2024 TOX4 Android 13 64bit TV Box Is Finally Here
What’s happening everyone I hope you are having a great day, my name is Nick and today I have a very special Android TV box release. This is the TOX4 Android 13 TV Box. It’s their latest 2024 release running on the Rockchip RK3528 chipset. TOX boxes have the same features as the Ugoos models, so let’s see how it does on this chipset. My review begins right after this. So am back, and let’s take a look at what’s in the box. You have the new TOX4, you get one infrared remote and am a little disappointed that they did not include a wireless Bluetooth model.
You get one HDMI cable, a 5V 2A DC power supply, and a manual. So the design of the model has not changed. It has a black plastic ship with ventilation holes both at the top and below for maximum ventilation. For Connecting ports it has one HDMI port, one ethernet LAN, and its 5V two arms USB type C power delivery port.
To decide it has one USB 3.0, another 2.0, and a microSD card slot reader. At the front you have an LED display and a power light, and to its base has four antiskid rubber feet, a reset button, with lots of ventilation holes. So the bootup feature a simple TOX animation then you are presented with the option of two launchers. A TOX launcher which is designed to be navigated with its direction pad and is ideal for the included IR remote. And if you prefer to navigate with a wireless air mouse, PC mouse, or mini touchpad keyboard the quickstep launcher will be your likely option as it provides mobile phone like features such as long click the menu pop-ups, drag-and-drop shortcuts, custom wallpapers, split screen feature, etc. Even though both launchers are different you have
access to a navigation bar, a new app dock, and a full status bar with system controls. The navigation bar’s recent apps feature works perfectly and it also features split-screen. The app dock can hold a maximum of four shortcuts by simply dragging and dropping, and the entire navigation bar automatically hides when playing a video or app that requires full-screen.
You also have the option to change your wallpaper or you can also use a live wallpaper. For basic system information under its about section it shows here that its operating system is Android 13, and its firmware was compiled using the Android TV OS SDK. However, if you navigate to the Google Play Store you will see that it’s the mobile version, so this firmware is what I term a hybrid firmware. This is his current firmware build information
and you have access to developer options. Once I connected to my Internet I was prompted with my very first firmware update. In similar fashion to Ugoos models, TOX models receive regular firmware updates. Once completed and the system was rebooted I was prompted with yet again another update. What makes TOX boxes stand out from the rest is their unique firmware features. There are lots of people who believe Android boxes are only for watching movies, but what they do not know is that you can do so much more with the box once it has the right features. So I will just take a moment to
highlight these unique features before I move on to its live demonstrations, to show you why TOX in my opinion is one of the best in the industry only second to Ugoos. For display, you have 4K 60 Hz resolution. It also features HDR, however, the auto-adaptive HDR feature is enabled by default, and to disable HDR if your TV does not support it, there is an option under format selection that I will show you in just a moment. You have up to 12 bit color mode for those who have high-end TVs. There is a feature called frame buffer size I recommend you set it to 1080p. It will increase
the sharpness and detail of your display. However if you set it to 2160p it will be too high and even though the display will look even better, it will start to throttle resulting in poor mouse cursor and direction pad navigation. If you have a vertical display or monitor rotated to vertical portrait mode which is very popular these days for watching tik-tok, Instagram, reels, and YouTube shorts. You can change the boxes orientation to fixed vertical portrait mode, reverse portrait mode, and reverse landscape mode. You can also set the orientation policy from fixed orientation to free-form orientation to change automatically based on the requirement of the app.
Someone once asked what is the purpose of screen rotation well now you know. Just another one of the handy ways you can apply an Android box. You can change the size of the text on the launcher this can come in handy if your display is small or at a distance off from where It’s being viewed you can increase the size of the text making it easier to read. A feature easily overlooked but used by many is auto framerate switching when playing videos that have different frame rates this ensures that the videos please seamlessly without you having to manually adjust each time you play a different video type or format.
Under video format selection here you can enable or disable HDR or HLG depending on what features your TV have. Also, it shows Below here that the box does not support Dolby Vision or HDR10+. videos with these two missing formats may play, but the audio will not process. Under input and devices is where you will find your HDMI CEC options. It has Mouse pointer options which can control the right-click mouse function as the back function, and you can also enable left-click to function as a touchscreen function.
