hello once again and thanks for visiting,it's your host nick with another tv box stop review, today i have with me the minix u9h tv box. minix is a long standing name in tv box products and the u9 h is one of theirmore competitive products, which promises to provide entertainment for every user. soafter this short introduction, we have an unboxing along with some system and benchmarking apps to see how it scores, as well
Android TV launcher port, as my personal thoughts and opinion on thisnew device. so stay tuned, i will be back in a moment. so what we have is this black box in whichthe minix u9 h comes in. the box has minix's native design with some feature icons whichindicates what to expect inside the box. it
shows that you have hdmi display, dolby digitalaudio, h265 hevc and 4k hdr display technology. at the back, here it shows that the box hasan octa core cortex a53 cpu, the gpu, is the mali t820 tri core gpu. it comes with 2gbof ddr3 ram, an 16gb of emmc 5.0 internal storage, it has 802.11 dual band wifi andbluetooth 4.1 technology, an it runs on android 6.0 operating system. so i will now unpack the contents of the box. so in the box, you have the box itself. you get an infrared remote control. you get tree different cables in the box,these include, one hdmi cable.
a micro usb cable. and 1 otg cable. it comes with a 5 volts 3 amps power adapter. an external antenna. and a users guide. let's take a look at the box. at the back,here you have 1 hdmi port, you have a standard rj45 ethernet lan port, we have 1 spdif opticalaudio port, you have one earphone jack, one microphone jack, and the last port here isthe power adapter jack. to the side, we have 3 usb 2.0 ports, an sdtf card reader, there's an otg port, a power
button, and a hole for a display lock cable. to the front, you have an infrared sensor,and a power light. on the opposite side, you have the externalantenna. the box is made of plastic, with the minixlogo clearly displayed. to the bottom, all you have here is four rubberlegs and a big android logo. so it's time to connect this box to my tv,an when i return i will continue with the rest of my review. so i'm all set, and as i startup the box,it shows the minix startup animation and logo. you're then presented with a choice of twolaunchers to choose from, a minix native launcher,
and a nova launcher. so this is what the minix native launcherlooks like. and if you don't like the native launcher, this is what the nova launcher lookslike. so for this demonstration i'm using the nova launcher. for those who have neverseen the nova launcher in action, you are going to really enjoy using this launcherbecause the interface is simply outstanding. both launchers come with a navigation barat the bottom. however, when you startup the box for the first time, you do not have accessto this bar. only after the first update, which i like very much, will you get thisfeature. also, after the update, you have to swipe in an upwards motion at the bottomof the screen to reveal it.
this navigation bar functions a little differentfrom the other navigation bars i've used. on this bar, you have your volume controls.your home and back buttons. a cascade button for switching between apps. a screen capturebutton. a download folder button, for direct access to the download folder. you have ahide button, and a power options button. the home button represented by this circle, functionsas an easy way to stitch between the two launchers. the nova launcher has a google search barat the top of the screen, along with a voice search feature, once you have a mini microphoneor a webcam connected to the box, or a bluetooth air mouse with built in mic feature. the nova launcher has a cool way to add andremove shortcuts. it uses the same interface
as android phones, by simply holding downon an app icon and dragging it to the desktop area. the same process applies when you wantto remove any shortcut from the launcher. simply drag the shortcut to the remove optionat the top of the launcher. and finally, the feature i really like themost is the live wallpapers and the widgets option. the minix u9 h got this one right,as i have seen other launchers mess this up. simply hold down anywhere on the launcherto bring up the wallpapers and widgets options, select the wallpaper option, and choose thelive wallpaper you would like to use, then click set this wallpaper. now return to thelauncher to view some live background display. you have the option to download your own livewallpapers from the google play store, or
simply upload one of your own personal orfamily picture. to add widgets is the same process as thewallpapers. the widget i like most is the clock widget, it adds the final touches tothe launcher. you can choose which ever widgets you like, just make sure and login to yourgoogle account for some of them to work. if we go to the app section. here we havea list of all the apps that comes installed on the box. in this list, i see that we haveapp installer. chrome browser. drm information. e s file explorer. kodi. miracast. media center.movie player. mx player. google play store, skype. sound recorder, and youtube. so i'llinstall a couple of my own apps to add to this list, and then i'll run some system andbenchmarking apps to see how it scores.
