Techie delight then big setback - my $60 Android 4.1.1 PC/TV box saga
I've had my eye on an Android PC/TV box for a while. Just recently they started making them with my minimal standard of Android 4.0 (which now has become minimal standard 4.1). I finally chose one based on a consensus of techie hobbyists who have been early adopters of these new devices. It is intended to replace my aging non-WI-FI NBOX media player box for easy viewing/listening of downloaded videos and MP3 files, etc. While there are popular media boxes like Roku that include wi-fi and can do that basic task (in a proprietary and incomplete way), I convinced myself that a full Android PC/TV box was immensely more flexible and complete for doing both that task plus so much more.
My new $60 Uhost2 PC is just slightly larger than a small harmonica. It has built-in wi-fi, two full size USB ports, a microSD memory slot, an HDMI video port (to use your TV as monitor), and a micro-USB power port to connect to either a TV's USB port or to a provided external USB power converter.
If one chooses to use the TV's USB port for power, there is enough power to run the device itself plus a USB flash drive and a wireless keyboard dongle (you could also just use a normal USB keyboard and/or mouse/trackball). Using the external USB power supply and a $5 USB hub, you would have even more power, enough to add stuff like a USB hard drive, USB video webcam, etc.
These Android PC/TV box devices are still relatively early-adopter semi-experimental material but, as a techie, I thought I should be up to figuring out how to fix any glitches and for testing the capability of the device. I was also curious to see the low-cost real-world performance and practical aspects of a mouse-driven Android PC instead of a touch-based Android tablet or smartphone.
http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Uhost-2-Dual-Core-TV-Box-Mini-PC-Android-4-0-4-RK3066-Cortex-A9-1-6GHZ-1GB-RAM-4G-ROM-with-Bluetooth-WIFI-Skype-XBMC---Black-312467.html
This Uhost2 device currently comes shipped with the slightly older Android 4.0.4 O/S but a Uhost2 Android 4.1.1 firmware O/S update is available. The first task was figuring out the gotchas of the USB power connection and then booting up this tiny PC and checking out the basics of how the Android O/S software works on the device. To my surprise, after booting up, the "look and feel" of the customized Android O/S was much nicer than the same Android O/S on my Google Nexus 7 tablet. This is far different than the typically not-so-laudatory comments about customized Android on other similar devices. Unlike some other similar devices, the Uhost2 also comes pre-rooted. Setting up my home wi-fi connection was just as easy as on my Google (Asus) N7 tablet. Internet browsing was quick and glitch-free. My USB Logitech C910 webcam worked great for Google+ video hangouts.
The Uhost2 Android PC is based on Rockchip's RK3066 dual-core SoC (system-on-chip) CPU instead of better known and faster quad-core SoCs like Nvidia's Tegra3 used in my Google Nexus 7 tablet. However, the Uhost2 uses a fast Mali 400 video chip so that many video-centric operations may be nearly as fast as the Tegra3. Besides cost, there are practical reasons to use a dual-core processor rather than quad-core, primarily heat (the usual "device death" culprit in such a small device). Faster processors with more cores usually means considerably greater and potentially damaging heat output. There are smaller Android TV devices with correspondingly smaller heat sinks that are reportedly much more prone to heat death.
So after installing some free apps from the Google "Play" store and then testing out a few, I was surprised at the generally good apparent speed and feel of the Uhost2. The Android O/S (other than touch) operated basically similar to my Android experience on the Google Nexus 7. I was quickly disappointed, however, that my all-around superior media player app on the Nexus 7, DicePlayer, just gave a cryptic error message, and exited. A note about DicePlayer and the RK3066 on the app's web page suggested an uninstall and reinstall but it had no effect. This was especially disappointing because DicePlayer, unlike most other media player apps, handled accessing Windows PC (Samba) shares so well. This was my intended primary use, playing networked video and audio media files via the Uhost2 so I now had to explore media app alternatives again.
First, however, I wanted to upgrade the O/S from Android 4.0.4 to Android 4.1.1 and wondered how that would work since the Uhost2 apparently lacked an OTG (host) USB port. I really never had to go that route, however, since I found information of the web that said just download the Uhost2 firmware file U2.411.etc.etc.img file then rename it to upgrade.img and place it in the main directory of a micro-SD card or USB flash drive. Then stick the micro-SD card in the Uhost2 micro-SD slot or attach the USB flash drive to a Uhost2 USB port and REBOOT. Surprisingly, this worked just fine. After upgrade, I was a bit uneasy that the first-time reboot process was slow but subsequent reboots were relatively quick again. The Android O/S upgrade meant everything was likely wiped clean: all download apps and settings were lost. However, this was expected on rooted devices.
With a now good Android 4.1.1 O/S (none of the video sync issues found on 4.0.4), I started downloading more familiar apps that I had on my Google Nexus 7 tablet. Upon testing a few on my new Uhost2 PC, most seemed to work about the same as on the Nexus 7 tablet.
