Rikomagic MK802 IV S In The Test: Fast HDMI Stick With Android And Quirks

2023 Author: Sheila Hailey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:17

The biggest advantages of a stick compared to a normal computer are, of course, the small dimensions that invite the user to take the device with him on vacation as a replacement for the family PC or to show a film to friends. Thanks to the HDMI interface, the mini PC should work with any reasonably up-to-date television and monitor and benefit from the large screen area. In the home network, the stick can also be used as a streaming client. And the possibility of connecting external keyboards and mice even opens a window in the direction of productive use.

Scope of delivery, connections and technical properties

The packaging of the rikomagic MK802 IV S is a bit fiddly, but nicely designed and shows attention to detail. Inside is the actual stick, a USB power supply (2A / 5V) with connection cable, a USB OTG adapter and an HDMI extension cable. This gives you everything you need to operate the Mini PC. Incidentally, one of the two power supplies burned out in test mode and caused a short circuit that blew out a fuse.

The stick is a small, anthracite-colored box with a matt surface and some ventilation openings, which makes a solid impression. The dimensions are 88 x 32 x 16 mm, the weight is less than 50 g. Existing connections are mini USB for power, mini HDMI, standard USB (host), mini USB (OTG) and a slot for microSD cards with capacities up to 32 GB. There is also a blue LED and a recessed button for system updates.

A quad-core rock chip SoC works inside, which clocks at a maximum of 1.6 GHz according to CPU-Z and AnTuTu and is supported by future-proof 2 GB RAM. A Mali 400 GPU is responsible for the graphics calculations. In contrast to the China variants, which have a maximum of 8 GB flash memory, the MK802 IV S has 16 GB. The radio transmission is based on 802.11b / g / n and Bluetooth 4.0. Features available on smartphones such as a cell phone module, sensors of any kind, own loudspeakers, battery, GPS etc. naturally make little sense with a stationary Android stick and are therefore missing. It should also be mentioned that the stick DLNA can handle simple streaming in the network and the USB ports can be easily expanded by active (!) Hubs.

>> rikomagic MK802 IV S on Amazon

Image display

The stick only supports the 720p resolution, which may be scaled up to 1080p. Depending on the TV and setting, only a narrow black frame is shown around the actual picture, if at all. The image sharpness is okay and is easily sufficient for the usual viewing distance of a TV. We had no problems with the display on three different TVs, but the rikomagic forum shows that different users are struggling with strong flickering. The provider is currently trying to find a solution using a firmware update.

Android, updates and apps

The mini PC is delivered with the latest Android version 4.2.2 at the time of testing. On June 24, 2013 there was already the first update, which can be downloaded from the rikomagic website and installed without any problems. In the course of the test, we installed a bunch of apps via the pre-installed Play Store, which are also part of the basic equipment on our smartphones and tablets. It is really gratifying that, with a few exceptions, there hardly seem to be any apps that do not run on the MK802 IV S. Of course, all apps that rely on non-existent hardware features such as NFC are excluded from this consideration.

performance

The Rockchip SoC with four cores is still based on the ARM9 architecture, but it does a good job. The system is operated smoothly, apps start quickly, even with a large number of browser tabs open in parallel, the memory does not run out of air. In the AnTuTu benchmark, the rikomagic MK802 IV S achieved a decent result with around 15,000 points (Nexus 4: 20,000 points). Very demanding titles like Asphalt 7 or Nova 3 stutter, but they don't become unplayable, and games like Max Payne and GTA III are really fun to play.

Connectivity and WiFi problems

We controlled our test samples via a cheap wireless mouse-keyboard combination from Vivanco with a single receiver dongle, which was easily recognized and - apart from the wrong keyboard layout - worked perfectly. We also had no problems with a Logitech wireless game controller and a USB stick, which must be formatted with FAT32. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the WLAN functionality at all.

Since we had to record a strongly fluctuating and overall very low data throughput with our first test sample in connection with two of three different, commercially available and widespread routers and all attempts to master the situation with other router configurations did not lead to success, we asked for a second device. Then there are other puzzling phenomena such as constant authentication problems.

Overall, we found the WLAN performance to be completely erratic, sometimes no connection was established, sometimes the log-in to the WLAN was supposed to be successful, but was acknowledged with a greyed-out WLAN symbol, sometimes for a short time for data rates of at least 2, 5 Mbit / s was enough before the connection broke down again for puzzling reasons. Sticks and routers were a maximum of five meters away in our tests, some with a direct line of sight, some with an inner wall in between. Downloading larger apps was so painful and streaming over the network or watching a YouTube video was not an option. Even surfing was no longer fun with the typical data rates of less than 600 kbit / s. In the rikomagic forum you can readthat we are unfortunately not alone with these problems. However, you can use a USB LAN adapter if you want to or have to use wired LAN.

Conclusion

The rikomagic MK802 IV S would have fully convinced us in the test if only the massive WLAN problems were not. The scope of delivery, equipment, speed and support are all right, but that doesn't help if an important basic function like WLAN with two test samples and different routers, which otherwise never have problems with other devices, simply doesn't want to run properly. Since you cannot know beforehand whether your router will taste good with the rikomagic MK802 IV S and we fear a high probability of massive WLAN problems for many buyers, we cannot recommend the mini PC at this time.

>> rikomagic MK802 IV S on Amazon

What should the next version of Android be called?

Is the article helpful?

Yes No (15) comments

Your life is GIGA.

?

Help us to improve and please tell us:

Why is the article not helpful for you?

The information is out of date I have not received enough information The information is incorrect I disagree Other Send answer

Thank you, your GIGA team

?

Thank you

Your opinion is important to us. Also like to discuss with us in the comments.

Window will close automatically in 6 seconds

Close Window