Home Reviews ,,,,, In test T9, yet another Android TV Box that allows you to transform your living room TV into a real multimedia center. This time, however, it does not accept compromises and the 4 GB of RAM to support the system show excellent fluidity. The price is 10 euros above average, but the additional push in the hardware justifies the price list. Aesthetically, nothing is different from many other devices of the same kind, except having a small display on the front, which always leaves the time in plain sight, through blue LEDs. Like its (almost) H6 sibling, this is not a major feature, but a rather pleasant and useful one. In terms of connectivity, T9 offers a LAN port for wired connections, HDMI for connecting to monitors and TVs, AV output, SPDIF, two USB Full size and a slot for MicroSD. In terms of technical characteristics it is one of the best exponents in value for money: for about 49 euros (39 in the version with 32 GB of integrated memory) the box offers a CPU RK 3328, quad core, Cortex A53, 1.5GHz, Mali 450MP2 GPU, 4GB RAM, 64GB ROM and a 2.4GHz + 5.8GHz dual band WiFi module with H.265 decoding support. The operating system is Android 8.1, but it is completely graphically customized, with a UI optimized for the living room TV, which honestly seems to be a bit dated and not too much oriented towards modern graphics. Not bad, however, since it is effective and with all the icons in the right place, easily recalled by clicking on the remote control. Decodes videos in H.264 and H.265 formats and can read files in 4K, ASF, AVI, DAT, FLV, ISO, MKV, MOV, MPEG, MPG, TS, VOB and WMV format . It can also be used to browse images on the TV in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats or even to listen to music in Dolby Surround 5.1 by playing MP3, AAC, DDP, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WMA files. It supports up to 4K resolutions, even if this feature will not be fully exploitable by almost all living room TVs in our homes.
How it works
Beyond the technical data sheet, this T9 TV Box is very fluid and fast, and allows you to enjoy all the streaming app without any slowdown. We consider the streaming department as the most usable function inside these Android boxes: the 4 GB of RAM can all be heard, and the videos on YouTube, DAZN, Netflix or other streaming platforms work without the slightest slowdown. As happened for H6, this T9 also benefits from advanced display settings, thanks to which, for example, it is possible to force a certain color mode: while almost all TV Boxes have problems on some old Philips and Samsung TVs (with colors that invert after a few seconds) this set top box offers the “Force RGB” options, which allow you to enjoy the box even on older TVs, which may have difficulty displaying the colors correctly.
Software
It has already been mentioned that the T9 TV Box is based on Android 8.1. The main screen is different from that of any smartphone, with rather large icons on the first page, which give access to the main features of the box. It is also possible to add icons to the HomePage, with the most used apps. As anticipated, this is not a particularly modern UI, contrary to the Setup menus which instead look a lot like that of Android TV. There is the pre-installed Google Play Store, which is why it will be sufficient to access it to download the known apps in the Android landscape. We have successfully tested apps such as Rai Play, Mediaset Play, DAZN and Netflix. The latter is already pre-installed. Note that the set top box is recognized as a smartphone / tablet, which is why the apps will be better managed with a mouse and an external keyboard connected, or even with a remote control with AirMouse functions. In any case, a remote control is available in the bundle for managing the system UI and for navigating on some apps optimized for use on TV. For some apps, such as DAZN, we recommend installing the Android TV version, so that it is fully compatible with the remote control, without having to activate mouse mode.
Conclusions
T9 takes up the good we enjoyed in the H6 model, even if it does not benefit from a particularly modern UI. The 4GB of RAM make the difference and at this price it is among the best conceivable solutions. It costs 49 euros on GearBest and can be purchased from this address . To take full advantage of it, we strongly recommend the use of a remote control that acts as an airmouse, such as this TK668 . PRO
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