Wechip V8, an S905W-based TV box, or attempt number two

I recently reviewed a TV box based on the relatively new Amlogic S905W SoC, which was designed as a budget alternative to the S905X. In that review, I complained about a few issues with the new processor. Today, I’m giving it a second try, so to speak, for comparison.
As usual, I’ll take a look inside, test it, and add it to the comparison table at the end—especially since there’s a new entry in the table now.


As I mentioned in the introduction, I’ve already reviewed one of the first TV boxes based on this processor, Tanix TX3 Mini. Both that model and the one reviewed here belong to the budget range, which is exactly what you’d expect from the processor inside them.
As a reminder, here’s a table showing the differences between the S905X and S905W SoCs and the Rockchip processor.


Although the TV boxes have practically identical specs, I’ll list them here too, just in case.
CPU — Amlogic S905W
Number of cores — 4 (Quad Core ARM Cortex-A53)
Graphics — Mali-450
RAM — 2 GB DDR3
Flash storage — 16 GB
Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n
Bluetooth: none
LAN — Ethernet 10/100M
Video output — HDMI 2.0
Ports: 2x USB 2.0, S/PDIF, RJ45, microSD card
Operating system — Android 7.1
Dimensions — 93 x 93 x 15 mm

As you can see, the only differences between the TV boxes are the case size (the one reviewed here is slightly smaller) and the type of S/PDIF output (this one has a 3.5 mm jack rather than an optical port). That’s where the technical differences end.

By the way, there’s also a "lite" version of this TV box, with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of flash storage. In my opinion, it’s not a very good deal, even though it costs just $24.

The TV box comes in an unusual package that reminds me of a large matchbox, especially when you slide off part of the outer packaging :)
The bottom has some basic specs and some text I couldn’t make sense of, which I didn’t even bother reading.


The package contents are nothing out of the ordinary:
1. Wechip V8 TV box
2. Power adapter
3. IR remote control
4. HDMI cable
5. Manual and an inexplicable piece of paper.


1. The manual is just as minimalist as the one in my recent review of the Z66X Z2—actually, not just as minimalist; it’s exactly the same manual.
2. The HDMI cable is a standard, very cheap one.
3, 4. The power adapter is sealed, but something tells me it’s no different from the adapters included with the devices I mentioned above.
5, 6. The remote is actually quite nice, at least it’s something different. Unfortunately, it’s not an Air Mouse, or even a learning remote.


The TV box looks much like many of its “siblings”: a black square box with a slight hint of a designer’s touch.


This is one of the most compact cases I’ve come across. Unfortunately, cutting down the size often leads to cooling problems, though the tests will tell us more—results can vary.


The back has the usual set of ports:
1. 5 V power input
2. HDMI
3. Analog audio and video output (no adapter is included, and without one, you only get audio)
4. Ethernet
5. 3.5 mm S/PDIF jack

There are two USB 2.0 ports and a memory card slot on the right.


Overall view.
Interestingly, I noticed how much it resembled the Z66X Z2 TV box even at this stage. It’s not just a similar set of ports—they’re practically identical, except that they’re arranged in mirror image here.


The bottom is plastic, with no rubber feet; instead, the case has antislip protrusions.


The TV box isn’t very easy to take apart. There are no screws or self-tapping screws; the bottom cover is held entirely by clips.


Remove a few more screws and you can take the board out of the case. A steel plate is attached to the bottom, and heat is transferred to it through a thermal pad. And there’s another finned heatsink plus a pad. Why not just use a solid block of aluminum instead of the heatsink? It would only improve heat dissipation.


The antenna is connected directly, without a connector. That’s acceptable in my opinion, but not very convenient when taking the box apart or upgrading (replacing) the antenna. But since the vast majority of users are unlikely to do this, I don't think it's critical.


Even during the initial visual inspection, I couldn't shake the feeling of déjà vu. When I took the board out of the case, that feeling only grew stronger. I got the impression that the same person had laid out the Z66X Z2 board and the board in this TV box, because they have so much in common.


There are also additional RAM chips on the underside. There are four in total here, though, not eight as in the previous model.


The heatsink is modest in size, but in a fully enclosed case even a large heatsink wouldn't help much, since essentially all the heat has to escape through the plastic.


