- Running the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS
- With integrated Google Play online store
- With Rockchip RK3066 Dual Core CPU and Quad Core GPU
- 8GB ROM (2-3 GB for OS, 5-6 GB available space)
- English, French, Spanish, Roman, Slovenian, Finnish... all supported
The product was pretty easy to set up just plug into HDMI port on the back of the TV connect to a power source and the unit boots up right away. The box came with an extended HDMI cable and a mini USB dongle (for powering the Rikomagic). The instruction manual is pretty light I suppose the company which makes this probably assumes that if you buy this device then you probably already know a thing or two about Android operating system.
The dual core processor (same as you would find in the Galaxy S2) is more than adequate for the task at hand. There was no issues with HD movie playbacks at all. Sound comes out as it should on my TV and there was no need to tinker with the setup to get that to work, which is nice. I have not played games on it yet but from what I heard, it holds up pretty well for some of the older titles like GTA 3.
Note that the Rikomagic only has one USB port (excluding the mini USB slot for the power adapter), so you will need to get one of those USB port hubs. I bought a cheap 1-4 hub and used one port for connecting my wireless mouse and keyboard receiver unit (surprisingly enough, I have not found a single wireless mouse and keyboard that has not worked yet), one for my joypad and the third and fourth port for portable HDD/USB sticks (where I download my HD movies and music files). Some people connect their webcam as well so I suppose that could be another use for the fourth port.
Loading movies is fairly simple. I basically use the explorer to access files in the portable HDD (I have a 500GB Goflex). The unit comes with two different movie viewer but you can download more from their app stores. Have not found a movie file that is incompatible yet. However, when navigating the portable HDD directory structure sometimes it struggles to scan for files if there are a lot of files in a directory. Not sure why this is the case but it's not a big deal.
As for web surfing not sure why some people said that they have problems connecting to Wifi when using wireless mouse and keyboard but I had no problems at all the RikoMagic connects right away and never lost internet connection. May be certain brand of wireless mouse/keyboard causes interference?
I can't say much about the operating system... it's Android 4.1 the same stuff that you get on your android based cell phone. So if you're already used to it then navigating or doing things on it (like installing apps, customizing) should be a breeze. If you figure out how to root this thing then you can probably do a ton more stuff on this than playing movies and surfing the web.
Now the bad I know this thing only costs a little under 70 bucks and therefore we shouldn't expect too much from this device in terms of accessories but it would have been nice if the company included some sort of proper power adapter. I suppose it's not an issue if your TV already have a USB port so you can hook it up to it, but if your TV does not (like mine), then trying to figure out how to power this device becomes a tricky exercise. I tried several different phone chargers but so far the Rikomagic constantly reboots due to inadequate power supply... I also heard that USB ports on older TV's does not have adequate current to support it either supposedly anything north of 500mA is required to run it properly. The company could have saved consumers a lot of hassle by including a USB wall adapter and may be charge a little bit more. Note that I currently power it via my laptop USB as this is the only way to keep it powered properly. The second bad though so far this has not caused problems is that the device seems to heat up after prolonged use. However, I have used it for well over an hour surfing the web and watching HD movies, and other than the unit getting moderately hot it has not crashed or burst into flame so so far so good.
Final verdict for what it's worth the RikoMagic III does its job well enough for the price. Shame about the power issue.
======UPDATE========
After tinkering with various power adapters turned out that you really need to have 2000mA to ensure that the unit works with all sorts of USB accessories attached. Luckily, I have an IPAD adapter which has enough juice for the task. Note that I initially tried 1000mA wall adapter but it kept having problems when playing back movies or loading files from my portable HD...Pros: I can stream Netflix, play Star Wars Angry Birds and run all the apps I want from Google Play. I like the interface just fine, it is running Jelly Bean which is the latest android OS as of right now 12/7/12.
Cons: The wifi is functional but has an internal antenna and appears to have trouble picking up the signal. I have read that others are finding that the bluetooth dongle/adapter you may put in it to have a wireless keyboard and mouse fights with the wifi signal and that you should use a usb extension cable to get some distance between the mk802 III and the keyboard/mouse usb adapter.
Overall, it made my "dumb tv", smart and fun to use.
I rooted it so that I could install Droidmote server which allows me to use my android phone as a remote control, to control the mouse on the tv. Due to wifi interference, the droidmote client on my android phone is very laggy as in not useful. Droidmote to laptop works great.