so i've installed all my apps, and now letscheck to see if the box is rooted. it says here that the box is not rooted. andbelow here it says that the box is running on android 6.0 operating system. what thismeans, is that only apps that don't require root access, will be able to work properlyon this box. if you need your box to be rooted, minix can grant this feature via an update. in addition to this option we also have theone click ota updates feature. so let's check for any available updates. it says here that the box is currently upto date, and there are no updates at this time. this is expected, because prior to makingthis video, upon connecting the box to the
internet, the box updated itself automatically.this is how the navigation bar at the bottom became available. let's now take a look at some system and hardwareinformation. under system information, here it shows thatthe manufacturer is minix, and the model is the neo u9 h. below here it shows the totalram installed as 2gb, the total ram after the android installation, and the availablememory. it also shows the total internal storage after the android installation from the 16gb.and below that, it shows the remaining internal storage after i installed my benchmarkingapps. you can increase your storage capacity with convertible storage, a feature only availableon android 6.0 and later. you can convert
up to 64gb via an sd card. under the cpu information, it shows that thebox is ran by an octa core cortex a53 cpu. running on a 64bit system. and in similarfashion like in most of the other boxes in its class, the cpu clock range is limitedto 1.5ghz and not 2.0 as it is capable of reaching. the reason again is to control theamount of heat generated by the cpu core. even though the box comes with a heatsinkthat covers most of the pcb, it still suffers from the absence of cooling fans an aftermarketheat sinks for advanced heat dissipation. under display information, here it shows thescreen resolution, and it also shows that the gpu is the mali t820 tri core gpu, asit is shown under the gpu cores section, and
it has a refresh rate of 60 hz. under the network heading, i already wentahead and connected the box to my wifi network. and here it shows that i'm connected to my5.8ghz band, and below here it shows the signal strength, the link speed, and the frequency. under the android information. it shows thatthe operating system is android 6.0.1 marshmallow, and it also shows that the box is not rooted. under thermal information, it shows that thebox has an operating temperature between 45 to 55â° celsius, again, this changes dependingon the level of activity on the box. under the codecs information, displayed hereis a list of audio and video codecs installed
on the box. these are necessary for playinghd and 4k videos at 60 fps. you have codecs like h264, hevc, and vp9 decoding. i'm notseeing any h265 decoder in this list. and that's it for system and hardware information.let's now run some benchmarks and see how it scores. as always, i'll check the memory read andwrite speeds with the a1 sd bench application. it shows that the box has a ram copy speedof 3322 mbps. the internal memory has a read speed of 114 mbps, and a write speed of 47.and the sd card has a read speed of 8 mbps, and has a write speed of 7. whereas the ramand the sd card speeds are a bit low, the internal storage read and write speeds werepretty high.
this box comes with dual band wifi capability,so i'll perform a wifi speed test on the both bands. and after pinging the same server 6 time 3on each band, the okla results show the box has some good download and upload speeds onmy 30mb internet connection. let's check the drm information. this standsfor digital rights management information, which grants the box the rights to show moviesin hd and 4k quality, from movie streaming services like netflix and others. from whati am seeing, it shows that this box has support for microsoft play ready drm. what this meansis that netflix can show in hd and 4k quality on this box, because netflix uses microsoftplay ready support. this box, is the first
tv box out of china that i've seen to carrythe drm rights to such services. i now turn to the antutu benchmark. i alwayslike to explain a little bit about this segment for those new to tv boxes, so i don't takefor granted that everyone knows what i'm doing in these various test. the antutu benchmark,is an application that performs a comprehensive test on your device's hardware and softwareenvironment. it performs a test on the boxes 3d graphics, memory performance, cpu multitreading and multitasking capability, and it also performs a test on user experienceperformance. upon completion, the minix u9 h got an antutu score of 42165. the next benchmark i'm running is the geekbench 4 bench marking application. this app
performs a test on the boxes cpu, it putsthe cpu to task by running a series of timed processes. the box then gets a score basedon how long it takes to complete each task. when all tests were complete, the minix u9h got a score of 478 single core, and 2478 multi core. the last benchmark i'm running is the icestorm extreme gpu benchmark. this app focuses on your boxes gpu. if you don't understandwhat part of the box i am referring too, its simply the hardware responsible for the displayand graphics of the box. the app measures gpu performance while processing lots of pixelsand vertices, and it also performs a physics test that measures high gpu rendering performance.when this test was completed, the minix u9
h got an ice storm extreme score of 6274. and that's it for the benchmarks. so we just heard a whole lot of technicalstuff that most people aren't really interested in. what most people would like to know, iscan this box deliver free entertainment, can it access the google play store, can it saveyou money on your online subscription, or cable subscription. can it play large gamesand apps from the google play store, or from an apk file, is it any better than main streamdevices like the fire stick, roku, or apple tv. well let's dig into its entertainmentfeatures. let's deal with the main question. can thisdeliver free entertainment, and the application
that comes into question is kodi media center.and the answer is yes, it comes with kodi pre installed. however, due to unscrupulousaddon developers that provide ways to stream free hd pirated content, minix decided toinstall kodi in its original state, which is as an open source platform for variousmedia types. the option to install third party addons of your choice is totally up to you.and if you don't know about kodi or how to install addons, you can ask a friend or poston a forum and ask a question, or the easiest way is to search for tutorials on youtubeon how to install kodi addons manually. so if i go to settings and then to system information,here it shows that the version of kodi is kodi 16.1 jarvis.
