UG 802 Android home theatre PC review

It is not just a home theater pc though.You can run android apps so you can check email, run emulators, browse the internet. Also this could be ultra cheap digital signage.
 
kinda pointless rating Value for Money without including the price dont you think?
 
Wish Google would release the following:

A proper Nexus home theatre Android device
A Nexus in car device (to replace the radio + nav).
 
No word on performance? How does it handle 720p and 1080p. Can it play a 35GB movie without stuttering? Useless review
 
I have one... got it from in4dealz.com...

Not a good etailer, I waited 3 months for it to be delivered, at the time, I paid about $70 USD. Roughly R650.

The stock OS is k@k, its buggy, slow... A/V sync issues, random reboots, etc... after hours and days of forum reading, I found out it's the OS (mostly), and finally rooting the damn thing. Now I'm running a JB 4.1 custom ROM. Google Play works fine on my custom ROM.

For the most part it's stable, plays mkv's from my NTFS USB HDD (with external power, of course)... no sync issues.

I flashed a 720p rom, and 720p mkv's play fine. I did try the 1080p ROM, but I didn't notice a big difference, Live wallpapers and static wallpapers look the same at both resolutions. Text DPI changes slightly, an app will fix that.

BUT....

Jelly Bean has no DTS/DTS-HD/DTS-MA support. Not even DTS-Core. So movies with that won't work. I suspect a custom kernel module will fix that.

AC3 did work with third party video apps. The play store has many.

Games work fine, but I haven't tested things like MC3. Note it does not have a Accelerometer or Gyroscope, for obvious reasons, therefore games and apps that reply on those instruments, won't work, or you will dodgy-gameplay.

I ran Angry Birds, ran fine, no issues, although I couldn't zoom in/out, due to the game relying on swipe/multi-touch - I'm trying to find out how to get around that.

The UG802 works with a USB hub, although power hungry devices will need external power.

My USB keyboards and mice work. I tested with my M$ Wireless Keyboard and mouse, as well as wired keyboards. I have not tested bluetooth dongles.

I've read in the forums, some webcams work, and Android-Skype works with them, this is still untested.

I didn't have any issues with HDMI, although the bundled 10-cm HDMI extender cable was making my LCD TV flash every couple minutes, swapping that out, fixed the flickering. I did not buy the keyboard as per the MyBB review, that's a separate optional purchase.

I have been able to successfully run the device from my PC's USB port, although I did use a Y-usb cable (commonly bundles with 3G modems) I believe if you'll just browse the web and what not, and not run apps that require high-CPU time or the GPU, it'll run from your TV USB port, but more power is needed should you wish to make use of the GPU.

I have rooted mine, there are several easy how-to guides on the web. I have also overclocked mine to 1.4GHz. I know it can go to 1.6GHz, but needs a heatsink.

The device get's VERY hot, when just playing a game or watching a 480p video. I'm still looking at getting a proper cooling solution for it.

As for the wifi, it is 802.11n, but it's got a measly antenna, I opened my UG802 after I bricked mine by accdent - there is a way to recover bricking by shorting out two pins.

802.11n/MCS7 throughput was pathetic, and it hardly pics up AP's more than 5 meters away. I believe USB network cards, especially the ASIX-based ones (cheap 10/100/1000 USB NIC's) will work.

Bottom line, it's got the JB Tablet UI, as for apps, do you really care? Any app of the Play store that works with tablet's will work on this device, there are no "TV"-ready apps. You can install the devel XBMC android app from the forums - that works reasonably well.

I'm more interested in using the app for DLNA - that works, "there's an app for that". Live wallpapers work, although every one I tested, wasn't 720p/1080p ready, and looks ugly on 42" TV's and up, most likely on 32" TV's too...

If anyone has any questions, I'll try my best to test and give some feedback.
 
Last edited:
kwaggawerner said:
I have one... got it from in4dealz.com...