For rooting, see TrailRiderKen's review at and for upgrading to the latest firmare:As stated in the product description, this device requires a USB plugin for power. There is no wall plug/transformer provided for AC power. The provided USB cable, for power connection to a USB port on the TV, and the HDMI cable are not long enough to reach my TV USB and HDMI without having the Mini PC device just hanging in the air. I had to plug the Mini PC into an HDMI switch, taking up two plug positions because it is rather wide, and then still get a longer USB cable.
As expected, when I power off my TV, the USB power to the Mini PC goes away. I think this is a good thing since other Mini PC devices are constantly powered on. The downside is that it takes a little while for the Mini PC to boot up.
I had a problem getting my wireless keyboard to work. I had to switch to a Logitech wireless keyboard even though the first one I installed (not a Logitech) had worked with a different Android device. I have not had the same WiFi and wireless keyboard interference problem that another reviewer mentioned.
The device seems to work as well. It seems to be slightly more snappy than other, single core processor, Android Mini PC devices I have used. The cursor is an odd looking pizza pie slice triangle that takes some getting used to.
The delivery was much faster than stated on the Amazon listing.
Overall this seems to be a nice device that provides the Android experience quite well on my TV. I would like to have had a hard wired ethernet port available. Since I have had it installed for only two hours, I will know more in the next few days.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants an dual core Android TV interface as long as they understand the power connection issue.I would have very much have liked to give this product four stars, but I could not. And I am an Android fan. I do not like it when I must say anything bad about products I am often working on myself, and love very much. I have great love in my heart for the Linux/Android/Google world. And that is the main reason I feel i must be very honest about what I think is going on with this product.
*It is a very decent concept for the price* And for the person who likes to develop these types of products, and help them be more than anyone would think they could be? This is a great product to buy. But I was thinking at the very worst, and I would be stuck with another toy to play with, and as I did more research, I could find more uses for it. And that is what I got. The worst case scenario...
This is not the newer version of this product, that would be the MK808 III. So if you are looking for one with the most current support, and better features like and extra micro usb port? It is priced less than this one. I found that out after ordering this, but that is what happens when you don't go to the developer site first, and just believe Amazon. So, learn from my mistake people.
This is a very diverse product, but unless you like making your upgrades via a micro SD card, and not a straight line into your computer? Again, this is another area the newer version makes this thing look very silly. Does this MK802 serve a purpose at all?
YES! But I would only advise you buy this product for your developer mojo, and not for a stable mini pc. These are developer Big Boy Toys Folks! And should be treated as such. I see reviews on here, treating these items as if you bought them at Walmart. WRONG! The very fact that you can get your hands on this device was made possible by people who worked very hard, and had the financial support to put them into production. And as you can see, that was not a large production limit.
The newer model is very diverse, and many of the bugs have been fixed. I highly advise you buy that model. I am rating this product 3 stars, so the reader will know to buy the current model. No other reason! Thanks for your time.
Everything worked together without any special anything. The mouse/keyboard has a nano 2.4Ghz receiver you plug into the USB port of the MK802 III, which does not work with bluetooth. I found that the 2.4Ghz receiver needed unobstructed access to the mouse or it would show some lag.
When I ordered the MK802 III, I was fuzzy about needing a keyboard or a mouse, and I'd heard about the new android app that would let you control the RikoMagic from your smartphone, so I was thinking I could make do without a mouse. This lead to Disappointment 1: I would have liked the other necessary items listed as "required" in the product details. The requirements weren't clear. Moreover, I totally agree with the reviewer about wishing they had just included a power adapter with the product and added a few more dollars to the total. Some other vendors include the power adapter and a mini mouse keyboard combo, which looks fine, and would have been convenient. I probably would not want a keyboard / mouse included, but I'd want to know that at least a mouse was absolutely needed.
Out of the box, I got three out of 4 bars with it 10 feet from the router, so I used a longer HDMI cable and relocated it to right next to the router and got 4 out of 4 bars. That made Netflix stream very smooth, and also Youtube streaming was smooth. Other reviewers seem to have experienced wifi connectivity issues, so maybe it's true that the wifi antenna inside it is weak. I can't really speak about that.
The cpu is very nice, almost as fast as my Samsung Galaxy S3, but not quite. I had several different apps open and had no problem going back and forth between them, all the while a live wallpaper was running. Snappy and responsive interactivity, so I believe the 1G RAM and 8G ROM specs are working very well.
I used Settings to establish 1920x1080p resolution, which looked very good. The standard definition movies in Netflix looked good to me, BUT I did not see any HD movies, even tho my account offers HD on my PC, and on my other PS3 and Panasonic BluRay players. This was a disappointment.
