MECOOL-KIII-PRO, a decent TV box with a built-in T2 tuner

This is already my third review of a TV box with a built-in TV tuner, but this one has some notable differences from the previous models.
In my opinion, this model is well made and could be an interesting buy. And, as always, I’ll take it apart, inspect it, test it, and add it to the comparison table.


The TV box was bought for a friend, but ordered in my name so I could inspect and test it first. I was interested in it myself, especially since, unlike the previous two, it has the more powerful S912 instead of the familiar Amlogic S905D usually found in T2 boxes.
At the time of purchase, the TV box cost $80.29, but for the AliExpress anniversary sale the store offered a "discount", and now it costs "only" $93.15. If you’re interested, you’ll have to wait until the "sales" are over.

First, the specifications
CPU — Amlogic S912
Number of cores — 8
Graphics — Mali-T820MP3
RAM — 3 GB DDR3
Flash storage — 32 GB
Wi-Fi: 2.4/5 GHz
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0
LAN — Gigabit
Ports: 4x USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0, RJ45, AV, Optical S/PDIF, microSD card
Operating system — Android 7.1

So how else does it differ from Magicsee C400, which, in my opinion, is its closest competitor in terms of price?
Network — Gigabit here, versus 100 Mbps on the Magicsee C400
Wi-Fi — this one supports the 5 GHz band
Ports — one extra USB port (4 versus 3)
Processor — S912 versus S905D
Flash storage — 32 GB versus 16
RAM — 3 GB versus 2

On the other hand, it only has a T2 tuner, compared with the T2/S2 tuner in the Magicsee, so it’s not suitable if you also need satellite TV.

The packaging is really large and clearly not cheap, unlike the boxes used for most Mecool models. The only somewhat useful information on it is a brief list of specifications.
The top of the box is held shut by a magnetic "lock". In my opinion, though, that’s mostly for show: even if the box were plain and cheap, the specifications would be exactly the same.


The package includes:
1. Mecool-KIII-PRO-T2 TV box
2. IR remote control
3. Power supply
4. HDMI cable
5. Manual



1. The manual is neatly laid out, with pictures, but brief and in English.
2. HDMI cable: nothing unusual, just an ordinary, inexpensive cable.
3, 4. A 12 V, 1 A power supply, which is also quite typical for a TV box with a tuner. It doesn’t get hot in use and powers not only the TV box itself, but also an external hard drive, an HDMI-to-VGA adapter, and an SSD. I’d say that’s excellent.


The remote looks like some kind of monster: it’s really big and has a lot of buttons. I’ve never come across one like it before.


Its unusual shape makes it comfortable to hold, but I don’t think it would work very well for someone with small hands.


Unfortunately, it uses IR, so there’s no voice control. It also takes AA batteries rather than AAA, which seems unusual these days.


The TV box’s design doesn’t stand out from its "peers": it’s the usual black box.


I didn’t measure it, but it’s not much bigger than a typical TV box. There’s a power button on top, illuminated by LEDs: blue for operation, red for standby. They’re fairly bright and don’t blink.


All four USB ports and the memory card slot are on the left side.


All the other ports are on the back: antenna input/output, AV output, Ethernet, HDMI, S/PDIF, and the power input.


One thing worth noting is that the TV box has an RF pass-through input, which is very rare. In this setup, it passes the RF signal through, so you can switch between the T2 tuner and the TV’s built-in tuner right from the TV. That can be important in some cases.


Here are all the ports in one photo, so you can see how they’re arranged relative to each other.


There are four rubber feet on the bottom, ventilation holes, and mounting holes for hanging the box on a vertical surface.



The insides.
The TV box is easy to open: the cover is held by two screws, the ones closest to the front panel. One of them is covered by a warranty seal.


There is one Wi-Fi antenna, soldered in place. The power button actuator is visible on the left.




The home screen should look familiar to anyone who's seen KII boxes. It has a certain "quirkiness", but is actually quite convenient.


Clicking the settings icon opens a sidebar with most of the various menus.



There's also access to the classic settings menu. I'm a little more used to that one, though I've gotten used to the sidebar lately too. It's hard to say which is better.


The firmware is relatively old, from September last year.


There's plenty of free memory, both RAM and flash—enough for apps and games, with room for more. Personally, though, the more familiar 2/16 configuration would have been enough for me.


Next, some general information from CPU-Z and various tests.


As usual, the performance and temperature tests are under the spoiler, since there's nothing particularly new in them. The main conclusions will be in the summary table.


The box is equipped with a dual-band Wi-Fi module and a gigabit Ethernet interface, so we'll test everything.


At 2.4 GHz, speeds barely varied across the large room: whether next to the access point or in the opposite corner, they were 42–48 Mbps.


I expected slightly better results on the 5 GHz band; in practice, I got 90–110 Mbps.


With a wired connection, speeds reached 650–750 Mbps, which is typical for the chip used here.



Preinstalled software. At first glance, it looks like there are lots of apps installed, but quite a few are just utilities.


The software package also includes an electronic manual, available in both text and video formats. Unfortunately, both are in English.
The Russian translation on this TV box is very reminiscent of the Chinese makers' early attempts using their "Google translator". In short, it won't be boring.


