MX9 PRO, a mini TV box based on the RK3328

I got my hands on a small, basic TV box based on the Rockchip RK3328. There’s nothing particularly special about it, except perhaps its size, so I decided to put together a short review to match :)


To help you decide whether to keep reading, here are the specs:
CPU — RK3328
Number of cores — 4 (ARM Cortex-A53 CPU clocked at 1.5 GHz)
Graphics — Mali-450MP2
RAM — 2 GB
Flash storage — 8 GB
Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz (AM8189 chip)
LAN — 100 Mb Ethernet
Bluetooth — no
Ports: 1×USB 2.0 + 1×USB 3.0, S/PDIF, HDMI, RJ45, microSD
H.265 support
4K resolution support
Operating system — Android 7.1
Dimensions — 82 x 82 x 20 mm

As you can tell from the specs, this box is stripped down to the bare essentials: no Bluetooth, no gigabit Ethernet, no 5 GHz Wi-Fi, just 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of flash storage. Its only advantage at the time I bought it was the price: $27.

The packaging is just as bare-bones as the specs. It says it’s a TV box, and that’s it—not even the company name.


The package contents are also typical for most TV boxes:
1. TV box
2. Power supply
3. HDMI cable
4. IR remote control
5. Manual.


The manual is in English and includes pictures. The cable and power supply are standard budget items, nothing special.


I wasn’t expecting anything extraordinary from the included power supply. It’s a basic budget unit with no input or output filters.


1. At least they didn’t forget the fuse
2. The input capacitor is 4.7 µF, which is too small for the rated 10 W.
3. The Y capacitor is the correct type, which is good to see.
4. The output capacitor is 1000 µF—on the small side, but acceptable.

It’ll work, of course, as I saw during testing. It doesn’t even get very hot, but I’d still like to see a little more effort put into it.


The remote really stands out from the crowd. This is the first one like it I’ve come across. Simple, but attractive and convenient. Unfortunately, it can’t learn commands, which is probably its only downside.


The manufacturer also decided to play around with the case design. The photo isn’t an optical illusion: the top really does stick out like that. It doesn’t do much to improve the looks; it’s probably just some kind of visual distinction among the 100,500 different TV boxes out there :)


Not long ago, I reviewed a small TV box and mentioned its compact size a couple of times. But put it next to the one in this review and it turns out it isn’t all that small after all.


The ports are limited to the bare essentials:
1. Ethernet
2. Analog video and audio output
3. HDMI
4. Power

5. USB 3.0
6. USB 2.0
7. microSD card slot.


There are a few ventilation holes on the bottom. Since there are no matching holes on top, they aren’t very effective, but a few slots on the side of the case help.


Taking things apart is an integral part of my reviews, so I opened up the unit. It’s very easy to disassemble: there are four screws under the feet, with no clips or catches.


One thing that sets Rockchip-based TV boxes apart is their simple board design. There are very few additional chips, so the board looks almost empty.



Even the Wi-Fi antenna is printed on the circuit board, which is fairly unusual. But comparing a typical internal antenna with this kind of printed antenna, I honestly can’t say which works better—they’re essentially about the same. And in practice, the third option, an external antenna, isn’t always very effective either.


The power section and ports. There’s no protection on the HDMI lines, so I recommend connecting and disconnecting the TV box with the power unplugged.


A heatsink is attached to the processor (SoC), and it’s quite small. You can see a pair of RAM chips underneath; as a reminder, the memory capacity is 1 GB.


1. SanDisk flash memory is a rather rare sight in TV boxes. Lately, they more often come with either Samsung or Foresee, and occasionally Kingston or Toshiba.
2. The WiFi chip is an SV6051P, although the store page listed it as an AM8189. /Not exactly a critical issue, but it is a discrepancy.
3. TV boxes based on Rockchip are usually powered by a single multichannel converter made by their own company, rather than lots of small ones. This solution is convenient in its own way, but can make repairs more difficult: a small chip is easier to find and replace. Though I should also point out that this is usually not worth doing.
There are a couple of other small components near the power connector. I’ll venture a guess that they’re power protection components.


Let’s put everything back in the box. Fortunately, that’s easy, and move on to the software review and tests.
When you first turn it on, the TV box takes you through a bunch of settings and illustrated instructions showing what the remote’s buttons do and what the TV box’s home screen looks like.


