Sunvell T95K Pro, a TV box based on the well-known Amlogic S912, but with an original design

This TV box is much like its siblings under the hood, but looks quite different. That’s why I decided to buy one and give it a try.
As always, below the fold: a look around, a teardown, and a few tests.

There are already countless reviews of TV boxes based on the Amlogic S912 SoC, so I’ll focus mainly on the design and construction, though there will of course be a few tests too.

At first glance, I thought the packaging looked nice enough to give as a gift. In fact, that wasn’t far from the reason I bought it.
A black box shaped like a large matchbox.




A quick look at the specifications:
CPU — Amlogic S912
Number of cores — 8
Graphics — Mali-T820MP3
RAM — 2 GB
Flash storage — 16 GB
Wi-Fi: 2.4 / 5 GHz
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0
LAN — Gigabit Ethernet
Ports: 2x USB 2.0, Optical S/PDIF, HDMI, RJ45, AV, microSD card
Operating system — Android 6.0
Dimensions — 130 x 130 x 30 mm

The package contents are much the same as those of most other TV boxes:
1. Sunvell T95K Pro TV box
2. Power adapter
3. HDMI cable
4. IR remote control
5. Manual.

Since the TV box has analog audio and video outputs, the lack of an adapter is starting to get a little annoying. It would cost almost nothing to include a simple adapter.


A few words about the accessories.
1. The manual comes in many languages, but English is the only one I can understand.
2. HDMI cable. Just a standard cable, nothing special.
3, 4. IR remote control. Quite convenient and partially programmable: you can teach it a few commands for basic TV control.
5, 6. Power adapter with a European plug, 5 V, 2 A.


I took the power adapter apart right away; the teardown is hidden under the spoiler.

TV box.
First impression: a toy, and in the best sense of the word. For some reason, I can picture this box sitting in a child’s room. It looks like a stack of children’s building blocks.


One small plus: it doesn’t show fingerprints. The plastic is slightly matte, and there was a protective film on top.


The set of ports is already familiar to most TV box users, especially with the latest models.
On the back are:
S/PDIF optical output
Analog audio and video output. The reset button is also behind this connector.
HDMI port for connecting a monitor or TV
RJ45 port for wired Gigabit Ethernet
One of the USB ports
Power input.

The left side is much simpler:
Second USB port
MicroSD card slot


There’s a small clock on the front panel. It displays the same time as the TV box itself, but unfortunately the box has no built-in battery, so after it’s switched off, the clock shows 12:00 until it syncs over the internet.


A quick note about the front panel, or more specifically, the clock and power indicator.
1. One downside is that when viewed from above, the top part of the display is hidden.
2. There’s also a feature that can be either a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view: when you turn the box off with the remote, the display and power indicator go dark. It’s nice not to have anything distracting you, but a clock would have been useful too.
3, 4. I found an unfamiliar LED button on the remote. Pressing it changes the color of the LED on the front panel. There are four states, but two are identical (the button press registers, but nothing changes), so there are really only three options: green, blue, and blue+green. But the last two states look almost the same, so it’s more accurate to say green or blue.
One small caveat: the button doesn’t always change the color, and I haven’t figured out the logic yet.


There are four rubber feet on the bottom. Nothing unusual in itself, except that I seem to come across them less and less often.


As usual, I took the TV box apart after testing it, but it makes more sense to show you what’s inside right away.

And, of course, a brief look at the built-in software and some tests.
The desktop will look familiar to many TV box users. For those who haven’t seen one before, the main menu items are here, along with the apps you’re expected to use most often.


There aren’t many preinstalled apps, and I don’t see much point in describing them all, so I’ll just list the main ones.
Gallery for viewing photos.
Browser for surfing the internet
Film on Life, for watching online TV
Kodi, an all-in-one app for watching pretty much anything you can watch and listening to anything you can listen to.
Movie player and Music are simple, separate apps for watching videos and listening to music.
Netflix, another online TV service, though it’s not very useful
PlayStore, for installing various apps online.
PPPoE, for configuring an internet connection using this protocol
QuickSupport—I haven’t actually tried it. As far as I can tell, it’s for remote control; the TeamViewer icon is a clue.
Skype, Twitter, and YouTube are probably familiar to everyone, or at least to many people.


Click the + icon in the main menu to choose which apps appear on the home screen.
There’s also an extra control panel at the bottom, with volume control, navigation, screenshots, and so on. You can hide the panel, but it opens automatically after startup.


The information about the box is very brief; the only thing worth noting is that it runs Android 6.0.1


As originally stated in the specs, it has 16 GB of flash memory and 2 GB of RAM.
The apps take up about 600 MB, but I’d delete some of them right away and replace them with more useful ones.


As always, I start by checking the Wi-Fi connection quality. Although I recommend using a cable, I think it’s worth checking, since not everyone can connect via cable.
I was initially pleased to see so many access points, but that didn’t last long: the box can see my access point, but can’t connect to it.
A reminder: the router is at the other end of the apartment, 12 m away, with a bunch of concrete walls in between.


I had to test it within the room.
1, 3. At the other end of the room, about 5 m away, with no line of sight.
2, 4. The router is one meter from the box.


During testing, Aida told me (the screenshot is below) that the box doesn’t support the 5 GHz band.
That’s when I remembered the “ace up my sleeve”—the new router I’d bought, which supports 5 GHz.
I went into the settings and named the networks kirich_2G and kirich_5G for the two bands.
The box immediately detected the 5 GHz network and connected to it.