There's no protection on the HDMI output; more precisely, that job is left to the processor. So, as always, I recommend connecting this output first and disconnecting it last.
This area of the board is also almost identical to the one in the Z66X Z2 TV box.


The remote's IR receiver and a pair of power indicator LEDs shine through the case, so they're barely noticeable and don't get annoying. Credit to the designers for that.


Well, at least there's one difference: they put a connector on the side. They didn't say what it's for, and there aren't even any labels next to it—just a connector, for a rainy day :)


1, 2. 2 GB of RAM implemented using four Micron chips—not bad.
3. Samsung flash memory, also good. One of the voltage regulators is visible above it.
4. Wi-Fi is 2.4 GHz only, with no Bluetooth. It's based on an unknown Chinese chip. By “Chinese,” I mean developed in China, not manufactured there. Chips like this can often cause problems when you need to replace them.


1. TPF632A, stereo amplifier.
2. Power input protection circuit, or at least that's what I assume it is.
3, 4. Several voltage regulators.


When you turn on the TV box, you're greeted by a splash screen that looks like it was made by some hardcore vapers. I couldn't resist taking a screenshot :)


The first time you turn it on, you'll be taken to the initial setup menu.


After that, you get the familiar “desktop.” I personally didn't find it very convenient: to open the apps menu from the home screen using the keyboard, you have to press several keys—right, down, left.
By the way, I mentioned above that this TV box looks like a mirror image of the Z66X Z2, and even the icons in the bottom bar are arranged in reverse :)


The settings menu is standard, which is understandable—most TV boxes are practically identical in this respect.
Android 7.1.2 is preinstalled.


I wouldn't call the selection of video output options extensive, at least compared with some other TV boxes. That said, video played without any particular problems using the default settings.


Audio output settings.


It supports CEC control, HDMI self-adaption, and a response to the power button being pressed—in this case, the button on the remote, since the TV box itself has no power button.


Like the Z66X Z2, this TV box model (revision) has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of flash storage. I'll repeat that, in my personal opinion, this is the best balance for now. The situation may change in a year or two—I actually think it probably will—but for now, I recommend choosing this configuration.
About 12 GB of the installed 16 GB is available for installing apps.


The information from CPU-Z doesn't tell us anything particularly new, since this processor (the Amlogic 9xx series) has been on the market for a long time. Root access is reportedly available.


Next came the standard performance and temperature tests.

AnTuTu versions 5.2 and 6.1.3
The temperature is shown at the top. I tried to take the screenshot as quickly as possible after the test finished.


AnTuTu 6.2.1.
I suppose it's worth noting that the score is a little higher than that of the previous TV box based on the S905W. Maybe they're finally starting to improve things bit by bit.


Speed test for RAM and storage.
1. USB flash drive
2. microSD card
3. Built-in flash storage
4. RAM.

The memory card and USB speeds are both quite low, but the built-in flash storage performs at a perfectly reasonable level for a budget device. And since it uses Samsung memory, reliability shouldn't be an issue either.


Geekbench versions 3 and 4.


I got a bit carried away here and tested 3DMark in three different modes.
1. IceStorm Extreme (the score for the table)
2. IceStorm Unlimited
3. IceStorm Extreme OpenGL ES2.0
4. PCMark


Here I'll digress a little—not about the test itself, but about its result, or more precisely, the temperature. This test produced the highest temperature, around 80 degrees. Temperatures during the other tests were noticeably lower, around 60–65 degrees.


During the Bonsai test, the temperature never went above 58–59 degrees.


The AnTuTu Video test was disappointing. The number of supported formats is the same as on the previous model with this processor, but the performance score is noticeably lower.



Wi-Fi only works on the 2.4 GHz band; reception and speed are average.
The screenshot below shows three tests:
Green — 28 Mbps — the far corner of a large room, with a few obstacles
Blue — 53 Mbps — 2 meters.
White — 29 Mbps — 1 meter.

Yes, that's not a typo above—the results are in exactly that order.


Preinstalled software.

Unlike the Z66X Z2, this one comes with a few more apps preinstalled, but essentially they all boil down to the same thing: Kodi, software for downloading Kodi add-ons, and a general-purpose app for downloading other programs.