There is also
An updater that doesn't update anything
Google Play, which works great
A file manager that I'm personally starting to quietly hate.
DRM Info and various other things.


Aptoide TV is a very handy app and, in this case, a good alternative to Google Play.
MX Player. It's odd that they preinstalled it here.


Kodi is listed among the apps, or rather, it's called TV Center here. But you have to install it first; tapping the icon takes you to the installer.
I installed it. For the most part, it works fine, although some channels do show an error message.


YouTube. It works fine and automatically switches to 1080p or 4K depending on the video, though it occasionally drops a few frames—barely noticeable, and rarely.


Alternative apps.

Vintera TV is new to me. It works almost perfectly, with occasional minor stuttering.


Divan TV works fine, except that it requires registration and only plays a trailer without it.


Lanet TV works without any issues either, apart from the fact that its channel lineup is very politicized. I could barely find anything neutral.


And of course, there's the TV tuner, since that's essentially what sets this apart from most TV boxes. I won't repeat the specs; I'll just quote the product page.


The first time you turn it on, it prompts you to scan for channels. In automatic mode, this takes just a couple of minutes at most.


There is also a manual search option, but to me that's more of a last resort, since automatic scanning works fine.


So, after a couple of minutes from powering on and scanning, you can start watching TV. The picture isn't HD, but it's noticeably better than over-the-air reception. Also, some channels display the current program's title at the bottom of the screen for a few seconds. More accurately, they all display it, but not every channel provides that information.


Settings menu.
It looks very similar, if not identical, to the menu on the MECOOL M8S Plus. Apparently, it uses the same app.
By the way, some actions in the EPG menu cause the app to crash with an error. It's not critical, but it's annoying.




And the usual classic screen when exiting.


The pixel test box passed without any problems.

As for playing video files in various formats, I don't have much bad to say either. It's not perfect, of course, but it's not bad, either.
1024x768_h265_AC3.mkv — OK
2560x1600_AAC .mp4 — minor frame drops
3840x2160_AAC .mp4 — minor frame drops
4096x2160_AAC .mp4 — minor frame drops
gopro-hero-3-be-avc-high@l5.1-4096x2160-12p-aac-2ch.mp4 — OK
GraysPeak8HDR_Dolby AC3.mp4 — OK
LG 4K Paris_AAC.mp4 — OK
LG 4K Story-of-Earth_AAC.mp4 — OK
LG_Chess_HDR.mp4 — OK
Philips_UHD_supershopdemo_1.mp4 — OK
samsung-note-3-3840x2160-high@l5.1-AAC-2ch-2.mp4 — OK
4K HD.Club Changhong-Furano-100mbps.mp4 — OK
Sony_4K_HDR_Camp.mp4 — OK
Molly — Holy Molly (2016) 4K UHD_60 fps.mkv — minor stuttering, audio problems
Ducks.Take.Off.1080p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv — OK
Ducks.Take.Off.2160p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv (243 Mbps) — frame drops even from internal storage
4K HD.Club TCL-super_car-Part-1-HEVC.mp4 — OK
Colours Of Culture Bali (6K.3240p.x264).mkv — no sound.

As you can see from the list, only a few files caused problems. Surprisingly, it couldn't play the “ducks” properly. At first I suspected the flash drive was too slow, but the problem remained after I copied the files to internal storage.


4k hdr demo 60fps wildlife video for 4k oled tv 1920x1080
4k hdr demo 60fps wildlife video for 4k oled tv 2560x1440
4k hdr demo 60fps wildlife video for 4k oled tv 3840x2160
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 1920x1080
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 2560x1440
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 3840x2160
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 7680x4320

The only file that didn't work was the one with 8K resolution; everything else played perfectly.


Additional features.
CEC — didn't work for me
When connected to a 4K TV emulator, it reports the full list of resolutions and automatically switches to 4K at 60 Hz.
AFR doesn't work; in fact, there's no such option here at all.


Final comparison table. I deliberately didn't highlight anything except the TV box under review, since comparing it with weaker models that have a TV tuner wouldn't be fair: they have a less powerful processor. Comparing it with other models using the same processor would be pointless, since they don't have T2.


Based on the test results, I can say that I liked this TV box. It has a processor that's no longer new but still powerful, a decent amount of fast flash storage, 3 GB of RAM, 5 GHz Wi-Fi, gigabit Ethernet, a tuner, and an analog output—all of which speak for themselves. What's more, the TV box runs very quickly, doesn't “think” before responding, and plays most of the test video files without any problems.
My only complaint is that it overheats. But the test results show that this model has plenty of potential, so if you want to play games on it, you can simply improve the cooling.

I'd like to end on that positive note, but unfortunately, I can't. After I gave the box to a friend and he installed all the apps he uses, the box was “bricked”—it stopped booting properly. This happened after installing this app, and it went like this:
Installed the app and rebooted the box
After it rebooted, I saw that something wasn't working right, so I disabled the feature or uninstalled the app, and the box rebooted by itself
That was it; it wouldn't turn on again.

I contacted the seller and told him about the problem. He asked me for a link to the app, so we're waiting for a reply.


That's all from me. I hope you found the review useful.