Review | Zidoo X6 Pro RK3368 TV Box

This review unit was sent to me courtesy of the kind people at Zidoo, so thank you very much, and especially Tommy, for the help and support!

Zidoo is a young, yet up and coming manufacturer in the TV box industry. They don’t limit themselves to one chipset manufacturer but are open to all possibilities.

The X6 Pro is Zidoo’s first RK3368 based box. The Octa core allows for good performance and the physical build of the box is quite good. There are some bugs to iron out before it is perfect, but hopefully, it will come with time.

What’s in the Box?

The box contains the standard assortment of necessities: The TV Box (naturally), HDMI 2.0 cable, Standard IR remote control (with a learning function), a warranty, QC tag, and a Simple manual.

Looks

Zidoo X6 Pro is a nice change from the almost-constant black look. It sports a metallic look (actually a mix between plastic and aluminium) with black accents, and a black matte finished bottom. Two USB 2.0 ports (one of which is OTG), and the standard affair of other ports (Optical SPDIF, AV port, micro-SD expansion slot and LAN) are all there.

Specifications

Benchmarks and Testing

All benchmarks have been repeated 3 times and results have been averaged to give a more accurate reading:

Antutu Benchmark

The Antutu benchmark tests single core performance over multi-core as it is a better indication of the performance of one device over others in most situations. The X6 Pro gets 5th place, after the older S802-H box, two RK3368 boxes and a S812 box. It shows that the clock speed of each core in the X6 Pro may be limited to save power/prevent overheating. 

Recently, Antutu benchmark has been updated to version 6 which uses different parameters and sub-tests, so the graphs are still based on the older 5.7.3 version for comparison, but here is the result of the new (6.0.0) Antutu version: 38397

GPU Mark Benchmark

GPU Mark tests 3d gaming performance and also provides a normalized score according to the used screen resolution (for a more accurate result). The test is quite short and should be taken as a supporting result to that of the more serious 3D Mark benchmark. X6 Pro’s score is a mixed bag as it gets only 7th place in the average frames per second score, but a nice 4th place in the average & screen res normalized score. It may only need some firmware fine tuning to get  better performance out of it.

A1 SD Benchmark

A1 SD Benchmark tests RAM and flash memory speeds. As can be seen in the provided graphs, RAM is much faster (by a factor of about 40) than flash memory – that is why it’s in smaller amount and is also volatile (does not keep its contents after a reboot). The X6 Pro takes 4th and 5th place in these tests, close by to the other RK3368 and S905 based boxes, which are the current leaders in this line up.

PC Mark Benchmark

The PC Mark benchmark test suite gives a more task/day oriented picture of performance. Things like photo editing, web browsing and video playback are tested. Location of the X6 Pro on the table was determined according to the “Work performance score” as it is a summary of all the other scores. The X6 Pro takes a respectable 4th place right along with the other RK3368 based boxes.

3D Mark Benchmark

3D Mark benchmark is considered as one of the best ways to test 3d performance on Android (and other platforms). The X6 pro does not show a strong placement here, with both RK3368 and even S802 boxes leaving him behind.

On the X6 Pro, as in all previously tested RK3368 boxes, even though it identified it as OpenGL 3.1 capable, it could not run the 3.1 or the 3.0 tests correctly, so I was forced to run the OpenGL 2.1 tests instead. It is a known issue.

Video Playback testing (Using KODI)

I did notice issues with video playback. It didn’t occur in every video file, but in some files the video would freeze while audio continues, and when it unfroze, the audio would be out of sync for a while till it “caught up”. The same happened when fast forwarding (the shorter period of fast forwarding the faster it would catch up) – similar to a rubber band getting back to its original size.

• SPMC 15 shown better results and no sync/freeze/crash issues. 

Issues and bugs

WiFi 802.11ac performance was noticeably better (probably thanks to the AP6335 WiFi module) than the wired performance (my wired connection is AV500 Ethernet over power-line, and that means it is somewhat limited).

1. I experienced a few crashes in Kodi. Mostly when I stopped playback or even in the middle of it, but not every time.
2. videos would lose sync at times, and the only way to get it back is to stop the video and resume it.
3. videos sometimes take a while to start, with the audio preceding the video playback.
4. Remote control is not too good. very directional with soft buttons.
5. Rooting is not perfect. I was unable to use my performance measuring app to check frame rate and resource usage.

Most of the video issues seem to come from the playback being unable to handle videos that are coded with less than perfect parameters. As such, films usually played better than TV shows.

Network performance

Gaming performance

I use an application called “GameBench” to measure frame rate and resource usage in games. However, even though the box is confirmed to be rooted, the application simply would not (or could not) “hook” into the game. It actually crashed without loading the before the game loaded in each of these cases. Therefore, I have to give a subjective opinion of the performance of these:

Asphalt 8 Airborne – a 3d graphic intensive racing game. Asphalt played quite smoothly, without any slowing down, jerkiness or delay in loading screens or play screens.

Angry Birds 2 – a popular 2d action game. The game played smoothly. Loading screens were swift and the game did not hick up during gameplay.

Walking War Robots – an online robot warfare game that requires a game-pad (I don’t have a game-pad). The game played smoothly, and shown no sign of slowing down or jerkiness.

Conclusions

Did I like it? Somewhat, it is a powerful machine but it still some way away from smooth sailing – especially with the video issues and crashes in Kodi.

Would I recommend it? Watch out for firmware updates that will bring this powerhouse to its full potential. It does well in gaming, and its Kodi woes will be resolved quite soon. Also, you may want to try Kodi alternative versions (latest 16 beta, or SPMC) for a better experience.

I give it… 3.7 / 5 and I do believe it will get better with time and firmware update rounds. The design is solid, and the support is there. The optional rooted firmware is a nice added touch.

So you’d like to buy this box? go here for a great price of 92.99 USD: AliExpress.com Product – Zidoo X6 Pro HD 4K Smart Android TV Box Bluetooth WIFI XBMC (KODI) 2G/16G 3D Octa Core Smart Media Player Support TF Card

or here: Zidoo X6 PRO Smart Android TV Box Android 5.1 RK3368 Octa Core 2G+16G HDMI 2.0 Mini PC 4K KODI XBMC H.265 DLNA Miracast Airplay 1000Ethernet 5.0G WiFi Bluetooth 4.0 HD Media Player for 99 USD.

Prices include shipping!