It seems that the market for Chinese media players with Android is minimally encouraged, where the electronic components’ crisis has strongly impacted, and today we find the new T96W2 box.
The T96W2 incorporates the new Amlogic S905W2 SoC as the only notable novelty, a chip a little lower than the S905X4 in computing and graphics power, as we have seen in our review. The operating system is Android 11 and the rest of its hardware is in line with its price, quite cheap and that make it suitable in general as a basic media player, since it does not have certificates, it is unable to play Netflix content in the highest quality of video.
This Box is capable of decoding the AV1 codec up to 4K @ 60fps resolutions and with HDR 10+, although it runs out of Dolby Vision that reproduces it but downgrading to basic HDR, although now we have little in this format.
SoC, RAM and storage
In the new T96W2 mediaplayer we find as the heart the new Amlogic S905W2 SoC, a Quad Core with ARM Cortex-A35 processors and a MALI-G3 MP2 GPU, a sufficient configuration to use streaming apps, KODI and quite a few games.
In this model we have integrated 2/4 GB of DDR3 RAM, 16/32 GB of eMMc storage memory and a micro SD card reader located on one side of the black plastic box that allows us to increase its internal storage capacity.
Other features
As for wireless connectivity within the T96W2 we have Dual band Wifi aC with internal antenna and Bluetooth 5.0. In the connectors section, this Smart Box includes 2 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI 2.1 port, SPDIF digital audio output, micro SD card reader, 10/100 network connector and finally an analogue port for audio and video.
Also included in the box is a simple infrared remote control, power supply and all the necessary cables to get it started right out of the box.
Price and availability in stores
- The Smart Box T96W2 can be purchased in AliExpress from €28.78 / $34 with free shipping and VAT included for Europe.
