There are tons of TV boxes available in the market, but the Zidoo X9S stands a head higher than the rest of products. This TV box has been called in different ways – the best smart TV box for today, a great combination of price and features, the Western-targeted smart TV box, a smart TV box for those who don’t watch TV, or the first Mini PC based on Realtek RTD1295. And do you know what’s interesting? All these statements are true. So it turns out we are dealing with the most attractive TV box. There are too many specs we have to look at closer, so let’s start!
Zidoo X9S Unboxing
The box of the X9S looks quite identical to the original X9. The package of the Zidoo X9S comes in light green color. The TV box is on the front along with the model name. The bottom side showcases the selling points of this TV box, while the complete list of features is placed on the back.
The package of the X9S includes a user manual made to show how to use the TV box and how to connect it to the TV. There are also a SATA cable to connect the hard drive to the box, an HDMI cable, a power adapter, a remote control that can be used along with the mouse and keyboard for better experience, and as you guess the Zidoo X9S TV box itself.
Zidoo X9S Design
The Zido X9S design is very stylish, though it’s difficult to say there are any special lineaments. However, when holding this TV box in hands we can feel its metallic housing, and I have to say such an appearance is seen only on high-end products. Actually, the Zidoo X9S is a top products, and the manufacturer just has had to come in with something corresponding. The body of the TV box is made of an aircraft-grade aluminum, thus it doesn’t attract greasy fingerprints. It comes in Dark Grey Smoke color. (I don’t know what it is, but sounds perfectly.)
The front panel carries a VFD display and a window for the IR receiver. The back side comes with two WiFi antenna connectors, a Gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI port, AV jack, optical S/PDIF, a firmware recovery pinhole, micro SD slot, power jack, a power on/off button. The top of the device includes only a few printed features, while the bottom side carries four rubber feet, four mounting screws, sticker with the serial number, sticker with the model and the requirements for the power adapter, as well as a large number of air vents that are very necessary in this box since it uses a passive cooling. There is nothing on the left but the air vents. At last, the right side comes with a SATA 3.0 interface, two USB 2.0 ports and USB 3.0 port.
The box can be disassembled via loosening those four screws on the bottom. And if you want to disconnect the board (GPT X9S_1295_V1.0) you have to loosen three more screws. Not surprisingly, there is no direct contact between the board and metal cover. There is a shield covering the processor, memory and storage chips as well as a graphite nano thermo material that helps with cooling.
It comes at dimensions of 187 x 127 x 27 mm and weighs 479 grams (when the antennas are installed). Thus this model is a bit larger than other TV boxes available in the market.
Zidoo X9S Hardware
The X9S is the first TV box to come packed with a Realtek RTD1295 64-bit processor. It’s a quad-core processor based at Cortex A53 architecture and paired with an octa-core Mali-T820 MP3 GPU. Beside this the Zidoo X9S sports a 2GB of DDR3 RAM and 16GB of eMMC internal memory. This means this Android-based TV box comes with a powerful hardware features, but I guess many users would like to see 32GB internal memory. On the other hand, there is a SATA interface, which means you can connect your SATA hard drive or SSD flash to it and use the box as you like. Moreover, there is a TFlash slot to expand the memory up to 64GB.
The image output is implemented via HDMI 2.0A, but there is also an HDMI 2.0 port for video recording (PiP-Picture in Pciture) and streaming. The Gigabit Ethernet port is capable of reproducing surround sound 7.1. It also suppors Dolby Digital and DTS-HD as well as Dolby Atoms and DTS:X. The WiFi works in two bands, 2.4GHz and 5GHz as well as Bluetooth 4.0. Thus the connectivity at the highest level.
Thanks to this specs list the Zidoo X9S is capable of reproducing almost all the main video codecs of [email protected] in 10-bit color (H.264, H.265 and vp9). Plus, thanks to Android 6.0 + the much popular firmware, OpenWRT it can be used as a router or a network-attached storage (NAS). Those who knows what it is can use this feature and create their own a fancy home entertainment center.
