Okay, so I picked up an 8 Gig MK802III from Amazon.com. Got a good deal on it. Could have gotten it cheaper if I had wanted to wait for a slow boat from China.
It is a pretty solid unit with the exception of the wifi speed issues. I am pretty sure it is hardware related. Some people have no problems and some do have speed issues. More on that later.
It is a versatile unit. Out of the box it is stable with 720P. The latest factory firmware is JB and it is rooted. That came on my unit. It is dated 11/29/2012 so I am sure there is a lot of stock out there floating around with the older firmware on it. The latest update also includes a remote control server and it also has the .apk for the client software to install on your phone or tablet.
Within a day of me getting it though, I found my tinkering taking over. I found a site that had some custom ROMs. www.freaktab.com
The ROMs that work on this unit are actually written for a UG802. Same unit different seller. They are identical units. The ROM is made by Finless and 2dark4u. They are very responsive in supporting their work.
When flashing the ROM you have several options with which to choose when it comes to a kernel. You can choose between 720P or 1080P, and processor speeds of 1272Hz or 1608Hz with the GPU at 466. Then there is the option of 1080P 1608Hz and GPU at 500. That is a total of 5 custom kernels. Although the MK802III is an Arm 9 capable of peaks of 1608Hz, IF YOU RUN A ROM AT 1608Hz KERNEL YOU MUST RUN A HEAT SINK OR YOU WILL BURN IT UP.
I chose 1080P at 1272Hz because I didn't want to mess with a heat sink at this time.
Back to WIFI. I may end up getting an RMA if an easy fix is not found soon and try another MK802. I like it that much. The mfg is working on a fix supposedly for the units that are having trouble. Again it is not everyone having a problem. I can connect fine. DL is extremely slow at around 500k and upload at 2Mbps. Not sure why upload will reach the limit set by my ISP while the download sucks. I have ruled out under-powered power supply, encryption bottlenecks (I tried my AP wide open), and case interference. As a temporary measure I picked up a USB LAN adapter at Best Buy for $19. It is marketed as and adapter for a Wii but it works fine. But i really need the wifi so i can make this unit portable.
With the wired LAN I am getting DL of anywhere from 25Mbps to 29Mbps down and 2Mbps up. That is what my cable connection is capable of. So no complaints there.
It streams fine over my LAN from NAS. Youtube and Netflix stream great as well. I don't have HBO Go so I haven't tested that. It has taken everything I have thrown at it so far video wise. And in full blown 1080P!!!
With the 1080P interface it was kind of unreadable on my 50" TV when sitting on the couch. So I set the font size to HUGE in settings and also adjusted the DPI to 240 using ROM Toolbox for making the icons larger. It is not recommended setting it higher than 240. It can cause some problems with the Play store and other apps. ROM Toolbox worked great for this. Prior to trying that, LCD Density monitor from the Play Store locked it up on reboot. This Forced me to flash recovery. When it comes to recovery, everything I am seeing is saying it is almost impossible to brick. To force a full flash it is a matter of shorting two pins on a chip for a few seconds and loading up recovery software and image on your laptop. CWM and TWRP have not been set up reliably yet that I have seen.
As mentioned earlier, it comes with remote software. I initially had problems with it on my RAZR but it worked great on my Kindle Fire. I have now found out that the initial problems on my phone were tied to the JB rotation problem that many are having on custom ROMs. It works fine on stock JB. The problem I was having was the app would close if the screen rotated. This would happen when setting it down or moving your arm the wrong way. Like I said it works great now on stock JB.
When I first set it up I had a wireless mouse hooked up to the USB. That worked flawlessly. I have had to remove it since it only has one USB port and I now have LAN connected to it. But I have one of these on the way which should solve that problem.
That's about it for now but I am sure I am missing a lot. I know I focused a lot on things that weren't perfect but that is how I tend to be. I love this unit and it plays video and browses the web great. And on a 50" screen!!! The apps and few games that I have tried do great.
The unit cannot be expected to be perfect as these TV sticks are very new and emerging. Expect to be somewhat of a beta tester.