1, 2. There's a browser. I decided to show the screenshot only because it has a direct link to the support page on the forum.
3. Miracast
4. Media Center


1. A separate app for configuring a PPPoE connection
2. Root Browser
3. There's a separate firmware update app, but it gives me an error notification.
4. In any case, even if you try to update the firmware from the system information menu, it says there are no updates.


1, 2. As before, the package included an app for downloading Kodi add-ons, and, as before, I simply tapped “Download all.”
3, 4. There was also an app installer (now that's a mouthful), which lets you install various media apps. And, just like on the Z66X Z2, it asked to update, and Android warned me not to. I ignored the warning.


As I mentioned above, you can choose from a number of apps and install whichever ones you want.
It keeps pushing Xtube, though. I tried several times, but for some reason the app wouldn't install. It felt like it wasn't even responding to button presses.
In the end, I installed a few other apps, such as the regular YouTube app.


Overall, YouTube works fine: no stuttering or overheating. The temperature stayed between 53 and 58 degrees when I tested 1080p videos at 60 fps.
The only catch is that the maximum resolution is 720p. So even though I played videos at 1920×1080, the stream was actually decoded at only 1280×720. Naturally, the temperature was lower too.


Trying to watch videos with Modbro didn't go well. I tried 6–8 channels, and almost all of them kept freezing from time to time. Test failed. Just to be clear, all tests were done over a wired connection, with a real speed of around 50 Mbps.


It was even worse with TVMC (Kodi). Attempts to open some channels ended with messages about various errors.


Some channels did work, though. For example, I was able to watch an episode of a series that I couldn't get running last time on the Z66X Z2. Then again, it offered 69 source options, so there's no guarantee I picked the same one.
The video quality was dismal, to put it mildly.
On the plus side, I found a UFO channel, and it had no problems with either quality or stability.

There were no problems playing a Blu-ray rip, either. Overall, the test was a partial success, but the constant waiting whenever I switched channels was really annoying. By the time you finally find something, you don't feel like watching anything anymore.
The temperature was no longer 50-60, either; it was more like 65-75.


Alternative software.
Torrent TV
It worked, and actually quite well, if not for scaling problems on some channels and occasional freezes on others. To take screenshots, I had to dig out a video capture device; otherwise, I only got black windows.
Overall, in my personal opinion, the test was a failure.


LOL! TV
The foreign channels didn't perform very well. First, there was a long buffering delay before playback started, followed by occasional image breakup. The stream was also fairly low-bitrate, which may have been the cause of the problems.


The “domestic” channels—in other words, Russian and Ukrainian ones—played reasonably well, only occasionally breaking up into blocks. Pre-buffering (that is, the pause before a channel starts playing) was almost instantaneous.
But I did find some channels with download speeds of just 2-5 KB/sec. Needless to say, watching those was out of the question.
In this case, though, the source was probably to blame, not LOL! TV itself. Either way, it gets a C.


At the very end, I decided to try launching LazyMedia as well, although I always seem to have some kind of problem with this program. It was much the same here. First, the app offered an update, but when I tried to install it, it crashed with an error.
All right, I launched the app without updating it. The very first couple of movies told me that the action wasn’t supported by any app.
So, no luck.


Test of video playback in various formats.
Here I tested the video files I’d used before, checking playback of both Full HD and 4K content. I also checked AC3 audio decoding along the way.
In a word: bad.

AC3 isn’t supported out of the box, so you have to install an alternative player.

Only a handful of the test files played properly, and even those only at Full HD. The TV box failed the 4K test.
1024x768_h265_AC3.mkv - video plays normally, no sound
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 - dropped frames
LG 4K Paris_AAC.mp4 - severe frame drops
LG 4K Story-of-Earth_AAC.mp4 - severe frame drops
LG_Chess_HDR.mp4 - severe frame drops
Philips_UHD_supershopdemo_1.mp4 - severe frame drops
samsung-note-3-3840x2160-high@l5.1-AAC-2ch-2.mp4
4K HD.Club Changhong-Furano-100mbps.mp4 - dropped frames
Sony_4K_HDR_Camp.mp4 - black screen, no sound
Ducks.Take.Off.720p.QHD.CRF24.x264-CtrlHD.mkv (20 Mbps) - plays normally
Ducks.Take.Off.1080p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv (108 Mbps) - dropped frames
Ducks.Take.Off.2160p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv (243 Mbps) - severe frame drops

Since some files have bitrates comparable to USB 2.0 data transfer speeds, I copied them to the TV box’s internal storage. The difference was minimal.
I praised the Z66X Z2 for having no video playback issues, but here the situation is the complete opposite (again).
Since one of the first S905W-based boxes didn’t have these problems, I suspect the firmware is to blame here. But when there’ll be an update, or whether there’ll be one at all, remains a mystery.