This version of the Uhost2 came with 1GB RAM and only 2GB of (internal SD) memory. Even though I could use external USB flash drives for basic storage of movies, MP3s, document files, etc., the internal 2GB would certainly limit the amount of APP space for downloaded programs. So (unfortunately, as it turned out) I inserted an empty 8GB micro-SD card into the tiny spring-loaded Uhost2 micro-SD slot. Then I went into Settings->Storage to change the SD to external so that I could move many apps to the 8GB micro-SD card instead main memory or the internal SD memory.
The first major problem occurred after each reboot. I got a message each time that a new UPGRADE was found on the external SD and would I like to install the UPGRADE. (The answer in NO or you will wipe everything out again.) This became annoying (and slightly dangerous) so I shut down the Uhost2 and removed my 8GB microSD card. I then inserted it into my Notebook PC to rename the upgrade.img file to u2-411.Ximg files so that it would not be recognized by the Android O/S as an upgrade file.
As is normal, I will often start multitasking with other things on my Notebook PC and other miscellaneous activities. When I returned to reboot the Uhost2, I had assumed that from my Notebook I had renamed the upgrade.img file on the 8GB microSD card (but, upon reflection, I likely just did so on my USB flash drive) and then just reinserted the 8GB card back into the Uhost2's micro-SD slot.
Later I returned to playing with my new Uhost2 techie toy. On bootup, however, I found that something had gone wrong. Many app icons when clicked indicated that they were missing. I went into Settings->Storage to see that SD was still set to External but there was no evidence that it was active (mounted). Basically, my apps that I moved to External SD were not there anymore. I tried various utility apps to find the external microSD card files with no success. I then shutdown the Uhost2 to look for the missing 8GB microSD card.
There is a fairly limited area where I thought that the tiny 8GB microSD card might be but after a search I could not find it.
They are so small that it would not take much to lose one. I tried to gaze into the Uhost2 microSD slot with strong reading glasses to see if it was somehow jammed in there. The slot is so narrow (and unfamiliar) that I could not visually determine for certain whether that had occurred.
I then took the only remaining available (full) microSD card from my cell phone and tried to push it in part way. It did seem like the push would work so my conclusion is that the 8GB microSD card is just missing. Based on that, the best option was to redo my upgrade (wiping everything out again) using the upgrade.img file I still had sitting on a USB flash drive.
So I rebooted with the IMG upgrade file on my attached USB flash drive. Fortunately, the re-upgrade worked and I got a clean Android 4.1.1 O/S again. Without any external microSD card storage, however, I knew that I had to be very selective in the size and number of apps I could install until I got a replacement microSD card. I was relieved, however. I thought I was home free with a Android PC/TV box that was still quite nice fully functioning again.
I downloaded several file manager and media player apps for testing. I have 1TB of video and audio files shared and sitting on a Windows 7 external portable USB 3.0 drive. Unfortunately, despite the obvious need, most Android media player apps handle networked Windows shares (Samba) poorly, if at all. Many that do handle networking well, are poor video performers or were limited in the type of video and audio files they supported. (Diceplayer, why hast thou forsaken Rockchip?)
I tried a few file managers apps since some will offload video files to other media apps. Unfortunately, the few I had tested so far can connect to Windows/Samba shares okay but they don't seem able to save the networked shares after a session has ended.
There was one file manager + external media app combo that I was testing that, while not perfect, was reasonably quick. The file manager was simply called "File Manager HD" and the preferred media player app (my 2nd favorite on the Nexus 7) was BSplayer. I first tested an MP4 movie file. It worked fine offloaded to BSplayer or to another good compatible plugin: Innocomm Player.
OH CRAP - then it went brain-dead - and just before it had all (relatively speaking) been going so well ...
I next tried an AVI movie file. Again, no problem. Then I tried an MKV movie file (with corresponding subtitle file) that works just fine using BSplayer on my Nexus 7 tablet. This time: A MAJOR FAILURE. BSplayer froze and the Uhost2 PC rebooted. The normal reboot process seemed to be working but then it just never finished. Instead of completing the reboot, the light-pulsing word ANDROID just stayed on the screen. I checked the Uhost2 case and it was just warm, not hot, so "heat death" seemed unlikely. Even so, I decided to let it cool off for an hour and try again. After a few reboot attempts, I had no success, just the same reboot "startup and then freeze" behavior - my Uhost2 was effectively dead.
As it stands, I will have to research the internet (unless someone else volunteers an answer) to see how I can revive the Uhost2 device without having access to an absent OTG USB port. I am really unfamiliar with Android hacking - is there a reboot interrupting key sequence like CTRL-D, CTRL-C, F8, DELETE rinse-and-repeat, etc. like on other O/Ss? If not solved soon, my only recourse is to return it to the internet vendor, Geekbuying. Too bad - I felt that I was so close to having a very nice and very useful device.