The home screen is simple and convenient in its own way, with quick access to the most frequently used functions.


There aren’t many preinstalled apps—in fact, there are very few. But I think that’s actually for the best, especially given the small amount of flash memory.
The main ones are:
CloudTV
Film on Live
Modbro
Netflix
KKplayer

And of course, YouTube. In my opinion, it’s the most convenient app for this TV box.

But in practice, people usually end up not using these apps anyway, especially since they don’t always work properly. And 100500 foreign channels aren’t always interesting, either.


The settings are presented as a sidebar. If you’re used to the classic menu, it may feel a little awkward at first, but that’s mostly a matter of getting used to it.


I connected the TV box to a monitor with a resolution of 1920x1080, so that was the highest resolution I could select in the settings.
There are also 1280x720 and 720x480; the latter is usually used when connecting through the analog video output.


If the image doesn’t fill the screen (which is usually the case) or extends beyond it, you can adjust it a little. Most often, you’ll need to do this if you want to output the image “pixel for pixel” to improve picture quality.


A few sound output settings.


There’s also the familiar error when trying to open the display settings from the classic menu (not the sidebar).
It’s not critical; it’s just the fact that it happens.


Android 7.1.1 is preinstalled. The latest update is dated April 27, and no further updates were offered.


Both RAM and flash memory are installed in the smallest configuration available.
Of the 8 GB of flash memory, about 4–4.5 GB is available to the user. That’s quite enough, as long as you don’t install large games. In any case, there’s little point in installing games, since this TV box can hardly be considered a gaming device; it’s mainly intended for video playback.


I’ll hide the general information from CPU-Z and Aida under a spoiler.


Don't worry, I haven't forgotten where the Print Screen key is on the keyboard. This TV box just has the same quirk I mentioned once before. When you try to take a screenshot, nothing happens. You have to exit the software, take a screenshot of any window or the desktop, then launch AnTuTu again and press Print Screen there.
This only happens in AnTuTu; I don't know why.

The AnTuTu test results are slightly lower than those of the RK3328 TV box (Z28) with 2 GB of RAM that I reviewed earlier.
Version 5.2.0
S912 — 34309
S805 — 16655
S812 — 41872 (v5,7)
S905 — 28547
S905X — 27406
RK3328- 26455 (Z28)
RK3328- 25708


Here, I took the screenshot as described above.
Version 6.2.1
S912 — 40000
RK3328- 35105 (Z28)
RK3328- 33938


Geekbench test
S905X___S912__Realtek 1295_RK3399__RK3328 (Z28)__RK3328
629_____624_____586______1480______610________593
1852____2331____1983_____3481______1793_______1754
594_____441_____515______1404______595________577
1673____1940____1542_____2572______1612_______1577
877_____1440____806______1983______788________783



3DMark and PCMark
The results here are practically identical to those for the 2 GB RAM version.

3DMark
S912 — 6158
S905 — 4275
S905X — 4277
Realtek 1295 — 5084
RK3399 — 9850
RK3328 (Z28) — 2291
RK3328 -- 2272

PCMark
S912 — 3177
S812 — 2937
S905 — 2951
S905X — 3120
Realtek 1295 — 5084
RK3399 — 3524
RK3328 (Z28) — 3733
RK3328 -- 3764


Bonsai Benchmark: the result is about the same as for the box with 2 GB of RAM.

Realtek 1295 - 1907/27.2
RK3399 - 3973/56.7
RK3328 (Z28) — 2187/31.2
RK3328 -- 2069/29.5


Test of access speeds for RAM, flash storage, and external drives.
1. The external hard drive connected to USB 3.0 delivered a pretty good 100 MB/s read speed and 75 MB/s write speed.
2. The microSD card isn't very fast: just 15/11 MB/s.
3. The flash storage is also rather slow: 46 MB/s read and just 11 MB/s write.
4. RAM performance, on the other hand, is quite good. This may be one reason why the TV box performs fairly well despite its relatively modest processor.


Wi-Fi reception isn't very sensitive. Even when I could see my access point, I couldn't connect to it. To be fair, this test was done from across the entire apartment, through several reinforced-concrete walls.


I had to test it within the room.
The bottom graph shows the TV box and router in opposite corners of the room, with no line of sight.
The two upper graphs are at 2 meters and about 0.5 meters; there's not much difference.


