Review | HiMedia Q10 Pro Hi3798C V200 TV Box

Today, I look at one of Himedia’s latest and greatest TV Box offering, the Q10 Pro. The Q10 Pro is based on HiSilicon’s Hi3798C V200 SoC.

HiMedia is a Chinese brand name located in Shenzhen,China and has been operating since 2005. They have a large range of TV Boxes and that’s their sole product range. As a result, they are quite experienced in the field.

Q10 Pro was sent to me courtesy of the good people at HiMedia, so thank you all, and especially Nicole, for the great communication and help.

What’s in the Box?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5nqX03J-ng]

The box contains the basic items: Q10 Pro TV Box, DC power adapter, HDMI 2.0a cable, IR Remote control, and a Quick Guide.

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Looks

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Q10 Pro is a robust and big box, made of black painted brushed aluminum and plastic. It has a small external WiFi antenna, and opens up to allow housing of a full size 3.5″ SATA drive. It also offers a cool touch panel on the front and an LCD that shows status (Boot, time and so on).

The Q10 Pro is larger than most TV Boxes out there, and especially other Android boxes. This is to allow for two things: the HDD drawer, and the multitude of ports – including USB 2.0 and 3.0 as well as coaxial and optical audio, stereo and video ports.

Specifications

Chipset HiSilicon HI3798CV200 quad-core ARM Cortex A53 processor
GPU Mali-T720 supporting OpenGL ES 3.1/2.0, OpenVG 1.1, EGL, and Imprex 2.0 PQ engine with HDR, Dolby vision support.
Memory / Storage 2 GB DDR3 RAM / 16 GB Flash Memory
LAN Gigabit
Wireless 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi with external antenna
Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.0
OS Android Lollipop 5.1
Video Output HDMI 2.0a @ 60 Hz, Composite
Audio Output HDMI out, SPDIF (optical)
Power  12V / 2A
Peripheral Interface 1 x USB 3.0 host port, 2 x USB 2.0 host ports, 1 x USB 3.0 device port (to connect to PC), SD/MMC 2-in-1 Card Reader, SPDIF Optical Audio Input, 1 x HDMI 2.0 cable, 1 x RJ45 LAN Port
Packing Included 1 x Q10 Pro, 1 x Power Adapter (DC 12V / 2A), 1 x HDMI 2.0 Cable ,1 x IR Remote Controller,1 x Manual


Benchmarks and Testing

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

Antutu Benchmark

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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 Q10 pro takes the third place which puts it in the forefront of TV Boxes today. (although other tests may show otherwise..)

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. Sadly, the Q10 pro takes one of the last places on this test.. though it’s general real-life performance does not reflect this poor result.

*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). Q10 pro takes a middle position in this test, though the RAM copy speed leaves room for improvement.

* The read/write speed only measured the internal storage, as I noticed the app did not recognize the 32GB SD card I inserted, but it supposedly recognized two SD storage cards – with a very similar capacity.

PC Mark Benchmark

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The PC Mark benchmark tests shows good results for the Q10 Pro, though not the best. Still, it is one of the top 6 boxes.

3D Mark Benchmark

3D Mark could not be run with the standard “Ice Storm” test as it freezes when attempting to download that test. “Slingshot” test did download and run but the results are less relevant in comparison to all the other boxes as they were all tested with “Ice Storm”.

3D Mark benchmark is considered as one of the best ways to test 3d performance on Android (and other platforms).

Usage and Performance

First impressions and testing shows a fast boot time of 26 seconds from “On” to desktop.

Q10 Pro is VERY versatile. It includes a HDD drawer, strong building materials, USB 3.0 port, Touch button front panel with LCD screen, and a HDMI 2.0a interface which I haven’t seen so far in any other TV boxes.

Rooting is not built into the default firmware, but can be achieved with a manual local file upgrade (Be aware that it will may void your warranty, and any issues that arise from this step will not be dealt with by the manufacturer!).

Performance is better than may be inferred from the benchmarks. Also, I give some weight to stability as many boxes may perform great in benchmarks, but when it comes to real-life performance it turns out they are to buggy to sustain performance without crashing.