Obviously, I was already familiar with the Android ecosystem, so I had my gmail account ready to go. Be aware that you will need to set one up if you're not already a google user. The Android UI takes a little getting used to if you're not already familiar. It's running Android 4.1.1, which is the latest as of Dec 2012, but it's not signifantly different from 4.0.4 which is on the Galaxy S3.
The device has access to the Play Store, so you can sign in and download apps. Facebook, Chrome browser, Youtube and other apps downloaded and played immediately with no problem. Very pleased about that. I prefer Youtube played through a browser since I could figure out how to go full screen and get HD. Disappointment 2: There is no Amazon Instant Video app. I was only able to run it through Amazon full site which does not recognize that I am running a HD device. It really looks horrible. I downloaded Firefox and was able to get Amazon full site to stream, but the picture was atrocious. Totally unusable for watching on the big screen.
eHomeMediaCenter allows the device to see the Media on your network and plays them very well even though it is very rudimentary. I was impressed by the speed and smoothness of the streaming. However, I also installed ES File Explorer, which let me access my network hosts and play from various laptops and a NAS on the network, depending on the sharing I had set up. I played mp3s without a problem. I played flv video files no problem. wmv videos didn't have a player, so I will try to find an app that will allow me to play those videos.
The DLNA media server on the Rikomagic gave me an entry in my laptop libraries, so I could play music from the Rikomagic, but it was skippy at first, not smooth, even tho the network is rock solid, and not much was going on on the Rikomagic. I'm not sure what to say, I was a bit disappointed, but maybe it will get better. I could play music from my laptop on the RikoMagic easily and smoothly.
I found out by accident that ctrl-alt-delete on the keyboard will cycle the device. It goes black, like it's turning off. Then the boot screen comes back on within a few seconds.
Despite those few issues, I enjoy this item very much. Take it for what it is ... a way to make your hdmi enabled TV smarter and run a browser and other apps, with rudimentary media center capabilities. It's well worth the price and set up time, IMO. It is not a media player by any stretch of the imagination, but good fun.
*** Additional comments 1/14/13
Today, I re-installed the full XBMC server again, I had success this time. It scanned my media and worked, altho extremely slow across my LAN. I happen to have a 1T NAS with hundreds of videos, and it takes a while for all media servers to read it and build a library, so I set up preferences to skip all the extras but it still buffered super SLOWWWWWWWWWWWW, then it played in slow motion. I tried various file types, and didn't find one that would play in a normal way, even after I waited for it to completely load. It would have been SO slick if it had worked normally, but I can only say EPIC FAIL on that one. Could possibly be operator error, so I will try again, after everything has a chance to load into XBMC and index. However, I suspect it's just too much for the processor.
After switching cables and repositioning the device, I still observe issues with resolution while playing Netflix. It starts out at about 720p but along the way, it changes to a lower res. Then it will go back to high res after that. And back and forth. Very distracting. Could possibly be cables and wifi related, I'm not sure.
System is what it says it is; some makers stretch the truth about their specifications, but this one checks out. **Actually, I did catch a bit of a stretch: it's rated at 1.6GHz, but mine never went above 1.2GHz, with 84.8% of the activity at 250 MHz. Slight mis-statement there, I do believe.
BTW, this device is rooted, if that interests anyone.
***Additional comments 1/8/13
Set up XBMC server app (Dave McKellar free) for music on the MK802iii and put a remote app on my phone ... sweet! I can play music on my TV from my phone. Makes me want full XBMC functionality. Eventually pivos will be providing full XBMC on Google Play, so they say. I tried sideloading from xbmc.org/download but when I launch the program, the screen goes black for some seconds and then closes.
*******FINAL COMMENT*********
I downloaded an app: Complete Linux Installer, which runs Linux on Android, and downloaded two linux images: debian and lubuntu 12.04v4 small. I followed the excellent instructions and got both distros to boot, but I couldn't get a web browser in either distro. A swing and a miss. I suspect it's a lack of RAM to run well. Turns out, the 1Gb RAM equals total of 882MB RAM after bootup, with 268M Free, which I infer is a very small amount of RAM for the task of running lubuntu on top of android, so it comes as no big surprise that there would be problems.
I find myself wanting to boot to a linux distro, which some A10 Allwinner versions of the device allows, but the Rockchip versions don't allow. So, as much as I love this device, seems I've reached a practical limit of tricks it can do. I'm hoping this year the next model of android stick will allow a dual boot to linux through the external microSD card, while adding memory, to 2GB of RAM and perhaps more ROM. That would be the ultimate for this kind of toy, esp. if it stayed well under $100. One could run XMBC with more responsiveness, as well as try running another OS. Having fun in the meantime, while looking forward to more tiny tech in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment