Blackberry Curve 9320

Link past few months on the market, with varying fortunes, housings Android dedicated to home theater, derivatives brands of hard drives and media gateways. Blackberry Electronics, French distributor installed Lesquin multimedia products, and especially satellite terminals and TNT.

As functional as they can be, they are rarely satisfactory when it comes out of their use of Sony VGP-BPS8 to become more general. The fault often SoC still relatively immature, and few controlled integration of Android.

The case of interest to us in this test is labeled Android TV, recalling fond memories of our arrival connected televisions, more or less rich in services, deal with boxes internet, legion in French ISP. Again, bids are disparate, and few solutions on the market can access the Android store Play the same way as smartphones equipped with Google's OS.

Let's outset, Google Play is the nerve center offering SEDEA. Built around ARM A9 SoC an Amlogic 8726M running at 800 MHz and backed by 512 MB of RAM, it has on board an Android 2.3 Gingerbread (a firmware upgrade section is provided in the event of an update of the housing, and the OS) with a launcher house, the Inspiron 1545 Battery offers a remarkably compact, able to blend in any room and any diffuser behind the house. If indeed it is equipped with an HDMI input free.

Although offering a range of connectivity options, the bundle has however no video cable. The output format is far from standard, except that HDMI 1.3, and strike the blow using the latest TVs, unless you work the soldering iron groping configure each analog output (YUV and composite). This is disappointing, because even a short cable would be enough to ensure universal connectivity for a housing capacity of broadcasters UPGRADING "unconnected" and goes back to the well a few Cyber-shot RX1, plasma, LCD or with a few years and little or no HDMI port. Better be warned: do not forget to buy your HDMI cable!

In terms of ports, there are two USB 2.0 ports, an SDHC-compatible reader micoSD. Network side, a traditional Fast Ethernet port, and support wifi b / g / n built without external antenna.

Installation and peripherals

A NAND 4GB is built, but do not rely on its presence for your host applications. However, the presence of a microSD slot allows comfortable SDHC memory expansion up to 32GB. The only real catch lies in the choice of formatting imposed by the use of cross-platform Android. This is indeed FAT32 it will manage the card, if unable to transfer applications on it once the internal space occupied. This concern affects the Dell E4300 Battery exceeding 4GB barrier fateful imposed by FAT32.

The mini Bluetooth keyboard

Provided in the bundle with its QWERTY Bluetooth dongle, this mini-keyboard integrated trackpad is a real surprise and a real plus for the purpose for offering 9320.

Powered by a battery integrated into the load very well, and accompanied by a doubling of the cable USB port that avoids condemning a precious sesame mass storage, its use is confusing past the first few minutes due to its size. Really fun. The latter is also backlit and includes most of the shortcuts for Android, but also for the Microsoft universe. It is a versatile device and accommodating very much a HID driver families.

The small size of the Dell XPS M1330 is confusing at first, and the placement of buttons to simulate the right and left clicks, to say the least confusing. Nevertheless, it is used for almost ever, and the game shortcut keys by doing the job very well. Its scope could never be otherwise, even at distances of the order of 8m. Very good.

Charging its battery is by connecting the USB cable, and can remain an autonomous avoiding shortage of batteries at home. In practice, and without charge to the systematic, it never fell flat in his hands. An on / off switch on the edge can, indeed, reduce the risk of spurious wakeup.

Storage media

The supply of housing providing only 1.5A, it is highly recommended for self-powered external hard drives on USB to be accompanied by a powered hub to ensure their stable operation and serene.

Similarly, once the dongle mini keyboard connected, it remains only one free USB port. That's enough for a key if the rest is available on the network Studio XPS 1340 batteries, but too little when external hard drive requires two ports to be powered.

Regarding the partition format recognized the box SEDEA adapts read / write FAT32, NTFS read, but definitely not HFS and HFS + formats specific to MacOS X. You have been warned.

Network

Question connectivity, WiFi has a good grip, and its installation with the physical keyboard is much easier to hit the keys to extension with a virtual keyboard. Ethernet part works flawlessly, and as long as you have a box in Cyber-shot is no particular concern.

You have a NAS and sharing SAMBA, Blackberry Curve 9320 or simply sharing networks? Android does not come with native support for these protocols in its mobile versions, but their support is present here through an office network explorer section placed in the applications. It allows you to mount the Dell E4310 Battery points and get your content directly.

Performance

As PC, synthetic benchmarks are legion Android, and are supposed to give a view of the intrinsic performance of each platform. That said, Android devices know scores impressive display without ensuring the functionality expected of them, especially for HD video decoding.

With a very modest score in AnTuTu 1880, we find that the part CPU / GPU is not a brute. One of the reasons is the lack of support for embedded A9 NEON instructions. In the universe can not be more modular designs ARM NEON is if we want to simplify the equivalent of MMX / SSE in x86.