Remote control
There is a remote control coming out of the box that allows users to program everything in this TV box. Follow the steps to get it done.
- Hold down the Power button within 8-10 seconds until the indicator light will turn red;
- Click on the remote control that you want to save;
- Place the second remote control in front at a distance of 1-3 cm;
- Press the button on the common remote control.
- If necessary, do the same for the other buttons repeating the process from step 2 to 4.
Zidoo Remote control
This app allows us to use any Android mobile phone as a remote control.
App primary menu
The common control analogue
The air mouse functions
Zidoo X9S Software
As we have started talking about the custom apps coming with this TV box, we can switch to its software features. The Zidoo X9S comes with Android 6.0 pre-installed. But as we have said above, this TV box runs on OpenWRT, which is based on Linux. Thus we can say the X9S comes with two operating systems at the same time.
Once the box starts an installation wizard runs to carry out the most necessary settings. But if users want to get out more, there is a miniFAQ to get acquainted with the basic settings. Plus, you can open Android settings and make all the customization operations there, as we are more familiar with it rather than with this custom UI.
As for the UI, we are dealing with ZIUI. It sports icons for the primary elements, so you can move between them via your remote control easily. Though ZIUI is not anything special, it is very easy to use and it give you the option to change the layout of the shortcuts with a simple HOLD of a button.
Playing media files
Obviously, this the most important feature for any TV box. We can even say, this is the main feature why people buy TV boxes. In this sense the Zidoo X9S is capable of playing any file from any internal and removable storages. Actually, there are no media files that can’t be played on this box. To play any video or audio file or to listen to music on radio you can use the built-in media center called ZDM?, which is their own fork of KODI that is optimized specifically for Zidoo devices and uses OMX HW decoding for a better compatibility. KODI is known for the ability to extend the functionality via plugins. The latter can change the interface of the media center, add localization, codecs, new sources of content and much more. If you don’t like ZDMC, you can remove it and install another program designed to deliver online content (TVzavr, Megogo, IV, etc.).
On the other hand, KODI offers great opportunities to TV box owners. For example, you can use this media center to set-up an IP-TV. Follow the steps to get it done.
- Run ZDMC;
- Go to the System tab – Settings – Supplements – My Supplement – PVR Clients;
- Find the PVR IPTV Simple Client and turn it on;
- Go to the settings of the client and add an address to the playlist;
- Then go to general settings, go to the TV tab, tap on “On”.
- Reboot ZDMC.
The Zidoo X9S is great when displaying 3D content. It has a full support for 3D MVC MKV files and an on-screen option to switch top and bottom and side by side encodes to 3D output also.
Gaming
As Android games have got good graphics, we can try them out on big TVs. Thanks to the quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, ARM Mali-T820 MP3 GPU and 2GB of DDR3 RAM the Zidoo X9S is capable of coping with all the latest games. But as you have to play with the remote control, not all the games can be played in the same way. So it’s highly recommended to use on of the USB ports for connecting a full-fledged gaming joystick.
Special Features
- AirPlay,
- AirMirror,
- DLNA (UPnP),
- MicroCast,
- Zidoo RS
- Google Remote,
- Samba server,
- iTunes (DAAP) server,
- FTP server,
- AFP function (for Apple TimeMachine),
- BitTorrent download function.
Pros
- Aluminum Body
- Strict Design
- High-performance hardware
- Connectivity
- 4K video support
- OpenWRT usage
- Regular OTA updates
- HDMI-CEC support that allows to transfer data between different products
- Remote control with programming buttons
Cons
- Small internal memory
- We’d prefer to get it for a lower price tag
The Final Words
We know not that many people watch TV nowadays. Many programs have a short life and many channels are not able to provide a high-quality content. On the other hand, there are a huge amount of interesting content available in the net. Of course, the best solution is to get a good TV box that should help you organize your own television. The Zidoo X9S is considered to be one of the best TV box running on Android and packed with the latest Realtek RTD1295 processor. So it is capable of playing any file at any format. Plus, it costs not that much – the Zidoo X9S can be acquired for under-$150.
