The new G-Box Q goes on sale from Matricom – AndroidPCReview

It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything from Matricom.

Since the

came out back in 2012 we’ve seen a host of new Smart TV boxes. There’s been some from the major manufacturers, but there’s also been a lot from some new companies we haven’t heard of before. Still, the only product to come out of the Matricom labs has been the ill-fated . What happened to Matricom?

The new G-Box Q quad-core

It turns out they didn’t forget about is. Matricom released their new Android TV box, the G-Box Q at the end of November, just before the Black Friday shopping rush.

The new G-box Q is based on the Amlogic S802 quad-core chipset and Mali 450 GPU. If that sounds like a familiar combination, it is. It happens to be the same combination that’s in the

and the Beelink S82, among several others. The chipset has it’s limitations, such as . However, it does have a lot of upsides as well. The S802 has a higher maximum limit for system RAM (4GB) than the newer S805 or S812 chips. There’s also a well-established developer market for S802 devices, so getting updates, new ROMs, or just little performance tweaks should be pretty easy.

Rounding out the specs of the new G-Box Q is 2 GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage, an SD card slot and 2 USB 2.0 ports. There’s a bit of a trade-off for network connectivity. There’s only a 10/100 wired Ethernet port, but there’s a gigabit 802.11ac wireless adapter, as well as Bluetooth 4.0.

The G-Box Q is currently selling for $109, which puts it right about the same price range as other S802 based devices.

In addition to the new box, Matricom has also been working on a new launcher to go with it. It has a familiar Metro-style interface, but mixes in a sidebar menu for quick access to Videos, Music, Apps and Settings screens. According to Matricom, updates to the launcher will be available through the Google Play store for a more seamless (read: automatic) experience for the user. As with later versions of the G-Box MX2, there will be

as well.

I’ve been impressed with the performance of the other S802 boxes we’ve tried, so I’m really looking forward to trying out the G-Box Q soon. Stay tuned for a full review.

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Starting with his Commodore 128 back in the 1980’s, Tim has been involved in technology ever since. A Google evangelist, when he’s not digging into details about the latest Android or Chrome device, he’s going to graduate school for Predictive Analytics or spending time at Disney World.

Louis Craine

This box has gotten a lot of good upgrades lately with the firmare. I didnt like it at first but LOVE it now.

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