[Review] Android review and test

ChrisP

Hi,

as I was happy to have one Guitar sent to me by LeMaker, here is my first review of this little shinny box.

I was wondering which of power supply from my unused box I could use. I found a power supply with a plug that looks fitting, it’s rated 5V / 2.4A with ground around the plug. I found no description about plug polarity on lemaker’s web site, but the +pin in the middle just sound so common that after a quick prayer, I switched the power on.
Good, it’s starting, with a new 3D lemaker logo. The Guitar was delivered with Android preinstalled on the Flash storage and just quickly show the initial android configuration. The boot was pretty quick, first good surprise.

Globally, android feeling is very smooth, it just work as you want to use it.

Another good surprise, my Logitech k400 combo keyboard was recognized out of the box! When I remember the trouble to make it work with the bananapi with initial android distro, that’s a good progress.

So what’s inside the OS ? Going to the android config, I could see what the build rely on:

1. •Android 5.1.1
   
2. •Kernel: 3.10.37, lee@R710 #3

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I went inside the settings menu to personalize the box, was able to change system language to french, change the keyboard layout to azerty, sounds like all the regional setting from android are present. Good.

Network: Ethernet port was just working, I’ll do some test later on it, and Wifi just connected to my network out of the box, with pretty good signal strengh.
Screen: However, to be honest, I have an issue with the build provided regarding screen: For now I did’nt found any way to adjust resolution, despite my full HD screen plugged through the hdmi cable. So for now I’m stuck at 1024*600. That’s ok for starting, but I’ll have to find a way to activate 1920*1080 resolution.

Storage: at user level, the storage is visible with this organizzation:

1. Internal storage is 1.91 GB wide, with 1.39 free out of the box.
   
2. Internal SD card is 2.89 GB wide, with everything available out of the box.
   

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Since I was able to completely reset the android system from scratch, I presume that the lacking space (around 3 GB) is for restoration.

Let’s do some tests:

Antutu (please remember that it’s executed for 1024*600 resolution)

1. <b>Score: 25783
   
2. </b>
   
3. UX / Multitask: 3055
   
4. UX / Runtime: 2517
   
5. 
   
6. CPU / CPU Integer: 1950
   
7. CPU / CPU float-point : 3061
   
8. 
   
9. CPU / Single-thread integer: 1536
   
10. CPU / Single-thread float-point: 888
    
11. 
    
12. RAM / RAM Operation: 1608
    
13. RAM / RAM Speed: 904
    
14. 
    
15. GPU / 2D Graphic: 2356
    
16. GPU / 3D Graphics: [1024*600] 6560

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I'm not yet sure of the CPU frequency, but Pimp my Rom app tell me the max is 1200 MHz and cpu governor is cfq

Let’s try Kodi now. Based on Kodi 15.2 RC3 this is what I tried.

To be sure to test video capacity and not pure Kodi side issues, I started with the set of samples movies found there: http://jell.yfish.us/ . Those are h264 1080p movies with various bitrate, which is more important that testing just HD files.
The movies are accessed from my Synology NAS, which have much more bandwidth and disk speed that what can be done from a 100 Mbps Ethernet NIC.

Jellyfish Bitrate	Result
10 Mbps	Perfect
20 Mbps	Perfect
25 Mbps	Perfect
30 Mbps	Perfect
35 Mbps	Perfect
40 Mbps	Perfect
45 Mbps	Perfect
50 Mbps	Some skips
60 Mbps	Some skips

So everything is completely smooth and crispy from 5 Mbps until 50 MBps bitrate, then from 55 Mbps I started to have small frame skips. This is very good, way better that any mkv file you should try.

Then I tried the torture test video file I used to test my bananapi, to be found there: http://forum.kodi.tv/printthread.php?tid=139566
I had mixed result. The first time it played with some small lags in the middle (never achieved that on my Banana Pi !) The second run was just completely smooth.
During this playback, I had the command “top” running in adb. The result is:

1. User 23 %, System: 24%, IOW 0%, IRQ 10%.

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But then I tried other file format. VC1 is just a no go, almost not playing. Will try more later.

To be able to interact with the android system for advanced interaction, you have several options. The one I used is to use adb.

The Android ROM is completely ready for that, but on Windows size, you need two actions:

• Plug Guitar USB port to your computer. Install adb universal driver, by following this page: http://androidxda.com/download-best-android-adb-driver. Then go to Windows Device Manager, identify the device named “Guitar”, choose “Update Windows Driver”, then “Browse my computer for driver”, then “Let me pick a list of driver”, then choose “android device”, then “Android ADB Interface”.
• Then install android SDK standalone tools from there https://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/index.html?pkg=tools and once launched install “Android SDK Platform-tools” to have adb.
  

Once android is booted (not in ADFU mode), the command “adb shell” let you launch command on android. If you need to use “su” from android shell, do not forget to acknowledge the Super-Su prompt in android main screen.

ChrisP

I just found some tests I made with various image on BananaPi, so here is a quick table to compare various performance items:

For now graphical scores are not revelant since only 1024*600 resolution is used, against 1920*1080 for BananPi

model	memory	integer	float	score2d	scored3d	database	sram	svm	srs	smt	snand	ints	floats	score	cpu
4.2 Clean Mattrix version\STOCK-MOD.img	584	554	694	710	2538	445	988	798	0	2059	411	703	761	11245	1056  MHz (x2)
Build 4.2  from LeMaker SDK\bpi_android.img	567	543	671	671	2393	325	900	750	0	1946	427	699	769	10661	1056 MHz (x2)
SDK2\bpi_android.img	506	478	598	698	2587	405	961	676	0	1644	352	606	663	10174	1056  MHz (x2)
Guitar	1603	1949	3029	2346	6500	635	842	2420	0	3009	559	1566	915	25373	1104 MHz (x4)
Guitar 1080p ChrisP build	1608	1950	3029	1549	4305	640	897	2504	0	3079	693	1588	916	22758	1104 MHz (x4)

(Edit: Added 1080P Scores)

penguinfly

good job!

Jeff

Did you test the latest android image released few days ago? http://www.lemaker.org/thread-22515-1-1.html

ChrisP

@Jeff.

The test was initially done with the Android distribution allready loaded on the Guitar that was delivered to me. However, I burned this version and the last Antutu result are done on the last realeased version.

I've seen no différence at all, I'm convinced it's the same version.

tommygun

Nice work, ChrisP.  Thank you for sharing your work.   Looking forward to owning the guitar and working with Android/Kodi.