Zidoo M6 preview with Android 11

I’ve now had more time to play withZidoo M6 Arm mini PCpowered by aRockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor。我打算用Ubuntu来审查该设备，但我误解了，Android 11已在设备上预安装。我也被告知，由于该模型主要用于工业控制，因此我可能希望专注于性能和连接器，而不是所有功能的工作效果。

So this will not be a review, but rather a preview of Zidoo M6, since as we’ll see below there’s still more work do to fix all issues. As an industrial platform. some features like Google Services may not be needed or even desirable.

First boot and Settings

I’ve connected a USB keyboard for screenshots,MINIX NEO A2 LiteAir Mouse，HDMI电缆到我的4K电视以及开始的电源。我还将两个AAA电池添加到红外遥控器中。按设备或IR遥控器上的电源按钮将启动设备。靴子非常快，我们可以在25秒内到达发射器。

Play Store，Chrome，Power Control，Update功能，DLNA，Media Center和Camera App只有几个应用程序已预装。我可以在没有任何问题的情况下连接到我的5 GHz WiFi接入点，但是我最初无法使用Play商店，也无法获得错误消息”The device isn’t Play Protect certified”, as Zidoo M6 is not certified, and instead, Ihad to register the device谷歌通常使用谷歌服务,和我could install all programs I needed from the Google Play Store without issue.

Both the IR remote control and MINIX air mouse worked fine, except the back button on the air mouse would not work as expected. I tested the IR remote range up to 7 meters. A long press on the power button allows you to select power off or standby, and the Power control app enables reboot or shutdown without the remote control.

The settings are pretty standard ith Network & Internet for WiFi/Ethernet configuration, accounts, app, and Device Preferences for more options.

The device is called MINI-PC-RK3366, the model is (Zidoo) M6, and it’s running Android 11 on top of Linux 4.19.172 kernel.

Video settings enabled me to set the video output to 3840x2160p60.00, HDMI CEC is supposed to be supported but I have not tested it since I’ve never managed to make it work with my TV or AV receiver, and people interesting in digital signage applications will be pleased to know screen rotation can easily be adjusted.

There’s also an Advanced setting for video output that allows control of brightness, contrast, and saturation. A separate Advanced setting menu brings option to hide the system bar, or add “Performance dialog” showing CPU, RAM, and Networking use on the top left corner of the display.

System Info and Benchmarks

I’ve already written a separate post withRK3566 benchmarks and system info, but here are again CPU-Z and Antutu 6.0.2 results for reference.

CPU-Z shows some of the 4GB of RAM is used for hardware buffers since the total RAM available to Android/Linux is just 3755 MB. The available storage on the 32GB flash is also 24.12GB, so other partitions take around 8 GB… Note while Root Access is set to No, I could use adb as root without any problem.

Rockchip RK3566 CPU performance is similar to Cortex-A53/A55 platforms clocked at 1.8/2.0 GHz, but the Mali-G52 GPU provides a significant boost in terms of graphics performance compared to older SoCs like Rockchip RK3328, Allwinner H6, or Amlogic S905X with older Mali-4xx or Mali-7xx GPUs.

Networking – Ethernet and WiFi

Connecting an Ethernet cable will disconnect WiFi automatically, and I used iperf “Magic iPerf app” to test Gigabit Ethernet performance.

这就是在我的PC终端中全双工传输的结果：

The segmentation fault happened again at the second try:

But in Android we can see the complete results.

887 Mbps and 558 Mbps are OK, and typical on most Arm hardware. This is also a worst-case scenario with simultaneous upload and download at max speed that will not happen for most workloads.

If I try download only mode, the system reaches 940 Mbps:

And it’s about the same for upload only:

Let’s try again with WiFI 5

• 仅下载：

• Upload only:

Those are pretty good numbers with my setup… A 271/311 Mbps compares to 188/244 Mbps forBeelink GS-KingAndroid NAS, 326/426 Mbps withODYSSEY-X86J4105SBC, and 218/226 Mbps withMINIX NEO G41V-4mini PC.

Storage performance

I also tested eMMC flash sequential read/write performance with A1SD bench app.

The internal storage is relatively fast compared to most other Android devices I reviewed.

But note that many of those devices are older ones with 8GB and 16GB flash.

虽然Zidoo M6没有USB 3.0端口，但我仍然将USB硬盘驱动器连接到USB 2.0端口之一以检查支持的文件系统，并查看是否可以在较慢的端口上获得通常的35至40MB/s。但是我第一次连接我的USB硬盘驱动器什么也没发生，所以我决定重新启动迷你PC，然后花了35分钟（不是错字）才能到达发射器。我的硬盘驱动器有点不寻常，因为它带有四个分区，并且包含许多文件，包括视频，还有一些带有许多小文本文件的源代码，我认为系统会扫描驱动器以创建驱动器的可搜索数据库。非常慢的启动仅是第一次发生，此后启动设备需要约30秒。

The current Android firmware could mount the NTFS and EXT4 partitions of the drive, but not EXFAT (many other devices can), nor BTRFS (I’ve yet to see an Android TV box support it). Performance is mixed with 39.17 MB/s read and 15.10 MB/s write with NTFS and 23.33MB/s + 35.52 MB/s with EXT-4. It can probably be improved with some software tweaks. Or is it? After testing video playback (See below), I found out there may have been a background process slowing things down, so I re-tested the partitions.

This did not change the write speed results, but the read speed of the EXT-4 partition was faster, the one of the NTFS partition slower… It should probably be possible to ask Zidoo to disable whatever causes those variations.

Zidoo M6 mini PC/SBC is not particularly well-suited for people wanting fast or large storage since the only options are the eMMC flash (up to 128 GB), or a MicroSD card slot. There’s no internal M.2 or mPCIe socket with SATA or PCIe (only USB 3.0), nor SATA interfaces.

