Minix NEO X5

I have decided to substitute an old notebook used at home for internet only by something new. The old one was not able to play youtube video smooth enought already.

Requested properties were:

  1. Youtube
  2. Skype with camera
  3. internet browser with flash player
  4. use of an existing pc monitor, keyboard and mouse (USB)
  5. play .ts video from NAS in SD and HD quality
  6. S/PDIF output (optical prefered)
  7. low power consumption

The device with above mentioned properties and reasonable price can be Minix NEO X5 with Android system.

The Android 4.2.2 on this device can fulfill requets in all point but there are also another problems:

Problems

  1. Minix or more preciselly Android does not support 4:3 displays only 16:9 is supported. Fortunatelly minix is supplied with a Rockchip setting utility where the display can be vertically shrinked to be usable on 4:3 screen with black bars on top and bottom. The fonts does not loo very nice but video is OK.
  2. Minix neo X5 is NOT real HD device. The picture is rendered in resolution about 1200 x 720 and just scaled to real HD 1920 x 1080. The manufacture tries to trick us but probably other cheap boxes do the same. There is a non official firmware Finless ROM with Android 4.1.? where real HD can be activated. There is choice between HD ready and true HD kernel. Real HD works ok, only in some program are some minor artefacts (Archos Video Player in menu only – video is OK) But there is missing the utility for picture shrinking to 4:3 ratio. The utility is acccesible through setting in right corner of screen next to network information. There you can choose between android and rockchips settings.
  3. It is not easy to flash the device because the official drivers (supplied with firmware) do not work in Win 8 64 anymore. But if you use a newest drivers from Internet, I have used Rockchip Batch Tool v1.7, then it works.
  4. Android 4.2.2 for Minix has problem with USB keyboard. You need external utility for layout switch and more important the Enter keyboard is not working in all dialogs. It is probabaly some Android error. I have to take a look on it.
  5. The Skype work only with a small set of cameras, I have Logitech C170 and it works fully included the USB integrated microphone. Old Creative Labs cameras do not work.
  6. S/PDIF does not passthrought all formats. Perheps it is solveable but not important for me. I have only stereo output for now not AC3. AC3 goues out as stereo stream only.

 Another options

  1. Linux can be installed on the device concerning internet sources. I have tested ubuntu on minix as server. It works very good if server functions are requested. The ports.ubuntu.com repositiories are used. How to and files for down load are here. Thanks JPS. The tool for partition label change is e2label and flash recovery is possible with flash tool in Finless ROM.

 

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