INTRODUCTION

   Watching movies and series on a large TV screen and in the best possible quality is something I’ve liked ever since i can remember. For good or bad my generation grew up with VHS tapes and later on laser discs so unfortunately since high quality in movies and series is something that really started to be possible in the late 90's with the appearance of the first DVD players that wasn't really possible. Now it did take a while for the first Blu-ray and HD-DVD players to make their appearance after the DVD ones and make it possible for people to watch HD and Full HD content on their TV screens (that's history now since Blu-Ray won the Full HD race years ago / still have my HD-DVD players however) but after that things changed rapidly and so now not only do we have 4k hardware and content available but manufacturers are even working on bringing 6k and 8k hardware to the masses as well. Rikomagic is one of the newest yet well-established network media player manufacturers in the market and since they released their first 4k compatible HDMI dongle called the V5 we just had to check it out.

   We were pioneers of the Android Mini PC concept and were the first Android Mini PC provider. Based in Shenzhen, China, Rikomagic aims to revolutionize the digital media player market. Our Research and Development team has extensive expertise in consumer electronics products and the development of network media players. Our core strength remains focused around Android PCs and Android Mini PCs, where we have a great deal of experience. Rikomagic has been at the forefront of the development of multimedia, internet connected devices which truly transform TVs into home entertainment centers. The combination of our forward-looking market research, proven technological expertise and acumen, innovation, and our mature and efficient development process has given us industry-wide recognition. We differentiate ourselves by the quality, value and sophistication of our products. Our customers trust the RKM brand to enhance their entertainment experience, and we always strive to exceed their expectations.

   For the V5 Rikomagic has used the latest Rockchip RK3288 Cortex-A17 ARM SoC (System On Chip / 28nm process) which features 4 cores clocked up to 1.8GHz along with the Quad Core Mali-T764 ARM 3D GPU clocked at 600MHz (supports DirectX 11, OpenCL, OpenCL 1.1, OpenGL ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenVG 1.1), 2GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB of onboard storage and HDMI v2.0 (3840x2160 max resolution supported). Thanks to the above specifications the V5 has the ability to playback even 4k H.264/H.265 10bits encoded content without breaking a sweat (always according to Rikomagic). The V5 also comes ready with Bluetooth v4.0, Dual Band WiFi (2.4/5GHz - 802.11 b/g/n), Gigabit RJ45 slot (10/100/1000M), microSD card slot, two USB ports (Host/OTG) and support for a webcam (needless to say that the V5 also features keyboard and mouse support). So is this the to go to network media player for most people on a budget?

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The V5 gets shipped inside a small white box with just the company logo and model name printed at the top.

Some of the things you can do with the V5 like watch movies via XBMC/Kodi and YouTube are listed on both sides.

You can find the specifications table for the V5 at the rear of the box right above contact information for Rikomagic.

The dongle is placed inside a formed piece of plastic which is also used to protect the rest of the bundle placed beneath it.

With the V5 dongle you are also getting the power adapter, USB extension cable, HDMI extension cable and the user manual.

THE V5

The V5 is not your average HDMI Android stick/dongle since it's quite bulky (measures 113mm in length, 45mm in width, 20mm in height and weighs 58g). The good thing with this is that unlike other similar products this is very solid.

To showcase its size we placed the V5 right next to yet another Android device we are testing currently, the Cubox-i by Solidrun.

At the front of the V5 we see the RJ45 port, power port and the USB host port.

The USB OTG port and the microSD card slot are both placed on the right side.

As expected the only thing at the rear is the HDMI v2.0 connector.

A sticker at the base of the V5 contains information like the specs of this particular model (2GB DDR3 / 16GB ROM) and its factory rollout date (December 2014).

USING THE V5

Once you plug the V5 into your TV screen and turn it on it takes almost 20 seconds to load the main screen.

Now although I’ve read that some people claim the V5 comes wearing Android v4.4.4 our sample wears the v4.4.2. Of course we've been using this dongle for months so between when it made its way here and now other models released could wear a newer android version (although in that case our sample should be able to upgrade to that version).

Rikomagic has quite a few apps installed in the V5 (some will require to get updated if you have the device connected to the internet).

The APK installer is self-explanatory so through here you can manually install APKs.

Via the Media Center you can playback content found in storage media connected to your home network.

No games are preinstalled but Play Store has numerous free ones so that's easy to fix.

By default the V5 arrived with Kodi v14.1 installed but since we encountered some playback issues we installed version v15.1.

Once you launch the newest Kodi version you will see the all-time classic menu (same as XBMC) and an announcement that v16 Alpha is also available (no need to get that version however).

As usual through the settings menu you can change the skin of the player, adjust various playback settings, setup add-ons, configure the video and audio output and of course monitor the system from the system information pages.

Playback using Kodi v15.2 was perfect although we did encounter some issues with fast forward and skipping chapters.

CONCLUSION

   For someone who’s been using full sized media players ever since they got introduced in the market almost a decade ago the V5 doesn’t seem capable for much largely because of its size. Things however in this industry never stay the same and so although full sized media players used to use single and dual ARM CPUs and GPUs now manufacturers can fit a quad core ARM CPU and a quad core Mali GPU inside a compact HDMI dongle like the V5 (not to mention the 2GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB ROM, dual band WiFi, Bluetooth v4.0 and much more). Unfortunately if you’re looking for a tiny HDMI android stick the V5 will let you down since it’s quite bulky and can’t be easily used behind a TV screen if you have other HDMI devices connected as well (although the supplied extension cord resolves this). Through testing the V5 for a period of 2 months we found nothing wrong with it, navigation was smooth, playback was excellent with vibrant colors (using the new Kodi v15.1 app) and even the WiFi and Bluetooth features worked flawlessly. However we did come across a single issue and that was the fast forward and skip chapter functionality in Kodi. If you try it 1 time it works fine but if you try to fast forward a lot or skip more than just 1 chapter then the app would crash to the main menu. I don’t know if this was isolated to our sample and if other samples (perhaps the ones using android v4.4.4) work fine but we were frustrated a bit by that.

   In terms of pricing the V5 Android Stick by Rikomagic is balanced since it currently retails for USD100.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 106.98Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de). Of course when there are Android Sticks for half as much in the market (some even cheaper) some consumers may have a hard time picking the V5 over them. In the end once again it all comes down to what your needs are and how much you’re willing to pay so if you want a powerful android stick capable of 4k playback and with plenty of features the V5 is for you and since we enjoyed using it we’re giving it our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Performance (Quad CPU/GPU/2GB DDR3)
- 16GB ROM
- Bluetooth V4.0
- Dual Band WiFi
- RJ45 Port
- HDMI v2.0

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Size (For Some)
- Kodi Fast Forward/Skip Chapter Issue?