I won't go into the games in detail; I'll just say that relatively undemanding games like Need for Speed and Asphalt run without any problems.
Let's move on to video playback tests.

First, performance and format support. I'd give the box at least 4+, if not a full 5.
It played Ducks.Take.Off.2160p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv (243 Mbps) without any problems. If you don't know what this is, I recommend downloading it—it's a good test file.
The only catch was that I had to play the video from an external hard drive. Using a flash drive wasn't an option here: the peak bitrate is higher than USB 2.0 can handle, and all my USB 3.0 flash drives were in use.


Next came a whole bunch of video files in different formats, some with AC3 audio. Almost all of them played fine; only the IXBT file with the highest resolution gave it a hard time. Audio was fine too; I tested it with the bundled Chinese player.


The picture was sharp and smooth in every case. For some reason, the image in the screenshot came out a little dimmer.


There were no problems with the Sony_4K_HDR_Camp.mp4 file either, although this file doesn't always play properly on TV boxes with Amlogic.


The 4K HD.Club TCL-super_car-Part-1-HEVC video also played perfectly.


Because of certain quirks of Rockchip TV boxes, screenshots are limited to 1280x720. In reality, the video output is correct, pixel for pixel.


A little about the preinstalled software.
First, YouTube


Then, Cloud


Also, FilmOn TV


Modbro


Someone once asked me why I don't test torrent TV and similar apps. Time to put that right.

First up, Torrent TV. It doesn't work on this TV box: it loads a file, plays for about 5 seconds, and that's it.


The next app I tried was LOL TV. It loads a list of lots of different channels.


And it plays them without any problems, so this one works fine.


Lazy Media.
A nice-looking app with a big list of all sorts of things to choose from.


The cover art is beautiful. I even found myself admiring it.


There are two catches, though.
First, it's very hard to find a movie you can actually watch, rather than just read about.


Second, even if you find something interesting and it has a Video tab, there's a good chance you'll get a message like this. Great app.


This time I also decided to check the temperatures and see how it handled a sustained load. I installed some app that can display the CPU temperature on screen.
During testing, I found that the temperature fluctuates between about 70 and 90 degrees, with peaks of 95–97.


Since this is a TV box, not a game console, I tested it with video. I opened YouTube, picked a 4K video, and set it to play continuously.
When the app starts and the video is being cached, the temperature climbs above 90 degrees.


For the first 10–20 seconds, it stays at about the same level.


Then I left the TV box to its own devices and went away for about an hour and a half.
When I got back, the temperature was fluctuating between about 75 and 80 degrees. Everything was still working as before, with no stuttering or freezes.


So, what can I say in conclusion? I'll try to avoid splitting this into pros and cons and just give my overall impressions and the facts.

The TV box works, which is already a good start :) It has no trouble with different video and audio formats or bit rates. It handled video with a bit rate of over 240 Mbps without any problems, and it also played AC3 audio out of the box.
It turns out you can even play games on it. Of course, performance is worse than on the S905/912, but this box isn't marketed as a gaming device.
The bundled software turned out to be not as bad as it first seemed; even the Chinese media player proved useful. There is one small downside, though: the only thing in Russian is the advertising :(

During testing, I found that 1 GB of RAM is quite enough, although you may run into problems if your internet connection is slow or the TV box is connected over Wi-Fi. In that case, people often increase the cache size, and the small amount of RAM can cause stuttering. I used a wired internet connection with speeds of up to 60 Mbps and had no problems.

Wi-Fi is average, there's no Bluetooth at all, and there are only two USB ports. That's not great, but you can use one port for a keyboard and the other for an external hard drive. A third port would certainly have been nice, though.

Third-party apps for watching movies and TV programs are hit or miss, ranging from not working at all to working perfectly well. You'll have to try a few. I suspect some apps simply aren't optimized for this processor model.

The biggest drawback I noticed is the high CPU temperature. Although the TV box runs stably, I think the heatsink is too small, or perhaps the thermal interface material isn't very good.

I bought this TV box for a client who needed a simple, inexpensive way to watch movies in the kitchen over breakfast or dinner. It would also work well in a child's room for watching movies or cartoons from a flash drive or over the network from YouTube; it's more than enough for that. Its compact size means you can tuck it behind the TV, and you can connect a USB device using a short extension cable.

That's all. I hope you found the review useful; I tried to show everything I could.