Video playback

Now that I’ve got my hard drive connected I play a few 4K videos to test RK3566 media playback capabilities in Media Center app.

• HD.Club-4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4 (4K H.264, 30 fps, MPEG-4 AAC audio) –好的
  
• sintel-2010-4k.mkv (H.264, 24 fps, 4096×1744, AC-3 audio) –视频好,但是根本没有音频
• Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265, no audio) –好的
• Bosphorus_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265, no audio) –好的
• Jockey_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_TS.ts (H.265, no audio) –好的
• MHD_2013_2160p_ShowReel_R_9000f_24fps_RMN_QP23_10b.mkv (10-bit HEVC, no audio) –好的,albeit not perfect due to lack of automatic frame rate switching（在60 Hz显示器上播放24fps视频）
• PHFX_4KHD_VP9TESTFOOTAGE.WEBM（VP9，无音频） -好的
• BT.2020.20140602.ts(Rec.2020compliant video; 36 Mbps; 59.97 Hz, )
  • First try –视频好,but frequent audio cuts
  • Second try later on –好的，音频和视频
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 (AC-3 audio) –好的
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_60fps.mp4 (AC-3 audio) –好的(one of the first hardware, if not the first, that can play this video smoothly).
• Fifa_WorldCup2014_Uruguay-Colombia_4K-x265.mp4 (4K, H.265, 60 fps, AC-3) –视频好,but no audio
• samsung_uhd_dubai_10-bit_hevc_51.4mbps.ts（10位HEVC / MPEG-4 AAC） -好的
• 暗流-4K.MP4（10位H.264; 120 Mbps） -好的(One of the rate platforms where this video can play)
  
• Ducks Take Off [2160p a 243 Mbps].mkv (4K H.264 @ 29.97 fps; 243 Mbps; no audio)
  • HDD
    • First try –Very choppy
    • Second try later on –Smoother but not perfect yet
  • eMMC flash –好的
• tara-no9-vp9.webm (4K VP9 YouTube video @ 60 fps, Vorbis audio)
  • First try –视频好,but frequent audio cuts
  • Second try –好的, both video and audio
• The.Curvature.of.Earth.4K.60FPS-YT-UceRgEyfSsc.VP9.3840×2160.OPUS.160K.webm(4K VP9 @ 60 fps + opus audio)
  • First try –好的, videoultra-smooth,butconstant audio cuts
  • Second try –All good

The hardware can basically decode all 4K videos smoothly from those samples, it’s the first time it happens to me. That’s not without some issues, as some videos with AC-3 audio played without audio, there’s no automatic frame rate switching in Media Center (all videos played at 4Kp60 video output, but that was expected), and the hard drive may have been busy during my first test with frequent audio cuts, possibly because of a scanning process running on the background, but later on, all audio cuts completely disappeared…

媒体中心还支持3D视频播放（MVC，SBS），但是由于我的电视不支持它，所以我没有尝试过。由于这个原因，我也无法测试HDR，并且最初我没有弹奏来测试HDMI音频传递，因为它可能还没有实施，但是请改变我的想法，以便快速尝试。如果我通过我的Zidoo M6连接ONKYO AV receiver, I can access the launcher and some apps, but when I start Media Center app, the screen goes dark until I press the Home Button to return to the launcher. I eventually left it dark to see what happens, and about 5 minutes later I could enter the Media Center UI, but doing anything in this UI would lead to an “over time” message, and a nlue screen again lasting for a few minutes. I’d assume there may be some interoperability issues during the HDMI handshake.

Gaming

As an industrial platform, Zidoo M6 is certainly not designed to be a gaming machine, but 3D graphics may still be used for complex UIs, or interactive kiosks may have some 3D games or interfaces. So I still planned to try some of the 3D games I normally use in reviews. Sadly, I was unable to install Riptide GP2 via the Amazon app, tried Beach Buggy Racing 2, but the developers bodged implementation of gamepad support and I could only play one trial, so I reverted to using Beach Buggy Racing withTronsmart Mars G01 wireless gamepad, and maxed out graphics settings.

I played for about half an hour. The game was smooth and the device did not overheat during that time. The temperature was 37 and 44°C at the top and bottom of the case respectively, and CPU temperature only reached up to 63°C, which left plenty of legroom before eventual throttling.

That’s quite typical of Cortex-A55 platforms that are much more efficient than Cortex-A53 cores, coupled with a recent, efficient Mali-G52 GPU. So the heatsink we’ve seen in our teardown is plenty enough for proper cooling.

Conclusion

Zidoo M6的Android 11固件仍然需要一些工作，但是Rockchip RK3566具有潜力，并且对我过去测试的Android平台具有明显的改进，使用更快的3D图形，更好地处理各种4K视频编解码器，而Mini PC本身也适合使用。EMMC Flash的合理快速，网络部分与Gigabit以太网和WiFi 5都能提供良好的吞吐量。Zidoo M6可能非常适合作为物联网网关，其中具有5G，4G LTE或其他MPCIE USB 3.0无线模块的迷你PCIE插槽，但是对于需要大型和/或快速数据存储的任何内容，您需要找到另一个解决方案。It’s also suitable for digital signage with HDMI 2.0 output and settings like built-in screen orientation, and if you’re going to use the board only you’ll also have access to eDP, MIPI DSI, and LVDS interfaces, none of which I could easily test here.

我要感谢Zidoo提供的M6进行审查。该设备无法在线购买，但是您可以查看产品页面for the mini PC and board, and contact Zidoo if you are interested. I’ve also received a link with an Ubuntu image which I’ll use for the third part of the review.