GearBest Android TV Box MIII M82 Review - Packs A Punch For The Price

We would like to begin with saying that there are no standards or definitions that state what an Android device must do to be considered a “TV box.” With many Android TV boxes in the market from the big players, the competition is certainly becoming tough. Well, the good guys at GearBest.com sent us an Android TV Box for review. Titled 'Android TV Box MIII M82', the product is priced at $89.23 and packs some really impressive specifications. Let us first take a look at what's inside the package.

Unboxing -

The Android TV Box MXIII M82 comes inside a compact box that has all the basic information about the important specs on the front and information about ports and buttons is present on the rear. As you will see from the images below and the accompanying video (at the end), inside the package there's the TV Box along with - an IR Remote Controller, AC adapter, HDMI cable, A/V cable, USB OTG Cable and an User Manual.

The top of the box has a shiny logo that says 'MXIII' and a power on/off button with a LED. The texture on the top has a nice & smooth matte finish. On the box's side, there are multiple ports. On the right there's - a MicroSD card slot, a Bluetooth OTG ports and two USB 2.0 ports. On the back side, there's a Power port, an AV port, a RJ35 ethernet port, a HDMI cable port and finally a SPDIF port. The user manual clearly describes the step-by-step actions to be taken to open/switch/close apps and reading external storage data. As also there's instructions for WLAN Hotspot, Miracast, DLNA and AirPlay connectivity.

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The Design -

The compact box looks a lot like Amazon Fire TV when it comes to overall look and feel except for the addition of the power button on the top. The box is pretty lightweight at just 192 grams. On the box's rear end there are small holes on all four corner for heat sink.

The Setup -

Setting up the Android TV Box is easy-peasy. Connect the power chord to the power socket and the box. We used HDMI cable to connect the box to the TV. For controlling we used the IR Remote Controller that came within the package and also connected a PlayStation 3 Controller using USB port. The access to the system via both input modes was jerk-free.

The Hardware -

Powered by an Amlogic S802 Quad-Core Cortex-A9 2.0GHz processor and an Octa Core Mali-450MP8 graphics processor, the Android TV Box features 2GB DDR3 RAM and 8GB Nand flash ROM with 32GB microSD support. Among the specs highlighted by the company, there's 2K/4K ultra HD video play back support that stands out. We tried running a couple of videos and found that the playback performance is amazing.

The Software -

Running on Android 4.4 KitKat OS, the MIII boots up to two launcher options - A stock Android Launcher and a MediaBox Launcher. The Android Launcher comes with the normal Android UI, whereas the MediaBox Launcher has the Windows 8's Metro UI like tiled UI. (There are tiles for various apps and options). The Android Launcher's UI is something that all Android users are familiar with. No surprises on that part.

We tried the MediaBox Launcher after connecting the box to the TV and this is what it looked like -

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The First Screen
After clicking on My Apps tab, the following screen opens up.

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Here you can choose from a number of pre-loaded apps such as YouTube, Gmail, Netflix etc. We clicked on the Settings app and found four tabs.

1. Network Tab - Lists all the available Wireless Networks and lets the user set up ethernet connection.
2. Display Tab - Lets you setup HDMI connectivity and change the Display scale and position.
3. Advanced Tab - Lets you set up Miracast, Audio Output and HDMI CEC Controller.
4. Other - Lists all the system information and updates.
The Network Tab -​
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The Advanced Tab -
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Making apps that work on Android phones run on a TV is simply wonderful. The Wi-Fi connectivity was seamless. We played a couple of HD videos from YouTube and the quality was really good. We also used the XBMC Media Centre (the open source home theater software that comes pre-loaded) and it works as intended.

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The Pros -
The Android TV Box MIII M82 is a great product if you are giving the device a try for the first time after hearing a lot about it. It works great for playing Android games on a big screen TV, accessing social networking apps such as Facebook & Twitter, playing music & videos and surfing the web from the comfort of your living room. Moreover, for the price it is offered at GearBest's MIII M82 bundles a lot of features that are at par with other Android TV Boxes in the market which are priced much higher (Amazon Fire TV $99, Roku 3 $99, Apple TV $99)

The Cons -
However, there are some things we feel that could've been better. For instance, the device is completely incompatible with certain apps since most of the international market can't read Chinese, it's difficult to understand the functions of some stored .apks and preloaded apps. This of course does not have any effect on the core functionality. It does what is supposed to do perfectly.

Final Verdict -
If you are one of those who is dying to get hands on an Android TV Box, the MIII M82 can very well be it. It has a fast processor, good graphics and neat UI. You'll never regret buying it.

Do check out the unboxing video below and an Antutu Benchmark test results in comments -


That said, we want to add that the folks over at GearBest.com were kind enough to share a Coupon Code: GBM82HF with us. As mentioned above, the original price is 89.23$. After using this coupon, you can save $10.24 and buy the Android TV Box for $78.99. Get the #-Link-Snipped-#.

If you feel there's more you would like to know about this Android TV Box, leave us your comments in replies.

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