TV box Mecool KM3 4 / 64 GB Smart TV Box
After a full review of the TV set-top box Beelink GT-King, potential buyers have bombarded us with questions. Most of them concerned the overpriced cost of a miracle player. There were also wishes - to make an overview of budget devices. Still, not everyone is ready to give 100 $ for a media player. In general, we ordered an 2 device for the test. Arrived from China: Mecool KM3 4 / 64 GB Smart TV Box (73 $) and X96 mini TV Box 2 / 16GB (27 $) TV box.
In short, the X96 mini is a regular TV box for watching movies that cannot be read on TV (no codecs). 4K James Bond 007: Casino Royale (47 GB) has turned into a slide show. Although, on the rest of the consoles, it is normally reproduced. They did not even make a review - it makes no sense. Plus, the X96 mini is very hot, even on HD IPTV.
TV box Mecool KM3 4 / 64 GB Smart TV Box
Oh nice. The second device (relative to the budget class) introduced into a stupor all the participants in the test. The prefix does not heat up at all. Even under load Geekbench 4 and HD IPTV. But first things first.
| System | Android 9.0 |
| Processor | Amlogic S905X2 - 8 Cortex A53 Cores |
| RAM | 4 GB DDR4 |
| Flash memory | 64 GB (expandable by TF card 32 GB to 96 GB) |
| Video adapter | Mali-G31 |
| Video files | AVI, DAT, ISO, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPEG, MPG, RM, WMV |
| Audio files | AAC, FLAC, MP3, OGG, RM, WMA |
| Codecs | H.263, H.264, H.265, HD MPEG4 |
| Photo | BMP, GIF, JPEG HD, PNG, TIFF |
| 5.1 support | Yes hardware |
| Wireless Interfaces | Bluetooth 4.1, WIFI: 2.4G + 5.8G |
| Voice control | Yes |
| LAN | up to 100 Mbps |
| Interfaces | AV, DC power port, HDTV output, LAN, TF card, USB2.0, USB3.0 |
| HDMI Technology | 2.0 Version, Function: CEC, HDCP |
| Useful Features | 3D games, 3D videos, ISO files, Miracast, NTSC, PAL |
The console is officially certified by Google. To improve cooling, the sole is made of aluminum, there are legs and slots for heat dissipation.
Mecool KM3: Overview
Normal packaging for products from China. Cardboard box, minimal equipment, all accessories for connecting to a TV. Device, power supply with cable, HDMI noname cable and a simple remote. The TV box is clearly not a premium class - a case made of glossy plastic with an aluminum bottom. The Chinese did not even center the connectors. The cable is included - already good.
On the same side there is a 2 USB port (USB 2.0 and 3.0) and a TF card slot. On the other hand - the power connector, HDMI port, LAN and AV. By the way, AV is a port for 3.5 jack for outputting analog sound to multimedia devices.
The performance of the console using synthetic tests, photo:
In conclusion
TV set-top box Mecool KM3 4 / 64 GB Smart TV Box is a good technique for your money, if you do not quibble with functionality. There are, of course, flaws. Network adapter LAN 100 Mbs is a weak link in TV boxing when watching movies in 4K of large volumes (over 90 GB). It is useless to argue with the “experts” who shout that even from a torrent they’ll crawl such files on 100 megabits. There is such a thing as a general bitrate of a stream. For example, the movie "Forrest Gump" with a volume of 92 GB has a stream of 92,5 Mbps. And the efficiency of a normal 100Mbs network adapter is about 90% (TP-Link). What kind of chip the Chinese have - is unknown. Without a gigabit port on a media player, such a movie will turn into a slide show.
Plus, there is no optical output for sound that is interesting to owners of modern home theaters. You can, of course, get HDMI to the AV processor and separate the digital sound from the picture. But this is a crooked decision. If the user plans to listen to everything through the TV speakers, then do not get upset. We bought the prefix Mecool KM3 4 / 64 GB here.