The GPU (MALIlicense ARM-400 MP1, simple heart to 400Mhz) is pretty basic, but can actually be quite enough for a lot of classic games from the mobile world, as Angy Birds orTempleRunfor example. It has the advantage of being very compatible with many games on the market, even if it will not offer the performance and refinement in rendering a HP Envy 17T or Tegra last generation.

Navigation

Good to the credit of the French company SEDEA: the presence of a comprehensive manual in correct French, allowing all new users to Android acoutumés not easily discover their new environment. The instructions are complete and allow for shortcuts necessary to discover the use of the Google OS from the keyboard. A useful course not to feel frustrated quickly.

In OS

The terminal shows good overall responsive. The cold start time back about 2 minutes from power.

Using the launcher back to an overlay shortcuts to the main applications. This is not configurable and always point to native for the Android image gallery, video player, music and browser. It is simple, even simplistic, but it provides grip and use immediately without waiting for the main features.

It is not possible to integrate personal shortcuts on the screen, no more than set the default programs called for each feature. Damage, but not very serious. Direct access to applications just click to retrieve all the alternatives.

Very valuable thing for Android, a file explorer and network are now automatically and easily manage files and storage media without having to run on Google Play to get it.

On the Web

The box is provided with the default browser and flash Gingerbread preinstalled. A welcome screen provides quick access to G42 Battery, thanks to a good sized screen for navigation on a TV screen. Supplied with Flash preinstalled on the test version, the vast majority of sites are available, in proportions similar performance to a tablet or smartphone midrange.

Combination with the mini keyboard is better than solutions ISP box, and although very short, the trackpad lets achieve properly the elements that we want to point a few minutes to accommodate them. Input is safely with the same amount of grip in hand.

The combo provides comfort navigation appreciable consultation content, but is clearly not suitable typing and navigation intense, but still light years away from laborious input on a virtual keyboard with a pointing device.

If it is functional, the browser can be advantageously replaced by Opera or Firefox, facilitating synchronization with your bookmarks, passwords, and bookmarks, and renewed features. Unfortunately, Chrome is reduced to Android 4.x and not find the way SEDEA the current state of the ROM. Damage, but not very serious.

Messaging

For managing mails, two basic solutions are available. On the one hand the Gmail application dedicated to the service of Google, email and application of classical multi-accounts and go to retrieve IMAP or SMTP / POP their mail. Classic and complete, these applications fit very well in the Pavilion G6 Battery environment. However, the notification system is set up to avoid being too often notified of incoming messages while you are doing something else completely full screen. This is a deformation of hyper-connectivity of an OS designed for mobility first goal, which can be the beginning a little annoying.

On the other hand, no problem to integrate instant messaging services, regardless of the protocol (GTalk, MSN, AIM, Yahoo), a plethora of multi or mono-protocol are available.

Multimedia

Pics

By default, the gallery is Android based job very well, with a generation of miniature relatively quick and easy viewing of pictures available. As usual, the flow is there when all is well indexed, so expect a few moments of patience before scrutinizing photographs of vacant Uncle Gilbert from its newly inserted key. This section is functional out of the box without any problems.

Music

The music part of Android is spartan, limited formats, but still effective enough to browse directories of MP3 and Ogg Vorbis pre-classified smoothly. Do not expect a Jukebox sleek and crammed with features for your pilot environment autonomously, but the bare minimum to listen to your content. If you have albums in FLAC, MPC or other lossless formats more or less exotic, a ride on the Google Play is essential for a Winamp PowerAMP or Andless.

Deezer is preinstalled, and if Spotify is more your cup of tea, there is something in store for a few minutes to download. Similarly, online radio from around the world are accessible via an application (TuneIn for example), or their own application.

If your thing is to organize your content, again, the choice of an additional drive is required.

Home Cinema

The files used for testing in the field of Home Cinema and are composed of from the Blu-Ray of Hugo Cabre. Beyond considerations of artistic film, it offers complex scenes pushing the bitrate of the compressed cake and AVC DTS-MA topisaVO sound slightly below 30Mb / s. Suffice to say that the Latitude E6120 does not modern district for broadcasters to pretend to make optimal content in high definition, and proposes an image and a mixer "kitabass" of the highest order.

All test files were produced from this source, the accident sequence locomotive between 1:23 ET 1:27, with formats:

Better not go around the bush: the reader is able accessible by default, but insufficient on some items. The range of supported formats is wide, but the rendering options absent apart from a few basic adjustments of the image properties (size, brightness ...).

Apart from the sample 4K resolution, all other extracts are passed smoothly, with embedded subtitles (MKV containers for) and externally.

Support features such as subtitles works, but with a range of font sizes unusable in 720p or 1080p.

Fortunately, there are solid alternatives. Current and future ... let's see what this little box allows us to explore!

