First startup, setup, and first impressions.
Shenzhen Tomato sent me a product sample called TM8 (Tomato M8). But in our review, I will simply call it M8.
The device in the set comes with a simple IR remote control, but without two AAA batteries. I do not use this remote because I prefer to operate using an RF remote with the Android system; during the test, I used a wireless mouse: the Mele F10 air mouse, which has a QWERTY keyboard and a gyroscope for easy pointer movement. Besides the IR remote, the set includes a 5V/2A power adapter and a 1-meter HDMI cable. Before connecting the power, I connected the Ethernet, HDMI, and USB cables, as well as the RF Dongle receiver for the Mele F10 RF remote. The device itself has no power button, so as soon as you connect the power, a blue LED light turns on and the M8 starts loading its Metro-style system, which looks very similar to Windows 8.
M8 Home Screen
At the top of the screen, there are status icons (Ethernet / Wi-Fi / Bluetooth / Storage), weather (only Chinese cities are available in the settings), as well as the time and date. There are also six main menus: Online Video (one Chinese app), My Recommendations (favorite apps), Settings. There are also shortcuts at the bottom of the screen to the 4K player, Music, a Chinese IPTV app, and the APK installer by default. You can add and remove whichever you want, as you like, as shown in the screenshot. The user interface has a resolution of 1920 × 1080.
The "Settings" menu provides access to settings also presented in the Metro style from four submenus: Network, Display, Advanced, and Others.
Advanced Setup
Network settings allow you to choose Ethernet or Wi-Fi connections, display settings: resolution autodetection, UHD / 4K output support, the ability to hide or show the status bar, adjust the display size, and screen saver. I have the status bar enabled as it is more convenient to use; the bar automatically hides during video playback. The advanced menu allows you to start Miracast (source only, not display), enable the remote control program (RemoteIME.apk), CEC controller settings, set your location (only Chinese cities are available), set screen orientation, and choose digital audio output (PCM, SPDIF pass-through, HDMI pass-through). The "Other" button provides some details about the Android version (4.4.2) and kernel version (10.03.10). You can access the standard Android settings by going through Settings -> Other -> More settings. The Android settings in this window are based on the phone interface, not the tablet, which requires a few more clicks.
You can check the user interface settings in the video below (in English).
I used the HDMI output at 1080p during my tests, which was automatically detected when I turned on the device. But if you switch to manual mode, you can also see 4K video output at 24, 25, and 30 Hz, as well as 4K SMPTE. There is also an AV output, which is automatically applied if HDMI is not detected. This works well with this stereo audio output. If you use the AV output, you can go to the settings menu to choose between 480cvbs and 576cvbs. To switch back to HDMI, connect the cable and select the input on the TV. Restart is not necessary.
5.75 GB of space is reserved for the user out of 8 GB of NAND flash memory, and right after the software update, there is over 5 GB of free space on a single partition. The software is rooted. Looking in the "About MediaBox" section shows the model number as "K200," and just like in the Custom Settings section, it shows that Android 4.4.2 is running kernel version 3.10.10.
It is possible to install most applications from the Google Play Store including Facebook, ES Explorer, Root checker, Antutu, Quadrant, Vellamo, Candy Crush Saga, etc. ... Sixaxis Controller could not be installed due to an error in Google Play.
As I mentioned earlier, there is no power button on the device, and all you can do with the IR remote is enter and exit standby mode. The only way to truly turn it off is by disconnecting the power. I checked the case temperature after starting a 3D game. The top part was 55 °C, the bottom 43 °C, with the room temperature around 28 °C.
As expected, the results are good, the system responds very quickly, but the software is not as stable as I expected; it froze several times, requiring a power cycle restart. This happened while running benchmarks in the game and while taking screenshots. In both situations, the device apparently turned off by itself (the blue LED went out), possibly due to overheating.
XBMC 13.0 beta 1 is installed on the device, so I used XBMC for video tests. I only used MX Players in case of errors and to precisely check Dolby / DTS audio. Movies are played from SAMBA on Ubuntu 13.10 via an Ethernet connection. I had no problem with the SAMBA configuration either in XBMC or in ES File Explorer.
I started with videos from www.samplemedia.linaro.org, plus a few videos with the H.265/HEVC codec from Elecard:
I also tested several videos with a high bitrate:
I also tested the commonly used audio codecs below, using PCM in XBMC:
MX Player did not produce any sound while playing these files using the H/W decoder.
Sintel-Bluray.iso, a free Blu-ray ISO file, plays well in XBMC, and it is also possible to navigate between the movie chapters.
I tested several 4K videos in MX Player (XBMC doesn't work - only audio):
I also tested several AVI, MKV, FLV, and MP4 videos, everything works except for one FLV that had only audio output.
Using ES File Explorer, I managed to transfer a 278 MB file between SAMBA and internal flash memory, and back, repeating the test three times. On this device, there is a clear difference in transfer performance between Samba to flash memory and in the opposite direction. Transferring the file between flash memory and SAMBA took between 03:16 and 04:54, but in the opposite direction it took between 5:51 and 07:47. Time tr
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