Ugoos UM4 Android TV Dongle Review
The Ugoos UM4 TV Dongle at first glance had me a bit confused as to what it really was. I mean it looked like a mini TV box, and at the same time it had all the features of a TV dongle. So in my review I carefully examined the device and came to a conclusion that it was indeed a TV dongle due to the fact that it does not come with an Ethernet LAN port. During my review I also discovered exciting features about this TV dongle that I have not seen evening some TV Boxes.
Thoughts about the hardware
I’ll provide a list below of its hardware specs, but what I would to highlight is the fact that the Ugoos UM4 CPU is clocked at 2.oGHz and not 1.5GHz like in TV boxes. This will provide the much needed performance that these Android devices need. They also used a chipset with DDR4 RAM support, again a great addition to the mix. The Dongle also possesses a USB 3.0 port, and an external antenna, sort of like putting the icing on the cake so to speak. The size of the device is what had me thinking if it was really a dongle or a mini TV box. The only thing I would caution users of this device is to be mindful that this is not a full fledged gaming device, yes it can play Android games very well, but the temperature of the CPU does increase a lot during gaming, and long term over heating can lead to the early death of you device. So keep that in mind, it was really built as a TV stick.
Product Links
Ugoos UM4 TV Dongle – http://shrsl.com/14zny
Hardware specs
- Brand: Ugoos
- Core: Quad Core
- CPU: Rockchip RK3328 Cortex A53 2.0GHz
- GPU: Mali-450MP2 Dual Core 750MHz
- Max. Extended Capacity: TF card up to 64GB (not included)
- RAM: 2G RAM
- RAM Type: DDR4
- ROM: 16G ROM
- System: Android 7.1
- Type: TV Dongle
I/O Ports
- 1 HDMI
- 1 USB 3.0
- 1 USB 2.0 / OTG
- 1 AV Port
- 1 SD TF Card Reader
- 1 IR Receiver Port
- 1 DC Input
- 1 External Antenna
Software Features
The manufacturers of the Ugoos UM4 have decided to go a launcher very similar if not the same as the Nova Launcher. It gives you those features that you’ll normally get on a regular mobile phone. Features like drag and drop features to add shortcuts to the launcher, and to remove or uninstall apps from the launcher. They have included a navigation and status bar for easy navigating of the dongle and multitasking features. The UI comes with two new unique features which are, the option the manually turn on and off the root feature of the device, and a built in gamepad key mapping feature. However, the dongle doesn’t have the open permissions allowing my personal favorite key mapping application to work.
The operating system is Android 7.1.2 Nougat, and as I mentioned it has the option the turn on root access manually from within the settings area. The dongle doesn’t come with any special apps installed, you have to install these for yourself. So I installed Kodi and all my free movie streaming services via APK downloads. I also installed the latest YouTube application but it only shows up to 1080p quality. 4K videos ran really well even my 4K jellyfish video at 400 Mbps bit-rate. I played some games and they ran like if it was being played on a regular TV box.
Benchmark Scores
- Antutu – 33359
- Geekbench4 – 556 single core / 1395 multi core
- Ice Storm Extreme – 2169
- RAM Copy – 3304 MB/s
- ROM Speed – Read 106 MB/s | Write 39MB/s
- WiFi Speed – Excellent Max out
Summary
When I finished using the Ugoos UM4, I got the feeling that they took the time to research the needs of TV box users and movie streamers on Android devices. They managed to meet most of the criteria in my best TV box 2017 checklist. I view the Ugoos UM4 as the most versatile Android TV dongle I have come across, with features that put some big name TV boxes to shame. I hope to see more from Ugoos in the industry with innovation and research like in this device.
On the flip side, they should have included a Bluetooth air mouse in this package, and the dongle an get up to 90°C during gaming so be sure to monitor that.
