The Tayun G10 Android box is a compact little unit that has an inbuilt WiFi antenna, Bluetooth, an Ethernet port and 4 USB ports.
It comes with a remote, charging cable for the remote and a HDMI cable. There isn’t much in the way of instructions and while it’s easy to get up and running be warned you may need to Google answers on how to set up various features.
Unlike other Android boxes the G10 comes with an airmouse/keyboard combination, something of an essential add on that makes Android on a TV a lot easier to use so it’s great to see such a remote included in the box.
On one side of the small remote are quick navigation buttons, on the rear is a mini keyboard. You won’t win any speed typing competitions with this, but it’s perfect for the occasional bit of text entry, for example entering usernames and passwords during the initial setup process.
The manufacturer has chosen to supply the G10 with a choice of 3 different launchers, there is the traditional Android tablet view, a big button TV mode and a bit of a half and half mode that I wasn’t keen on. It’ll be down to personal preference which you use and the great thing about Android is this decision can always be changed at a later date.
A version of Kodi is also preinstalled, called KodiOS, which offers an alternative to using the Android menu systems for opening apps and accessing media.
There has also been an attempt to preinstall various addons. If this is something you’re interested in you’ll likely be disappointed as many were found not to work, so you’ll need to manually set up any additional Kodi services you might want to use.
In terms of other steaming services, Netflix worked fine, but there were problems with Google Play movies (unsupported device) as well as, surprisingly, YouTube playback. For some reason many videos played back in a very choppy manner, the audio was fine but the video wasn’t something you’d want to watch.
The multiple USB ports mean this can be far more than a media streaming box. For example plug in a full sized keyboard and mouse and this can act as a little workstation. Or for the gamers out there, plug in a control pad and use this as a mini games console.
As you’d hope at this price and with a 64 bit octa core processor, the G10 handles games really well. Asphalt8 ran really smoothly and is a really great game and works just as well on the TV as it does on a mobile.
For the price it’s disappointing to find so many broken features on the box, and while it performed well in many areas it’s difficult to recommend this over something like the Sumvision Cyclone X4+ which offers equally good performance for half the price.
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