You have menu button options that apply special functions to the menu button on the IR remote as well as any connected wireless air mouse. It has a button mapper application to map buttons on the remote to special functions. You can change the mode of its USB ports which comes in extremely handy for networking with home servers and other devices to read and transfer files. Under channels and interface, you can enable or disable the navigation bar and status bar, and you can also change the style of the navigation bar from the new style with the app dock, to the classic style with the standard navigation bar. You have advanced Hardware monitor options. These are for hardware enthusiasts who would like to monitor everything about the box from CPU temperature, CPU speed, CPU usage, memory usage, CPU load, and many others parameters.
It allows you to feature these monitors in the status bar as well as on a draggable semitransparent window that appears as an overlay while gaming or watching video content. If you install any alternative launcher you can easily switch between them under home screen tab. Under animations, you can speed up the interface by changing the speed of the animation transition scales. Under power, you have options to control the LED power light, the LED screen, Screensaver option, and other power key definition options. Under storage, you can format external storage to shared internal storage, and it’s where you can find your Samba server and client/server features. There are many who frown on root access on their
Android devices. So it comes not rooted out-of-the-box. However, there are advanced users who would like to have root access to the core filesystems. For this, it comes with the option to enable the Magix application once installed and restarted you will gain root access. Under additional settings, it grants you access to the default system settings outside of the Android user interface. And for surround sound audio please note!
If you connect the box to a TV that does not support Surround sound audio when you open the advance audio section under supported formats it will show that all Surround sound audio decoders on supported. However if you connect it to a TV, a soundbar system, or and AV receiver, that supports Surround sound audio and restart the box and return to the advance sound settings you will now see that all Surround sound audio formats are supported so please take note of that. So that’s quite the list, and it’s the same unique features you get with Ugoos boxes because it’s actually manufactured in the same factory. So let’s look at its system and hardware information.
So here in AIDA64 it shows that the manufacturer Rockchip. It comes with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and 32GB of eMMc internal storage, with Bluetooth 5.0. Its CPU is the Rockchip RK3528 which is a quad core cortex A53 processor clocked at 2.0 GHz, and get this is configured in 64-bit mode, which
means that it supports 64-bit apps and games. I have openly criticized this CPU for poor performance and outdated GPU. But here I’m seeing that TOX is pushing the boundaries of this chipset with 64-bit architecture and high CPU clock speeds. So hold your breath and let’s see how it performs for the rest of is video but so far it’s looking pretty impressive. For display this is where I have an issue. Its powered by the Mali 450 with OpenGL ES 2.0. This
is an outdated GPU however seeing that TOX is working some magic with this chipset let’s see how it performs in the gaming segment. Its network adapter provides dual band Wi-Fi and it’s an 802.11 AC adapter, but currently connected to my Wi-Fi 6 AX router without issues. Its Android version is Android 13 Tiramisu, and it’s not rooted. Under devices is more concerning as it shows that it does not have Vulkan support.
Surprisingly its idle operating temperature is around 48°C and we will monitor during the gaming segment to see how high it increases. And I can already tell you that if you intend gaming on this box it will require an active cooling fan. And for video and audio decoders we start to see some caveats where it only has 4K HDR decoders listed. There is no AV1 decoder or Dolby Vision
decoder. There are also no surround sound audio decoders. However not to worry because I have some good news. Even though it does not have surround sound audio decoders listed, it does support all Surround sound audio formats at the software level as I show you later in the video. But it does not have the AV1 decoder. And that’s its system and hardware information. So now that I have gotten all the Hardware stuff out of the way let’s now look at its entertainment features. First off, it’s not Google-certified,
as it only has Google Widevine Level 3 with no HDCP protection. All this simply means is that it cannot stream subscription services such as Netflix, Disney plus, Prime Video, Max, and others in HD or 4K because it does not have the required security level from Google, and its HDMI signal is not encrypted to protect its outgoing video signal from piracy. As mentioned in the features segment, out-of-the-box its firmware is not rooted as shown here by the root checker app. If you need root access, go to the settings area Under the superuser section, and enable the Magisk option. Please take note of the warning. It will require you to restart. Once rebooted you need to open the app section and update the Magisk app to the latest version.
Once that is done you can check with root checker again and it will show that the box is now rooted. Playing YouTube videos at 4K 2160p at 60 Hz is not an issue for this box however due to its UI resolution scale it’s cropped into a 1080p frame as shown here under the stats for nerds information. In Ugoos boxes there is an option to release the frame to its full 4K resolution which results in the UI displaying very tiny icons and texts. That feature is not available on this firmware. For mobile screen mirroring unfortunately this box does not come with the official version of Miracast. As an alternative it comes with the Airscreen app and this app is also available on the Google Play Store. With the Airscreen app you can mirror your mobile phone using a basic screen casting application or you can use the Google home app. The quality is not in HD but it is usable.