{Menu alternatives for video}

Alternatives for video

MX Player

Well established in the landscape of Android software for video playback and versatile alternative, it works with honors in its version for ARMv7 NEON no. All supported formats work with hardware acceleration enabled, and this time, the available settings for subtitles allow a complete experience for lovers of the VOST.

There is a small problem tarnishes slightly (temporarily?) Table. A constant artifact is present on the right of the videos played with MX Player. This is slightly confusing, but it will certainly set term. However, do not expect anything from disabling acceleration, it will not broadcast HD video, even in 720p.

VLC

Still in beta, VideoLan Client is the transposition of the famous versatile player for Linux, Windows and OSX to the Google mobile OS. This is not a port so to speak, but a real thought full version for mobile and tablets. With its integration of FFmpeg, it has a very good compatibility of formats, but reveals itself in its current version on Android, demanding the instructions Dell Latitude E6410 present in the ARM SoC. This requires in fact that part of the ARMv7 NEON is present to a minimum. This de facto excluded devices and tablets equipped with nVidia Tegra 2 if it is any consolation.

Regarding our case SEDEA, VLC moves smoothly from the store and automatically extends the supported formats. But he supports hardware acceleration for the same? Well no, VLC in its current state (Beta 2) can not take advantage of hardware acceleration of the box, and better train at worst plant. The future will see more clearly, the development is still in progress, but it is hoped that alternative opens. Especially since VLC is a known point of entry for certain multi-ISP. His case is therefore to monitor.

XBMC

Even on the scale of development in its infancy, however XBMC is the sesame Home Cinema room, both ergonomic (especially his girlfriend) that in full formats supported, and his diabolical Content Management library via its scrappers. Present in somebattery dell commercial solutions, like Boxee, the software includes a sum of iterations now almost all modern OS, Linux, iOS, Windows or through the ancestor XBoX one who gave birth to the original project.

For the moment, the APK available nightlies do not work on the case. This is both disappointing, but at the project level, it is neither surprising nor discouraging. Progress is rapid, versions keep coming, and the community is active roaming around.

Just like the Apple TV2, whose success has been somewhat conditioned by the existence of XBMC as an alternative to universal basic limitations, monitoring its development for Android is capable of switching uses and growing interest in these boxes to a platform / media gateway worthy of the name.

Games

Native Apps

As mentioned above, the GPU and the CPU SoC embedded on the box are not lightning power. However, the game is quite possible.TempleRunlike the apps and the famous series of Angry Birds (including Space) pass without worry.

However, an important feature is quickly felt: these Studio 1555 Battery are essentially designed for the touch and feel of gameplay, using the mini keyboard to find altered. This is the price to pay for an OS designed for touch and whose major part of the terminals have no physical keyboard.

In this case, prevention is not attributable to the box itself, but the structure of the offer is not really designed for this kind of use.

Emulators - Retrogaming

In this little game, SEDEA provides the service. By simply plugging an old joystick recognized in Windows, and coupled with some emulators quality (ie MD.EMU, PCE.EM, NES.EMU, SuperGNES) and a collection of Roma, the case proves to be a formidable ally retro-gaming. Ideal for all ages, and I must say, nice.

Conclusion

This case offers Android resembles nothing so much as a variation of an Apple TV more open, accessible, and a real alternative to media gateways whose market is collapsing.

Many manufacturers of gateways and multimedia hard drives were engulfed in the gap by going to their solution. Not fussed all very well, nor ergonomic, some of them went to the blind side of Google and did not provide a navigation experience very relevant. Here, in a small footprint, the case of SEDEA can make a reasonable cost connected to any HDMI equipped with a diffuser, with promising potential to offer young yet to see his legacy applications to grow and evolve into a solid batteries of replacement of a PC or HC-box operator.

Comparison with a box operator is complicated in this case. The absence of a DVB-T tuner precludes the consideration of housing as an alternative for non-unbundled in order to make a box that can record and play all the TV programs for example.

Development of legal offers on Google Play already allows access to catalogs VOD Google, Warner, Sony, and now a lot of applications bouquets ISP or Canal + that will allow you to enjoy TV and multi-replay.

All supplemented with additional services offered by the Android platform make the final PC light and functional. We can not recommend you to do the office, but the potential is there, however, since only a Office Suite or Dell Latitude E5500 Pro to edit a document from your couch. If we add Facebook, Youtube and all that we find today on any Android Smartphone plus no service is missing calling these terminals.

However, we are confronted with a solution we can no longer possible to feed the TV room in addition to the main box, children or use in confined spaces (caravan / motorhome) by its low consumption and the range of uses in a few clicks.

The opening of the platform is heralding significant contributions to the basic package. As such, this product is not flawless (we would here and there a little more resources and finishing offer multimedia) but it is monitored very closely for who wants a simple and scalable equipment proper cost 125 euros, or is a little bit of amateur hack to change the box functionality.