Another S912 media box in the house.
Specs of MXiii-G2 are similar to other boxes we reviewed recently so we will have to see what this has to offer in order to stand out.
Packaging – Specifications
MXiii-G2 arrived in a black box well protected.
Inside you will find the media box itself accompanied by the remote controller, HDMI cable, USB OTG cable and the power adaptor. No batteries are included for the remote so you will have to buy them yourself.
Spec wise MXiii-G2 is well equipped.
It features the Amlogic S912 8-core CPU, Mali T820 GPU and 2GB of RAM/ 16GB ROM.
I/Os feature 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x micro USB (you can use the included OTG cable here), 1 x S/PDIF out, HDMI 2.0 (4K and HDR support), SD slot (up to 32GB) and A/V out .
For wired network connections an RJ45 with Gigabit LAN is the best available option and the same can be said for wireless connections with dual band Wi-Fi AC and BT 4.0.
Android 6.0 is once again the selected operating system.
Media Player – Remote
MXiii-G2 has a typical design and build quality.
It is made of plastic but it is quite sturdy and the unit stayed relatively cool during our tests.
Looks plain, which is not necessarily bad since it will not distract with its black color and square design.
All the USB ports are on the side so you will have to find a way to hide your cables if your media are located inside HDD’s.
If you “serve” your media then don’t worry about cable management since everything you will need is located at the back (power, HDMI, LAN, S/PDIF)
The remote is not among the classic generic ones we have seen in the past.
It is made of plastic and has a brushed effect which is quite nice.
Range is good and the keys are soft when used providing a nice feel.
For a remote including numeric keys it also small with nice grip.
Menus – Settings
After an almost minute long boot the main menu appears.
It is exactly the same as the one found in the MK808B Pro dongle.
The design is media player oriented with big and colorful icons all located in one page that include shortcuts for all the major apps and options (KODI, Music player, File Manager, Web Browser and settings menu among others)
The settings menu is the classic grey one we find in all modern media boxes.
You will be able to configure your media box in no time according to your setup.
Classic android menu is also there for extra options.
There are OTA options but we didn’t receive one during our tests.
Testing
As expected, audio files (mp3/FLAC) proved to be an easy task for MXiii-G2.
Video playback performance was again typical for a S912 unit, which is quite good.
The majority of popular 4K file types will playback perfectly fine with (hardware) limitations on files of 4k@60fps H264 and some rare Hi10p encodings.
Popular 1080p files including high bit-rate Blu-Rays have perfectly smooth operation.
Auto frame rate switching is not supported but that is the case with the majority of media boxes.
At least 23.976 playback appears to be fine without annoying hiccups every now and then.
Regarding audio bit-streaming, DD/DTS pass through had no issues but HD-Audio was a no-go (PCM and DTS core was the result in cases of True-HD and DTS HD Master Audio respectively).
Wireless playback of mid-> high bitrate .mkv was no issue for the Wi-Fi AC for as long as you have a clean reception.
Via wired LAN playback of high bit-rate .ISO backups was a breeze as expected.
Android
Android 6.0 is the new trend for media boxes and this one is no different.
Google’s platform is here in all its glory.
YouTube, Gmail, Chrome and all applications and games in Play Store are at your disposal.
Gaming performance is also stellar with light 3D games having very good playback (2GB RAM and the octa-core help a lot towards this)
For those who would like to “explore” things a bit more, the device arrived pre-rooted which is a bonus for sure.
After the first boot, you will have ~12GB available for apps and games.
Summary
MXiii-G2 is a media box with typical looks but with great performance that can be enhanced further from an experienced user who can utilize the root options.
Price is good (in the 60$ range) for all of the aforementioned and definitely keep it in your shortlist for a modern android box with root option.
We would like to thank www.gearbest.com for sending the player in exchange for an unbiased presentation.
- If this review helped you towards making your decision, we would appreciate if you made your order through the previous affiliate link(s). This way we will be able to review more products in the future.