Not a good etailer, I waited 3 months for it to be delivered, at the time, I paid about $70 USD. Roughly R650.

The stock OS is k@k, its buggy, slow... A/V sync issues, random reboots, etc... after hours and days of forum reading, I found out it's the OS (mostly), and finally rooting the damn thing. Now I'm running a JB 4.1 custom ROM. Google Play works fine on my custom ROM.

For the most part it's stable, plays mkv's from my NTFS USB HDD (with external power, of course)... no sync issues.

I flashed a 720p rom, and 720p mkv's play fine. I did try the 1080p ROM, but I didn't notice a big difference, Live wallpapers and static wallpapers look the same at both resolutions. Text DPI changes slightly, an app will fix that.

BUT....

Jelly Bean has no DTS/DTS-HD/DTS-MA support. Not even DTS-Core. So movies with that won't work. I suspect a custom kernel module will fix that.

AC3 did work with third party video apps. The play store has many.

Games work fine, but I haven't tested things like MC3. Note it does not have a Accelerometer or Gyroscope, for obvious reasons, therefore games and apps that reply on those instruments, won't work, or you will dodgy-gameplay.

I ran Angry Birds, ran fine, no issues, although I couldn't zoom in/out, due to the game relying on swipe/multi-touch - I'm trying to find out how to get around that.

The UG802 works with a USB hub, although power hungry devices will need external power.

My USB keyboards and mice work. I tested with my M$ Wireless Keyboard and mouse, as well as wired keyboards. I have not tested bluetooth dongles.

I've read in the forums, some webcams work, and Android-Skype works with them, this is still untested.

I didn't have any issues with HDMI, although the bundled 10-cm HDMI extender cable was making my LCD TV flash every couple minutes, swapping that out, fixed the flickering. I did not buy the keyboard as per the MyBB review, that's a separate optional purchase.

I have been able to successfully run the device from my PC's USB port, although I did use a Y-usb cable (commonly bundles with 3G modems) I believe if you'll just browse the web and what not, and not run apps that require high-CPU time or the GPU, it'll run from your TV USB port, but more power is needed should you wish to make use of the GPU.

I have rooted mine, there are several easy how-to guides on the web. I have also overclocked mine to 1.4GHz. I know it can go to 1.6GHz, but needs a heatsink.

The device get's VERY hot, when just playing a game or watching a 480p video. I'm still looking at getting a proper cooling solution for it.

As for the wifi, it is 802.11n, but it's got a measly antenna, I opened my UG802 after I bricked mine by accdent - there is a way to recover bricking by shorting out two pins.

802.11n/MCS7 throughput was pathetic, and it hardly pics up AP's more than 5 meters away. I believe USB network cards, especially the ASIX-based ones (cheap 10/100/1000 USB NIC's) will work.

Bottom line, it's got the JB Tablet UI, as for apps, do you really care? Any app of the Play store that works with tablet's will work on this device, there are no "TV"-ready apps. You can install the devel XBMC android app from the forums - that works reasonably well.

I'm more interested in using the app for DLNA - that works, "there's an app for that". Live wallpapers work, although every one I tested, wasn't 720p/1080p ready, and looks ugly on 42" TV's and up, most likely on 32" TV's too...

If anyone has any questions, I'll try my best to test and give some feedback.
Click to expand...
Thanks, actually useful info compared to the review
 
kwaggawerner said:
Jelly Bean has no DTS/DTS-HD/DTS-MA support. Not even DTS-Core. So movies with that won't work. I suspect a custom kernel module will fix that.
Click to expand...

I think you need a valid licence to have support for those. Same problem on the Raspberry Pi with RaspBMC (with MPG2 and VC-1), but they've added functionality to buy your own licences and then to incorporate them into the linux system.
 
Such an awesome peice of hardware. Me thinking of getting one soon :)

Thank you for the info kwaggawerner much better then the review.
 
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