Kodi is able to play EVERYTHING I threw at it, and that includes all UltraHD/4K content. That is a big accomplishment seeing that all the new boxes claim that they can do that, but most of them can only play a percentage of the 4K content in its different encoding forms. That said, as I mention next in the bugs section, I noticed some micro-stutter (continuous dropped frames) in some 720p H.264 encoded files, and I also noticed that SD (Standard definition) quality content does not look so great when played with this box. It is somewhat understandable as it is marketed as a UltraHD solution and must have gone through optimization to that end. But at this price point, I do expect a more powerful video processor that can handle up-scaling SD content better.

Bugs & Issues

  1. 3DMark would freeze when attempting to download “ice storm” benchmark.
  2. A1SD RAM/Storage speed benchmark does not recognize external SD card.
  3. Certain video files (encoded in H.264) display micro stutter and frame drops.
  4. Standard definition content does not look good. artifacts and quite grainy. (little to none post-processing?)
  5. Quick boot app freezes when attempting shutdown from it.
  6. Music cannot be played from Kodi. Haven’t been tested in SPMC or other forks.

Network performance

Network performance has been tested using Speedtest.net Internet speed measuring app, in WiFi and in Wired mode. My Internet connection is 200 Mbit Synchronous Fibre connection. Speeds measured are Wired (Lan over Powerlines), Wireless 2.4GHz, and Wireless 5GHz:

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Be aware, that repeat tests showed some variation in results. 5Ghz WiFi speeds could go as low as 86 Mb/s, so performance may depend on the quality, distance from router and other obstacles.

Video Playback testing

Video playback testing was done with the latest official Kodi (16.1):

Resolution Video Format Local Playback Network (Wi-Fi/LAN) Playback
720p (1280*720) AVC (High@L4.1) Playing correctly Playing correctly
1080P (1920*1080) AVC (High@L4) Playing correctly Playing correctly
 2160P (3840*2160) HEVC (H.265) Playing correctly Playing correctly
4K (4096*2304) AVC (High@L5.1) Playing correctly *Buffering and stutter
4K / HD / FullHD HEVC (H.265) 10Bit Playing correctly Buffering and stutter

* Wireless/LAN playback performance seems to depend on file bandwidth requirements. Less demanding files such as HEVC (H.265) 4K encoded files and some H.264 4K content played back without a hitch. Also, the nature of the playback issues shows that given a better connection, these issues may not manifest. However, given the 5 GHz WiFi speed tests, they should all run perfectly.

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Gaming performance

I have tested the Q10 Pro with three games, but could not measure frame rate or resource usage accurately due to performance measuring issues. (both GameBench could not grab statistics correctly, and FPS meter was unable to maintain correct frame count at all times)

Asphalt 8 Airborne – a 3d graphic intensive racing game. Run quite well in normal settings.

Asphalt 8 Airborne

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Angry Birds 2 – a popular 2d action game. Run quite smoothly.

angry-birds-2

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Walking War Robots – an online robot warfare game that requires a game-pad. The game run mostly smooth.

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Q10 Pro Conclusions

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Did I like it? Yes. Mediocre 3d performance aside, this box is a real performer and one of the more stable devices I encountered. Considering it’s a brand new model, that’s a real achievement.

Would I recommend it? Yes, but.. It is one of the most expensive android TV boxes out there, and that may deter people who look for price/performance and not just performance.

For purchase, you can find it here: AliExpress.com Product – 2016 Hot 4K Ultra Output Android TV Box Himedia Q10 Pro Android Box Kodi 16.0 Google Android 5.1 Smart TV Box, Free shipment for a hefty 299 USD.

I hope you enjoyed the review, as you can expect quite a few more, and soon!

Comments

Comments

  1. N.ATA

    Hii is two months since i use Q10 PRO and im not glad because when you receive email or any info example app upgrade etc. etc. there is no MARK or INFO on the screen just dead screen i have to chek allways manualy… is high quality of material but is a low software and technique with my bes regards.

    1. Post
      Author
      admin

      Hi!, I’ll pass this along to Himedia, but you’re welcome to contact them independently so they’ll look into it. Also thank you for the feedback, and thank you for visiting DOW 🙂

    1. Post
      Author
      admin

      Thanks for Visiting.
      Does the power (on/off) button on the remote malfunctions?
      That’s how you usually turn the box off. try long pressing it (cannot remember at the moment if it gives a shutdown menu or not) for a menu. Also you may have the bottom bar and there is a on/off icon on it (the circle with the line in the middle).

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