Sumvision Cyclone Android X4 TV box Review

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Sumvision Cyclone

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The Sumvision Cyclone V4 Android box is aimed squarely at the media streaming market.

It’s compact little design is perfect for adding to your existing TV setup without taking up much space, taking on the now familiar puck favoured by these media devices.

The Cyclone comes two USB ports and a remote control.  Unlike other Android boxes the remote receiver is built into the box, so you don’t take up a USB slot with a dongle.

Although small and nice looking the remote was only really of use for apps that only require limited up/down/left/right, such as Netflix.  It was actually fairly frustrating to use for anything other than this and so is better replaced with either the Sumvision Freestyle Airmouse or a decent keyboard/trackpad combination such as those offered by Logitech.

Sumvision Cyclone

On the inside the Cyclone is powered by a 1.5 Ghz quad core processor and has 8GB of internal storage which can be expanded via a micro SD or SDHC card.  Although an AV cable was included a HDMI cable wasn’t.

Booting up Android boxes is alway interesting, what sort of design will the manufacturers use to make this TV friendly?  Boot up the Cyclone and you’ll be presented with an interface that’ll look familiar to anyone who has ever used XBMC (AKA Kodi).

It’s a simple menu system with icons listed under categories such as video, musics etc.  Each of these can have app shortcuts added to them, for example you might add a shortcut to Plex under the video menu.

Although simple, the Cyclone menu system wasn’t a fluid as you might expect and it feels a little clunky.  This is surprising as when you load up apps such as XBMC or YouTube you get a nice smooth interface that don’t suffer from any lag.

With a quad core the Cyclone could be a good little gaming box, unfortunately at the time of review the Cyclone doesn’t support the Xbox control pad in the same way most Android boxes do and that meant testing games using the Sumvision Airmouse.  Games appeared to run well, but I wouldn’t want to play them without a proper controller.  Note that only the Xbox controller was tested, perhaps this works well with other controller types.

The Cyclone has potential, but to stand out from the numerous competitors it really needs a better interface, controller support and a much better remote.  If you’re looking for a little box for XBMC/YouTube/Plex etc then it’s well worth considering.

Available now from Amazon: https://amzn.to/1JZ95BY


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