Pixel test.
In my previous review of an S905W-based box, I wrote that it had failed this test completely.
When I started it, I was horrified by what I saw.


But after browsing the forums, especially 4PDA, I found out that some users had solved this problem.
The idea is that the box may output video correctly, but is in some way “incompatible” with the pixel test.
I’d noticed myself that the picture looks pretty good when playing the test clips. But it’s harder than you might think to spot the difference between HD and Full HD in actual video, which is why the pixel test is used.

I also came across reports that the test works properly if you watch the video in MX Player with 100% scaling enabled.


That’s what I did. It immediately looked better, but I also noticed that the bars were wider overall.
The photo below uses the same scaling as the one I showed above.


Looking at the test above, you might initially think it really has improved. But take a closer look and it’s obvious that things aren’t quite right. The bars that should follow the pattern 101010101 are displayed as 100100100.


If you take a screenshot, you can see that at a screenshot resolution of 1280x720, the pixel test is displayed correctly: the bars follow the 10101010 pattern.
That explains why the bars became wider overall. It looks as though the TV box first cropped the image to 1280x720, then stretched it to 1920x1080.
I know some users managed to get this test to pass, and I can believe that’s possible. But in my case, the result was negative, and all the information I’ve provided here applies only to the TV box under review.

Below is a crop from the screenshot. The original resolution is 1280x720; after cropping, it’s 597x425. It may not display correctly on all devices, especially if browser zoom is enabled.


And finally, something I mentioned at the very beginning of the review. I decided to add an AFR (Auto Frame Rate) test to the summary table. One caveat: I’m not 100% sure about the result, and here’s why.
All the tests were done on a regular Full HD monitor. In the comments on my previous review, people tried to convince me that if the monitor changes its refresh rate when you switch the box between 50/60 Hz, then the same should happen when AFR kicks in. That’s not true.
For the test, I used a TV box that definitely supports AFR. In this case, it was Lake I. I play the test videos using either the stock player (which supports AFR) or Kodi—it makes no difference. The monitor always runs at 60 Hz, as automatically set by the TV box.
I could only tell that AFR was working indirectly. To do this, I launched Torrent TV, and when I tried to start several TV channels, the TV box consistently returned an error saying it couldn't display the video. Other players (MX and Kodi) played the video normally.
Since I know that on TV boxes based on the Realtek RTD1295 only the stock player handles AFR correctly, I concluded indirectly that this was the cause of the output problems.

In any case, the information about whether AFR is supported is still in a “testing” phase. I'll do some testing myself and look for information online. So for now, the yes/no status is only tentative.


I think that's enough, so let's wrap things up.
First, the good news. Overall, the TV box is stable and doesn't freeze, and Wi-Fi works pretty well too. It uses Samsung flash memory and Micron RAM, which improves the chances of reliable operation. It's also good that the 2 GB RAM / 16 GB flash version is reasonably priced.

Unfortunately, there are many more downsides. I'll skip the fact that the device has only two USB ports and no Bluetooth; that may be fine for some people. But the video playback and IPTV problems are impossible to ignore. There's also the S905W chip's limitation: it doesn't output video at Full HD resolution. At least, I couldn't confirm that the box can display Full HD correctly, scaling it down to 1280x720.
In my opinion, the biggest drawback is the IPTV playback issue. Video playback comes second, since there's little point in watching 4K content on an HD TV, and everything works fine in HD.

I can't say whether the software will be updated and the current problems fixed, but as of now, the software for this model is clearly still rough around the edges.

That's all. As usual, I'll be waiting for your questions in the comments. I hope you found the review useful.