Date: July 23, 2014
What do I have now?
When you have a 4K big TV at home, you want to equip with it with the best TV entertainment gadget. So far, I am satisfy with most of it. All of these are based on my experience.
– The best TV box so far for Hulu & Netflix is Apple TV3 where you can get from any Apple shop.
– The best TV box for Amazon Prime Videos is Amazon Fire where you can order it from Amazon.
– The best TV box for US/UK Channels is the Minix box where you can get from Sim Lim.
– The best solution to play all your video files (AVI, MP4, MKV, WMV) is to use LG 4K TV with DNLA to connect to your Synology NAS.
– Now, the best TV box for playing Chinese, Korean, PPTV, LeTV, etc… is this following box.
What about Xiaomi TV Box?
Please note that I also tried both jailbroken & non-jailbroken Xiaomi TV Box too. Will soon write a review on that. But comparing both YunOS and Xiaomi UI, I like the 10moons’ YunOS. Later I will show you why? You can see the video and feel the speed and stability of the network. Especially when you run PPTV on it, it is also very fast. I also like Xiaomi, but the CDN19, CDN26 & CDN30 that gives a bit inconsistent results deduct some marks out from Xiaomi. I still need time to play with Xiaomi in order to give a conclusive review on that box. There are a lot of unknown fluctuations of performance that I need to investigate what is the reasons.
Where do you buy this 10moons TV Box?
You get it from Taobao.
I bought it a few months ago, and it costs about RM349. Now, the price has reduced down to RMB299. I think they wanted to compete with the Xiaomi Box.
Ok, I admit, it does not looks as cool as Apple TV or Xiaomi TV Box. It is big and square.
It packed with quad cores CPU, 8 cores GPU, 3D HD and 4K output. Let’s check it out.
Before we go on…
As usual, I am going to show you the videos I take when playing the video playback and so on. Especially PPTV takes only 1 second or lesser than that to launch. OK. If you are on ISP Broadband network other than ViewQwest. You may not get this kind of performance. In order to get this kind or performance, I am using a 200Mbps ViewQwest FiberNet broadband network.
For SingTel, Starhub and M1, I will not sure if you can get similar performance or not. I am not sure about MyRepublic as I do not have one to test.
In order to enjoy Hulu, Netflix and PPTV and many more… you also need to subscribe to the Freedom VPN from ViewQwest. There is no setup needed to be done. If you do not have the network and the DNS/Freedom VPN, you will not be able to enjoy the show.
The Hardware
OK. To some people, this is not elegant. But what I want is a box that can do the job. I don’t care whether it is ugly. HaHa. This is a different school of thoughts.
This is the back. AV ports, HDMI ports, Optical sound, USB and a LAN port. Pretty standard stuff.
Oh ya. There is a ON OFF switch. Unlike Xiaomi or Apple TV, there is no ON OFF switch.
There is also an antenna. The Wifi is capable of doing 150Mbps throughput.
This is the remote control. OK. Not as elegant as Xiaomi TV box or Apple TV or even Amazon Fire. But it does comes with some neat features.
1. The numbering pad can be configure as “Shortcut Key”. Simply press “0” for PPTV. Press “9” for Karaokae 酷我K歌. You get what I mean. This is very USEFUL!
2. The playback video is getting the video from multiple source. if you press the upper left button which is the menu button, you bring up a menu to change the source. You can get it from LeTV, Youkoo, PPTV or others.
3. The bottom right corner is the MOUSE pointer. If press, you can point the remote control to the box and act as a mouse. Very USEFUL too sometimes.
4. There is also a feature to learn the infrared remote control of your TV too. But I never use that.
So, overall, yes, the remote control is not elegant, but I like the feeling holding it in my hand.
The Software – YunOS
This is the OS (also android I think) developed by Alibaba or AliYun. It is also call AliYun OS.
And it is a Linux distribution designed for smartphones and TV boxes based on the Android Open Source project. It is developed by AliCloud.
I love it. Why? It is Linux.
This is the boot up screen.
This is the main screen.
Speed Test
One thing I like about this YunOS is it comes with a Speed Test tool.
What is this speed test tool about? It tells you how fast is your Internet speed to download the streaming video. Whether or not you can play only SD, HD （高清） or Super HD (超清).
My home network can play Super HD. 🙂
This is how it works. (Video). To stream a HD movie needs only 1.2Mbps speed.
Video – Movie or TV Series Streaming
The navigation to the Movies, TV Series, Animation, Entertainment and Documentary is very smooth.
This is the movie page.
Let’s try to play a TV Series. Notice how long it takes to launch the show. Then, I will try to fast forward it. And see how fast it come back up. the quality is nice.
And it takes about 1 seconds to fetch the videos.
Live TV
Let’s try to see the Live TV shows. This is the TV shows currently showing on all the major channels in China. (No HBO, Fox, oversea channels). Only Chinese Channels.
It actually integrated with 4 native apps for Live TV streaming.
Most of the channels are Chinese channels.
Most of the time you have can change to multiple source if the speed is not that good. So far, I have not found any speed slow down at all.
Most of the channels are in working condition.
The Mighty Speedy PPTV
Needless to say anything. Just see it. See the speed. See the quality of the show. PPTV is still very good. Almost lesser than 1 second buffering. And run smoothly for an hour. I just watch “The Last Ship” episode 5 in HD streaming.
The rest of the things that is worth mentioning
Unlike most of the android box or jailbroken box. YunOS comes with a very slim and smooth interface. It does not allow you to setup a lot of things. In fact none. Which is good. So that you do not mess around it.
There are education segment too. For kids.
YunOS is from Alibaba. So, they own Taobao. Of course, Taobao must present in YunOS. Just like the Amazon Fire has lots of Amazon shops in the channels.
The Games segment.
The Application Page. These application are developed specially on the YunOS. So, there isn’t a lot of choice but it is enough. The most important thing is PPTV.
The Karaokae app.
Very nicely done App. Kuwo KTV app.
Summary
I like this box because it is simple. It is smooth.
And it is fast.
And it is Linux! RMB299 is about S$60. Buy!
Let’s look at another video. Playing the movie streaming. Very fast.
