will work on this stick.
For watching YouTube videos you can install the mobile version from the
play store and you can also sideload the Android TV version and watch YouTube
videos in 4K 2160p resolution with the HDR feature triggering on this stick.
For mirroring your mobile devices it does not come with the official version of Miracast or
any form of air play app so you would have to use the Airscreen app as an alternative.
Here I’m mirroring my Android cell phone using the Airscreen app without issues.
For customizing your launcher experience This launcher does
not come with a navigation bar for those who prefer to navigate the launcher with
a mouse pointer. Here I installed the menu button alternative navigation bar which is
the best navigation bar for Android boxes. All features of the bar working with the
exception of the recent apps menu which is probably the most important feature.
Secondly you can install any alternative launcher you like directly from the play
store or sideloaded via APK. Here I installed the ADW launcher two which gives me long click
menu pop-ups and drag-and-drop shortcuts. However unfortunately this firmware does
not grant the ability to change wallpapers or use live wallpapers.
I will now play some standard 4K HDR videos and one AV1 HDR video to test
for smoothness of playback and for the HDR feature activating on my TV.
Most of the 4K HDR videos play okay including the 4K AV1 video. However there was one video
the jellyfish video it had some difficulty playing that had a high bit rate of 400 Mbps.
In testing its surround sound audio capabilities
it produced Dolby Atmos Dolby Digital plus Dolby surround and DTS neural X.
It could not produce DTS HD-MA DTS X and Dolby TrueHD.
So here it outputs Dolby Atmos.
If you switch to front surround sound speakers you get Dolby Digital plus.
Here it produces DTS
neural X instead of DTS HD-MA. Here it outputs Dolby surround.
You get no audio when you try to play a Dolby TrueHD video.
And finally it delivers DTS Neural X again instead of DTS-X.
This TV stick has GPU Vulkan
support and with its CPU is also clocked at 1.8 GHz it should play
3D Android games without issues. So I’ll just play two Android games
to test for graphics rendering CPU overheating and gamepad keymapping.
Surprisingly the games played pretty okay the graphics rendering plays best
at medium to low graphics settings its CPU temperature remain the below 75°C
during gaming and gamepad keymapping apps work due to its root access.
So to conclude this review let’s take a look at
its benchmarks and where it places on my rankings chart.
First its RAM and internal storage read and write speeds.
Its RAM has a read speed of 1483 MB/s and a write speed of 7.4.
Its internal storage has a read speed of 117 MB/s and a write speed of 57.
In benchmarking Its CPU’s single-core and multicore performance. Under single-core
common algorithms it scored 3878 and for a multicore performance it scored 10671.
In testing the speed of its Wi-Fi bands based on my Internet speed of 154 Mbps its 5GHz
AC Wi-Fi band achieved 79% of my maximum speed and the 2.4GHz band achieved a 29%.
In testing its GPU even though
it has Vulkan support the benchmark decided that it didn’t qualify for their Vulkan test.
In benchmarking its GPU with Vulkan support it got an overall score of 10267.
And in the overall Antutu benchmark it scored 81683.
So this is my TV Box ranking chart for the past 3 to 4 years and the X98 S500
is at position 53 based on its Antutu benchmark score. It also received a
3/5 star rating based on its pros and cons. So if you would like to compare it to other
boxes on this chart and view all its features you can do so using the link
in the description below this video. I also provide price comparison and
coupons using this link right here. So see the link in the description.
In summary the S500 performs an awful lot like a standard Android TV Box. Some of the things
I like about it is that they provided a USB port so you can read external storage. You have root
access on the mobile version of Android with full access to the Google play store it does
not overheat gamepad keymapping apps work its GPU has Vulkan support and it cost only $32.
The areas where I received disappointment would be with the lack of a navigation bar
and status bar no screen rotation to portrait mode and no Google
Widevine L1 for paid subscription services to play in HD and 4K.
So that about wraps up this review. So if you’re looking for a TV stick that runs on the mobile
version of Android 11 with full access to the Google play store with root access to run your
favorite streaming apps and games at a very low price then this TV stick might be right for you.
So if you’re looking to get your hands on one it’s currently being sold only
by Reyfoon on their AliExpress store at the very low price of $32 see the
link in the description below this video. Thanks for watching give this video the
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