Welcome viewers, today on TV box stop I bring to you a new budget TV box, running on an
enhanced version of the Amlogic S905W CPU, and this one it called the S905W4.
This new CPU was designed to compete in the budget category and presents minimal improvements
over the previous S905W models.
This new TV box is called the X96 Mini+, and it runs on 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal
storage running on Android 9 operating system.
So how much of a difference is this new CPU over its previous model, and can it provide
an improved TV box experience?
To find out that and more, stay tuned my full review is up next.
Welcome back.
So please note this is a budget TV box for just $29.99, so if you are running a low cash
but still want to get a TV box for basic streaming of movies and TV shows then you can pick one
up at geekbuying.com.
See the link in the description below this video.
In the box you have the X96 Mini+ itself.
You get one IR remote.
One HDMI cable.
A 5V 2A amps DC power adapter.
And a user manual.
Now a look at its design and ports.
The body is made of plastic with the X96 branding printed to the top.
It has one HDMI 2.0A port.
One RJ45 Ethernet 100Mbps LAN port.
You get one optical audio port.
One AV port.
And the DC power input Jack.
To the side you have two USB 2.0 ports, and a microSD card reader.
At the front you have an LED clock display.
And below the box you have four antiskid rubber feet, and some cooling vents.
So I’ll now set this up on my 4K TV and capture card and continue.
So I’m back.
And this is its startup animation.
And here we are at the launcher.
The launcher consists of these large main buttons that cannot be customized, and a shortcuts
bar here at the bottom.
This launcher does not have a navigation bar or status bar which comes in handy for multitasking
with mouse pointers.
So I will install an alternative navigation bar in a moment to see if it works on this
box.
This firmware features 4K display up to 2160p at 30Hz only.
It has HDR display settings.
Dolby vision settings.
HDMI CEC options.
Audio output options.
And under device preferences you have the digital surround sound audio options.
It does not have a root switch, hardware monitor settings, built-in screen rotation, or Samba
server settings.
These are apps that come preinstalled, so I’ll install some additional apps and start
by taking a look at its system and hardware information.
So for its system and hardware information, it runs on a quad core cortex A53 CPU clocked
at 1.2 GHz configured in 32 bit mode, with support for only 32 bit ABIs.
It runs on 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and 16GB of internal storage, and the Bluetooth version appears
to be 3.0.
It’s display is powered by the Mali 450 GPU with open GL ES version 2.0 support.
It has a dual band Wi-Fi support.
It’s operating system is Android 9 pie, and the box is not rooted.
This bit of information here it is incorrect as I will show you in a moment.
It runs around 55°C under normal operation.
And it comes with the required decoders to play 4K videos, and videos with digital surround
sound audio formats.
And as I said this is a budget TV box priced around $29.99 so don’t expect much in terms
of hardware specs.
In the test performed on its RAM copy speed and its internal storage read and write speed
resulted in some low scores which is to be expected given its specs and the hardware
used in this box.
Its dual Wi-Fi bands and Ethernet LAN speed tests resulted in the 5GHz band achieving
100%, the 2.4 GHz band achieving 34%, and the LAN port achieving 75% of my total network
speed.
Moving along.
So this is the score of the Antutu benchmark, and as you can see it didn’t even qualify
for any of the GPU tests.
These are the results of the Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark as it reflects its low CPU performance.
In its GPU performance benchmark, it’s only qualified for one of the 3D Mark tests and
that is the ice storm extreme, and it got a score of just 3190.
So this means that this box is not meant for gaming.
And that’s it for the benchmarks and let’s now see where it places on the chart.
So the scores are in.
And the X96 Mini+ is at position 59 on this list, which is all the way close to the bottom.
However don’t be alarmed, because like I said this is a budget TV box for just $29.99
to be used for basic streaming of movies and TV shows.
You can view this chart on my website in full spreadsheet format where you can compare the
top TV boxes along with price comparison links.
It comes preinstalled with Netflix but due to limited DRM you can only watch movies in
You get the option to play videos in 4K to 2160p resolution, but this box is not fast
enough to process the 4K stream.
However, it does play in 1080p.
It also triggers the HDR icon on my LG TV.
As mentioned earlier in the system and hardware information the box is not rooted and it does
not have a root switch.
Its DRM information shows that it has Google wide vine level 3 and no HDCP protection.
Screen rotation does not work.
But you do have the option to use an alternative launcher.
4K HDR video playback result in a black screen with only audio played in the background.
You can however play 1080p videos.
Surprisingly, it can play all the digital surround sound audio formats except for Dolby
true HD.
However, three of the videos played with digital audio but with no video.
As for gaming.
I could not get my Bluetooth gamepad to connect to the box, I guess that has something to
do with the Bluetooth version being lower than 4.0.
So I connected my gamepad via USB.
Its open GL ES version is 2.0 and its CPU is clocked at 1.2 GHz, and as expected its
graphics rendering and gameplay is a very sluggish.
In summary.
I will conclude just as I started.
The X96 Mini+ is a cheaply built budget TV box meant only for streaming movies and TV
shows.
The new S905W4 made no difference whatsoever in performance over its previous model.
It does however manage accomplish to a few other things like 1080p video playback, alternative
launchers, and digital audio output.
But don’t expect much more from this box.
And with that said I have come to the end of this review.
Thanks goes out to the Geekbuying for sending this box for today’s review.
If you are interested, you can get it on their website for just $29.99 see the link in the
description below this video.
Thanks for watching.
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Stay tuned, and I’ll see you in the next one.