let's look at the other question. can thisbox access the google play store to install any app you like. you have full access tothe google play store, an there are lots of apps and games that you can install. however,due to this box not being rooted, certain apps that require root won't work until youget it rooted. a feature that minix can provide in an ota up date. the next question is, can this box save youmoney by providing a cheaper quality service than your cable subscription. an the answerhere is also yes, there are lots of great legitimate services coming on stream now,providing hundreds of iptv channels in hd quality without any buffering, at a fractionof what you would pay for regular cable subscription.
a perfect example is the new youtube tv service,offering 40 premium live network channels for $35 per month, and a one month free trial.another new service is nitrotv, they provide hundreds of iptv channels all in hd high qualityfor $20 per month. there are others that you can get for free, but again that is totallyup to you. the other question is, how does it compareto other mainstream devices like the amazon fire tv, the rowku, the apple tv, or eventhe nvidia shield. well pound for pound, some of these mainstreamboxes have superior hardware and programming, allowing them to play back 4k content an 3dgaming better than android tv boxes, well at least for now. as well as all of them comewith the necessary digital rights management,
which allows them to run paid services likenetflix in hd and 4k quality. something android boxes have been struggling with. this is notthe case with the minix u9 h. he's the first tv box to come with drm support to play netflixin hd quality. however, these are the only areas where android boxes fall a bit short.but this only applies to paid services, and hd and 4k play back works perfectly in otherquarters. the minix u9 h comes installed with miracast.this allows you to wirelessly connect any android device like a smartphone or tablet,and stream media directly to your tv in real time. this leaves two remaining questions, can itplay 4k videos, and can it play large games
from the google play store, or from a sideloaded apk file. so i'll run some 4k videos stored on a flash drive, and we will get alive demonstration on how the box handles the playback. if you noticed, most of the 1080p and 4k videosplayed without any issues, with the exception of the second jellyfish video, which had amuch higher coding at 250 mbps bit-rate, and at 60 frames per seconds. this video is usuallya bit of a problem for boxes in the amlogic s912 class, and i patiently wait as more hardwareis released, to see which box is capable of playing this video with ease. for my final question. can it play games fromthe google playstore. that is games that are
over 1gb in size, or large games loaded froman apk file. for this demonstration i'm running a game called god fire, rise of prometheus.this is a great game for testing a tv box gpu capabilities, this game requires a cpuspeed of 1.7ghz. a gpu equivalent to the mali t860. it needs 1gb of ram, and 1.2 gb of internalstorage. i usually use my gamepad to play this game, but because the box is not rooted,i cannot use my gkm touch game pad application. so i'm using a regular mouse for this demonstration. with all settings set to maximum, the gameruns well with some minor rendering issues, and the graphics is not of the smoothest quality.so i'm going to lower the graphics and try it again.
this time it's playing much better at thelower settings. this is expected, seeing that this box does not reach the minimum requirementsof the game's cpu and gpu speed. so in summary, the minix u9 h is a good tvbox for what it is intended for. i would definitely recommend it, it's well built, it comes withthe latest software including kodi media center, it has lots of ports for connecting devices,the box is fast, and it plays large games without any issues. however, i don't likethat the box is not rooted. i couldn't use one of my apps due to this problem. the cpuclock range is limited to 1.5ghz for this s912 cpu. and like other boxes in its class,the box had problems playing the second jellyfish video at 250 mbps. this model comes with aninfrared remote, but you also have the option
of a minix wireless air mouse for a few dollarsmore.
i have come to the end of my presentation.if you're interested in the minix u9 h, see the link in the description area. thanks for watching, remember to like thisvideo if you found it informative, share it with your friends, and subscribe to this channelfor more tv box stop videos.