I tested it in the same room. The speed was a little higher and the connection more stable, but it was only 40 Mbps.


The expanded control menu is familiar from previous TV boxes, so I don’t see any point in going through it in detail.


Though I suppose I should show the video output settings after all.


Everything here is pretty familiar: since the box has an analog video output, 480p resolution is available.


It's nice that you can configure what the power button does: shut down completely or enter sleep mode.


Technical information from CPU-Z.
In previous software releases, it reported a maximum CPU clock speed of 2 GHz, which wasn't true. Apparently, the box or processor manufacturer fixed something; now the same software reports the correct 1.5 GHz.
Don't think this TV box is slower than the previous ones, which were advertised as running at 2 GHz. They're identical.


The rest of the information from CPU-Z.


I'll also briefly show the main information from AIDA.
The maximum clock speed is also shown as 1500 MHz here, which is correct.


And this is what I mentioned above.
First, the Wi-Fi frequency: it says the 5 GHz band isn't supported, but I tested it above and it works fine.
Second, heat. After a few short tests, the software showed a temperature of 67 degrees, which is quite high for idle after being “warmed up.”


On average, the synthetic benchmark results show the same performance as the previous S912-based boxes. A little higher here, a little lower there; overall, the results vary within the margin of error.

First up, AnTuTu 5.2.0.
I try to run the tests with the same software each time so the results can be compared more accurately with those from previous TV boxes.


And version 6.2.1


AnTuTu Video scored slightly lower than the other boxes, but by just 10–20 points. Video format support is identical to the previous models.


3DMark scored slightly lower than the other S912 box variants: 5,800 versus 6,150–6,180.


PCMark, on the other hand, scored slightly better than the previous TV boxes, though again, the difference is within the margin of error.


In Geekbench 3, performance is noticeably lower; I suspect this is due to heat.


Version 4, however, scored almost identically to the previous boxes, even though the test was run almost immediately after version 3.


Epic Citadel also shows lower performance than the previous S912-based boxes. The difference isn't huge, but it puts the unit under review at a disadvantage.
For example, a normal result at the highest quality setting is 28–30, while this one gets 25.


The polygon dropouts are still there, too. That said, this doesn't happen in other games; Asphalt, for instance, runs fine at maximum settings.


The flash memory is pretty fast, about one and a half times faster than in the previous TV boxes.
In general, while testing and using it, I got the impression that the box runs faster than the others. It's hard to measure, though—more of a sixth sense: it just feels faster.


But a TV box is first and foremost for video playback, so I ran this test in full.
I tested playback of various video files. Results:
1024x768_h265_AC3.mkv (no audio)
2560x1600_AAC .mp4
3840x2160_AAC .mp4
4096x2160_AAC .mp4
gopro-hero-3-be-avc-high@l5.1-4096x2160-12p-aac-2ch.mp4
GraysPeak8HDR_Dolby AC3.mp4 (no audio)
LG 4K Paris_AAC.mp4
LG 4K Story-of-Earth_AAC.mp4
LG_Chess_HDR.mp4
Philips_UHD_supershopdemo_1.mp4
samsung-note-3-3840x2160-high@l5.1-AAC-2ch-2.mp4

4K HD.Club Changhong-Furano-100mbps.mp4


Like most of the boxes I tested, this one also can't play AC3 audio out of the box. In fact, so far I've come across only one box where it worked right away.
So I installed a modified player, link.
With it, everything worked without a hitch. In one case I simply selected a different audio track; in the other, I had to enable software decoding.


This TV box did manage to surprise me a little, though. It played the Sony_4K_HDR_Camp.mp4 file without any problems; on every other device, it had played at only 2–3 fps. Here, it played smoothly and looked great, using the stock player.
The screenshot wasn't taken on this box; it's just here to show what video I'm talking about. On this box, all I get instead of a screenshot is a black screen.


The pixel-perfect output test also went very well: all the preinstalled players displayed the video correctly.


A brief summary of the test results:
Pros
Very neat assembly
Didn't run into a single software problem during the entire test.
Good build quality of the power supply
Unusual appearance.
Convenient remote
5 GHz band support
Built-in clock

Cons
No AC3 audio playback out of the box; fixed by installing an alternative player, link above.
Small heatsink; overheating is possible under heavy loads
Wi-Fi sensitivity isn't very good.

My take: First of all, this is a rather unusual box. It definitely looks distinctive, and I didn't notice any problems during use either, so perhaps they did a good job with the software. The fact that the processor frequency is now displayed correctly is another sign of that.
The only real drawbacks I'd point out are the cooling, which isn't very well implemented, and the Wi-Fi, which only performs poorly when the signal is genuinely bad. The AC3 issue is fixable, after all. And, as I always say, a wired connection is better (where possible, of course). Still, Wi-Fi problems are so common with TV boxes that I'm surprised they can't get this right—even external antennas don't help.
The better-quality power supply also showed its worth in that the wireless keyboard works well; with less capable power supplies, its range drops significantly.

Otherwise, I liked the box. I might buy another one. And, as always, feel free to ask questions in the comments.

I can't test auto frame rate or S/PDIF yet: the former doesn't work with my monitor, and I'm still working on the latter.
Before the weekend, I asked the manager for some kind of discount. I was hoping they'd simply lower the price, but instead they gave me a coupon—T95K—which brings the price to $57.99.