What’s happening everyone welcome back to TV box stop, and today I have another Allwinner
TV box.
This time it’s from the developers of X96, and this one is called the X96 Mate, and it
runs on the Allwinner H616 CPU, on 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, on Android
10 operating system.
We all know what to expect from these Allwinner models, so let’s see if X96 has anything
different to say about it.
So stay tuned a full review is up next.
So welcome back.
In the box you have the usual stuff.
You have the TV box itself.
One IR remote.
One HDMI cable.
A5 volts 2A DC power adapter.
And a user’s manual.
And now a look at its design and ports.
The body is made of plastic with a semi-glossy surface and the X96 logo printed to the top.
To the rear you have one HDMI port.
One RJ-45 ethernet LAN port.
One optical audio port.
One audio video port.
One IR extender port.
And the DC power input.
To one side you have two USB 2.0 ports, and a microSD card reader.
It is blank on the other side.
To the front you have an LED clock display.
And below the box you have four rubber feet and some ventilation holes.
I’ll now set this up on my TV and continue.
So I’m all connected.
And when you start up the box you’ll see the X96 logo and the android animation for
a few seconds then you are taken directly to the launcher.
The launcher adopts the standard layout with these large icons that cannot be changed,
with a shortcuts bar here at the bottom.
There are no other unique features of this launcher and it does not have a navigation
bar or status bar.
Features of this firmware include.
4K display up to 2160p at 60 Hz.
HDR display settings.
HDMI CEC settings.
Mouse pointer settings.
And audio output settings.
There is no root switch, hardware monitor settings, Dolby vision setting, Dolby and
DTS audio settings, screen rotation, or Samba server settings.
In the apps section these are apps that come preinstalled and these are basically the standard
apps that come on most boxes.
So I’ll take a moment to install some additional apps needed to complete this review and continue.
So I installed all my apps however, I had the sideload most of them because the operating
system on this box is android TV OS, so I had to contend with the android TV version
of the play store that’s limited in what apps you can install.
So first let’s take a look at its system and hardware information.
It shows that it uses the same mainboard as all the other H616 models, running on 4GB
of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage from which this is the remainder.
The Bluetooth version is said to be 5.0 according to the product description.
The CPU is the Allwinner H616 which is a 64bit cortex A53 processor with a CPU clocked range
of 1.5GHz configured in 32bit mode.
It has support for only 32bit ABIs which limits it to 32bit applications.
It’s a display is powered by the Mali G31 GPU with a refresh rate of 60Hz and open GL
ES version 3.2 which is good for gaming.
This box comes with dual band Wi-Fi support, and below here it shows that the 5GHz band
is supported.
Under android it shows that the version is Android 10 and that the box is rooted, but
that bit of root information is incorrect as you will see in a moment when I run the
root checker app.
The box runs between 65 and 70°C under normal operation and we’ll see how it does when
3D gaming.
It comes with all the decoders for the playback of 4K videos, however there is no Dolby vision
or Dolby and DTS audio decoders in this test.
And that’s it for system and hardware information and let’s now take a look at its benchmarks.
First its RAM copy and internal storage read and write speeds.
The X96 mate has a RAM copy speed of 2811 MB/s.
It’s internal storage as a read speed of 129 MB/s, and the write speed of 151.
These scores are consistent with other H616 models.
Next I have the results of the Wi-Fi bands and the ethernet LAN speed tests.
The results show that the 5 GHz band fluctuates between 69 and 100% of my bandwidth.
The 2.4GHz band achieved 51%.
And the LAN port achieved 32%.
So if you’re would like to achieve the best bandwidth use the 5GHz band.
Next are results of the Antutu benchmark.
In this test the X96 mate scored 52,740.
This score is what we have seen in other H616 models and should have the same kind of placement
on the chart.
Next are results of the Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark.
And in this test it got a score of 518 single core and 1220 multicore.
Again nothing surprising with the scores as they are consistent with similar models.
The final results are those of the 3D Mark gamers bench GPU graphics benchmark.
The X96 mate does not have Vulcan support so it only qualifies for the ice storm extreme
and the slingshot test.
And the results show that it got a score of 3816 in the ice storm extreme test, and 383
in the slingshot test.
These scores are on the lower end, which will affect its performance in some 3D gaming.
And that’s it for the benchmarks and let’s see where it places on the chart.
So I have updated the chart, and the X96 mate is at position 33 which is right among the
other H616 models.
You can view this chart on my website in full spreadsheet format where you can view the
top TV boxes for 2020 along with price comparison links.
See the link in the description directly below this video.
For those who would like to use an alternative launcher you will be limited to those that
are on the android TV version of the Google play store.
Here I installed the ATV launcher but it works with some widgets and wallpaper issues.
To start the next segment let’s have a look at the root state of the box.
The root checker app shows that the box is not rooted, running on Android 10 operating
system.
This limits which apps you can run on this box, also it does not have a root switch which
will be an issue for a lot of users.
Next I show its DRM information.
The X96 mate has Google Widevine level 3 with no HDCP protection this means that premium
streaming services can only show in basic 480p quality.
However this does not affect alternative ways of streaming.
Now on to streaming.
The box comes preinstalled with Netflix and Amazon prime video, but as you just saw in
the DRM information these services are limited to basic 480p quality due to insufficient
The android TV version of YouTube comes preinstalled however, it doesn’t seem to play well at
all.
Also it can only play up to 1080 P quality.
The X96 mate comes with a version of Miracast, but it’s not the version that has HD quality.
Here I am casting my mobile phone to the box using the version of Miracast.
I would now play some 4K videos in HDR format, but I must warn you these files did not play
in the VLC player or the MX player.
It did however play on the default media player, but the playback quality is not a very good.
See for yourself.
This box also has no HDR and Dolby vision display.
I will now test for Dolby and DTS audio output using the VLC player.
This test shows that the X96 mate does not have digital surround sound audio output.
But the videos did managed to play in the VLC player.
I will now play some 3D android games to test its graphics rendering and for overheating.
The games played okay however observing the quality of the gameplay this is not 4K 2160p
Resolution.
For some reason it has been downscaled to 720 or 1080p.
In addition, the box runs a bit hot during gaming.
In summary.
There is not much I can say about this box, only that its performance, firmware features,
heat management, and 4K media handling is the same as in similar models.
The use of android TV OS is a bit baffling as it doesn’t provide any improvement to
user experience.
In fact with the absence of Google wide vine level I and HDCP protection, along with no
root access just adds to the frustration of the user.
And with that said I have come to the end of this review.
If you would like to get your hands on the X96 mate see the link in the description below
this video where you can get it at the lowest price online.
Thanks for watching.
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