For customizing your launcher besides the two launchers included with the firmware you can install any alternative launcher and they are compatible with this firmware. You can also use live wallpapers. So Now for some 4K video playback. In this test were looking for HDR10 and HLG. I don’t expect it to play AV1 or Dolby Vision as there are no decoders. So this video is encoded with HDR10 plays without issues. The AV1 video if you try to play it nothing happens. This is a Dolby Vision video but it plays as HLG.
This is an HDR10 plus video and it plays with no audio. Official Dolby Vision videos with Dolby Atmos nothing happens. And here is an official HLG encoded video and triggers the feature and plays smoothly without issues.
Next you have its Surround sound audio capabilities. Remember, the Surround sound audio feature only activates when it’s connected to a TV that supports Dolby Atmos and DTS audio, a soundbar, or AV receiver. Also, it’s recommended that you use the VLC player with audio pass-through enabled in the settings area. If you use the MX player, you will not get the various Surround formats. So this is a Dolby Atmos. Dolby Digital Plus. It produces DTS HD Master audio.
You get a Dolby Surround. It can play Dolby TrueHD. And DTS X. So even though there are no surround sound audio decoders listed it can indeed play all Surround sound audio formats. For 3D gaming its bittersweet because yes the box is configured in 64-bit mode and its CPU is clocked at 2.0 GHz but it does not have Vulkan support and the Mali 450 only supports up to Open GL ES version 2.0 which restricts it from a lot of modern high graphics games on the Play Store, where a lot of apps are citing that it’s not compatible with the box.
Even games that do manage to install you have to run them on the lowest graphics settings to avoid throttling. During gaming its temperature maintains around 68°C without a cooling fan which is pretty good but gaming is where this box is at its weakest. Now for some benchmarks and where it ranks on my chart. First the speeds of its RAM and internal storage.
Surprisingly it has a RAM copy speed of 4932 MB/s. Its internal storage has a read speed of 179 MB/s and a write speed of 86 MB/s. The average RAM copy speed for boxes is around 3600. Next in testing the speed of its dual Wi-Fi bands and its ethernet LAN port on my 315 Mbps Internet speed. Its 5 GHz band and its LAN port achieved the maximum speed of my network, it also indicates that it’s LAN port is a gigabit LAN port. Its 2.4 GHz band on the
other hand achieved around 112 Mbps which in my opinion is still very good for the 2.4 GHz band. When benchmarking its CPU’s single-core and multicore performance the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark registered a score of 149 single-core and 451 multicore. When I attempted to run the 3DMark graphics benchmark it didn’t qualify for any of the benchmark tests as all these tests require Open GL version 3.0 and the box only has 2.0 support. And in the Antutu benchmark version 8 because that’s the only version I can get it to complete, it scored 72,728. That’s the last of the benchmarks let’s now see where it places on my chart. So the scores are in, and the TOX4 at the time of making this video ranks at position 98 based on its Antutu benchmark score and I give it a 3 out of 5-star rating which was determined by the lack of Vulkan support, and the Mali 450 GPU.
To view and to compare boxes on this chart I placed a link in the description below is video. In summary. I am impressed with the way the managed to implement all these premium unique features on this chipset and it’s the best I have seen squeezing every ounce of power it can provide. But in doing so they could not escape the fact that its GPU is weak and outdated, and it showed during the 3D gaming demonstration and in its benchmarks. However, if you are not interested in
gaming then for $60 this is an excellent Android TV box to purchase. You get 4K HDR display, the box is not slow at all, you get all the unique firmware features seen in Ugoos models, you got root access, Android mobile launcher features, it’s configured in 64-bit mode, and much more. To top it off they should have included a Bluetooth air mouse remote. So there you have it this was my review of the latest TOX4 Android TV box. If you are
interested you can get on Amazon and on AliExpress depending on which region you live. See the links in the description to check it out. If you want the model featured in this video at a reduced price contact me directly at tvboxstop@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to hook you up. Thanks for watching, as usual give this video the thumbs up support to this channel if you would like to receive notifications about open box deals, new product video releases, or surprise giveaways, then click the subscribe button and ring the notifications bell to ensure that you are notified as soon as they are released. I appreciate you taking the time to which is video, stay connected and I’ll see you in the next one
2024-07-30 12:31