EDIT: Stock out of the box AnTuTu was 8080. On the 1080P 1272Hz Rom it rose to 8878. I've seen even higher with the 720P ROM. Can't find the post but i am trying to say it was near 10,000
It is a pretty solid unit with the exception of the wifi speed issues. I am pretty sure it is hardware related. Some people have no problems and some do have speed issues. More on that later.
It is a versatile unit. Out of the box it is stable with 720P. The latest factory firmware is JB and it is rooted. That came on my unit. It is dated 11/29/2012 so I am sure there is a lot of stock out there floating around with the older firmware on it. The latest update also includes a remote control server and it also has the .apk for the client software to install on your phone or tablet.
Within a day of me getting it though, I found my tinkering taking over. I found a site that had some custom ROMs. www.freaktab.com
The ROMs that work on this unit are actually written for a UG802. Same unit different seller. They are identical units. The ROM is made by Finless and 2dark4u. They are very responsive in supporting their work.
When flashing the ROM you have several options with which to choose when it comes to a kernel. You can choose between 720P or 1080P, and processor speeds of 1272Hz or 1608Hz with the GPU at 466. Then there is the option of 1080P 1608Hz and GPU at 500. That is a total of 5 custom kernels. Although the MK802III is an Arm 9 capable of peaks of 1608Hz, IF YOU RUN A ROM AT 1608Hz KERNEL YOU MUST RUN A HEAT SINK OR YOU WILL BURN IT UP.
I chose 1080P at 1272Hz because I didn't want to mess with a heat sink at this time.
Back to WIFI. I may end up getting an RMA if an easy fix is not found soon and try another MK802. I like it that much. The mfg is working on a fix supposedly for the units that are having trouble. Again it is not everyone having a problem. I can connect fine. DL is extremely slow at around 500k and upload at 2Mbps. Not sure why upload will reach the limit set by my ISP while the download sucks. I have ruled out under-powered power supply, encryption bottlenecks (I tried my AP wide open), and case interference. As a temporary measure I picked up a USB LAN adapter at Best Buy for $19. It is marketed as and adapter for a Wii but it works fine. But i really need the wifi so i can make this unit portable.
With the wired LAN I am getting DL of anywhere from 25Mbps to 29Mbps down and 2Mbps up. That is what my cable connection is capable of. So no complaints there.
It streams fine over my LAN from NAS. Youtube and Netflix stream great as well. I don't have HBO Go so I haven't tested that. It has taken everything I have thrown at it so far video wise. And in full blown 1080P!!!
With the 1080P interface it was kind of unreadable on my 50" TV when sitting on the couch. So I set the font size to HUGE in settings and also adjusted the DPI to 240 using ROM Toolbox for making the icons larger. It is not recommended setting it higher than 240. It can cause some problems with the Play store and other apps. ROM Toolbox worked great for this. Prior to trying that, LCD Density monitor from the Play Store locked it up on reboot. This Forced me to flash recovery. When it comes to recovery, everything I am seeing is saying it is almost impossible to brick. To force a full flash it is a matter of shorting two pins on a chip for a few seconds and loading up recovery software and image on your laptop. CWM and TWRP have not been set up reliably yet that I have seen.
As mentioned earlier, it comes with remote software. I initially had problems with it on my RAZR but it worked great on my Kindle Fire. I have now found out that the initial problems on my phone were tied to the JB rotation problem that many are having on custom ROMs. It works fine on stock JB. The problem I was having was the app would close if the screen rotated. This would happen when setting it down or moving your arm the wrong way. Like I said it works great now on stock JB.
When I first set it up I had a wireless mouse hooked up to the USB. That worked flawlessly. I have had to remove it since it only has one USB port and I now have LAN connected to it. But I have one of these on the way which should solve that problem.
That's about it for now but I am sure I am missing a lot. I know I focused a lot on things that weren't perfect but that is how I tend to be. I love this unit and it plays video and browses the web great. And on a 50" screen!!! The apps and few games that I have tried do great.
The unit cannot be expected to be perfect as these TV sticks are very new and emerging. Expect to be somewhat of a beta tester.
EDIT: Stock out of the box AnTuTu was 8080. On the 1080P 1272Hz Rom it rose to 8878. I've seen even higher with the 720P ROM. Can't find the post but i am trying to say it was near 10,000
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