Today on TV Box stop, I have the review of the Zidoo X7 RK3328, quad core Android 7.1
4K TV box.
After the break, I have a full review of its hardware and features, along with benchmarks
to see what the Zidoo X7 can deliver.
So stay tuned, I'll be right back after this.
Welcome back, and as we begin, the Zidoo X7 comes in this professionally made high quality
grey box with some features on the side.
It shows that the box features 4K and 3D display, H.265 and HEVC decoders.
It runs on Android 7.1 and features Zidoo's ZIUI user interface.
It runs on a quad core 64bit CPU, with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and 8GB of internal storage.
From their product page, it shows that the box comes with dual band WiFi, and Bluetooth
4.1. on the other side, it shows the various video formats the X7 can play.
I'll now unpack the contents of the box and speedup this part of the video to continue
with the rest of the review.
In the box, you have the Zidoo X7 TV box unit itself.
You get an infrared remote.
The remote looks pretty nice, and they've improved quite a bit from the older models,
but if you want advanced navigation functions, a mini touchpad keyboard or Bluetooth air
mouse would be a better option.
You get 1 HDMI cable.
a 5 volts 2 amps power adapter.
And a user’s guide.
Let's have a look at the box.
The box is made of plastic, with the Zidoo logo clearly displayed at the top.
At the back, you have 1 HDMI port, 1 RJ45 Ethernet LAN port, 1 audio video port, 1 optical
audio port, and a DC power input.
To the left, you have 2 USB 2.0 ports, one of which is an OTG, and you have an SD card
slot.
To the right, you have 1 USB 3.0.
To the front, you have an LED power light.
And to the bottom, you have some ventilation holes.
So I'll now connect this to my TV, and when I return we'll have the rest of the review.
So I'm all connected, and as I startup the X7, it shows the regular Zidoo startup animation
which takes a few seconds, and then you're presented with ZIUI, which is Zidoo's custom
designed user interface.
The interface used in the X7 has a new look, and it is very responsive.
However, the home screen is not too mouse friendly, as the up and down wheel movement
slides the panels horizontally, whereas it is supposed to switch to the panel below.
The home screen works perfectly with the stock remote.
The launcher comes with a navigation bar at the bottom, and you also have the ability
to add and remove shortcuts to the home screen.
Due to problems experienced in previous reviews, I've decided to start using a temperature
monitoring application which overlays the CPUs temperature to the top of the screen.
It also has and alarm sound if the temperature rises above the set temperature.
I have also decided to use some extra ventilation during my reviews, to protect and ensure performance
of the box.
Before you proceed, you would want to check the settings area to ensure that the display
is set to the correct resolution of your TV, and in the sound settings, select the output
where digital sounds are to be sent, weather HDMI, SPDIF or PCM.
You would want to choose HDMI in most cases.
In the apps section, what we get is some core system apps and an additional app called ZDMC,
which is Zidoo's custom version of Kodi, which we will get too later in the review.
one thing to take note of is that in this app section, it can sometimes have shortcuts
remaining behind, or duplicate shortcuts when you install or uninstall an app.
To remove these unwanted shortcuts, simply click and hold the shortcut button with the
mouse, or select and press the menu button on the remote, and select remove shortcut
and that will remove them.
I'll just take a minute to install some system and benchmarking apps to complete the rest
of my review.
So I'm back, and first let's check to see if the box is rooted.
It shows that the box is not rooted, running on android 7.1.2 Nougat.
This means that those apps that require your box to be rooted will not work on this box.
However, Zidoo has provided a one click root application for a couple of their other models,
so we'll see if it works to root the X7 later to the end of my review.
Let's check to see if there's any updates for this box.
It shows that the box is up to date, and there is a checkbox to check for future updates
automatically.
Let's have a look at some system and hardware information.
Under System information, it shows that the manufacturer is Rockchip, and the model is
the Zidoo X7.
Below it shows that the box comes with 2GB of RAM, which is DDR4, and the available memory
an internal storage after the android installation.
The total internal storage in the X7 is 8 GB, but this can be extended to 64GB via the
SD card slot by using convertible storage, a feature that converts external storage into
internal storage under Android 7.1 Nougat.
Under CPU information, it shows that the CPU is a quad core 64bit CPU, running up to 1.5GHz,
with support for 64bit ABIs.
This means that the box has support for both 32 an 64bit applications.
Under display information, it shows that the GPU is the Mali 450 MP, with a refresh rate
of 60hz.
Under network information, it shows that you have dual band WiFi support.
Under Android information, it shows that the operating system is Android 7.1.2 Nougat,
and it shows that the box is not rooted.
Under thermal information, it shows that the box runs between 45 to 60°C under normal
conditions, and one should take precaution to ensure that the box has enough ventilation
to extend the life of the box.
Under Codecs information, you have a list of all decoders installed on the box necessary
for 4K video playback.
In this list, you have codecs like H.264, HEVC, and VP9 decoders.
I am yet to see H.265 in any of these lists.
And that's it for system and hardware information.
Let's now take a look at some WiFi speed test results.
and the results show that on the 5.8 GHz band, taking into account that my Internet package
is 30MB download and 10MB upload, it got the maximum download and upload speeds after 3
attempts.
However, on the 2.4GHz the speed was OK, but just a little below 30 on the download, the
upload speeds were good.
And now I show the results of the memory read and write speeds.
The results show that the Zidoo X7 has a RAM copy speed of 3476MB/s.
The internal memory has a read speed of 91MB/s and a write speed of 31.
And the SD card slot has a read speed of 15MB/s and a write speed of 10.
These memory read and write speeds are average, but consistent with the other boxes in its
class.
However, the internal memory read and write speeds were higher than usual, which was a
bit interesting.
I now have the results of the Antutu benchmark.
And it shows that the Zidoo X7 got and Antutu score of 35945.
The Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark shows that the Zidoo X7 got a score of 581 single core, and
1574 multicore.
And now for the Ice Storm extreme GPU benchmark.
And it shows that the box got a score of 2238.
Both the Geekbench 4 and the Ice storm extreme scores are a bit on the low side compared
to other boxes in its class.
I'll use the video player that comes on the box.
I also loaded the 4K video samples on the internal storage to prevent any buffering
problems due to slow USB read speeds.
As you can see, all the 4K videos ran without any problems, and my new special jellyfish
segment ran pretty good, with one of the videos at 400 Mbps started a bit shakey, and then
ran smoothly afterwards.
For my final demonstration, I will try the one clicks root application to see if we can
get this box rooted.
And the one click application failed, so you will have to wait until Zidoo releases the
correct root application for this device.
So in summary, the Zidoo X7 is a good TV box for streaming free movies and TV shows, and
the 4K video playback is really good.
It can play minor games but the 3D graphics are not that good.
The box is not rooted, and Kodi installed from the Google play store without having
to remove ZDMC.
So I've come to the end of my review of the Zidoo X7 Android TV box.
If you are interested in this box, see the link and coupon code provided in the description
area.
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