| ASUS CUBE Google TV Media Streamer |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Notebook | Compact PC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Olin Coles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 02 May 2013 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
ASUS CUBE Google TV Media Streamer Review
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by ASUS. Television and streaming multimedia content are staples to modern personal entertainment, allowing online providers such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, HBO GO, and YouTube to compete with premium cable and network programming. It's become clear that digital music, photos, and movies have practically replaced their physical counterparts. Likewise, the growing number of people who enjoy streaming and downloaded multimedia content could soon outnumber those tuning in to television broadcasts or renting movies on disc. The industry knows this to be true, which is why ASUSTeK Computer Inc. has introduced the ASUS CUBE Media Streamer with Google TV and given users 50GB of ASUS WebStorage space. In this article, Benchmark Reviews explores the ASUS CUBE and demonstrates how well this second-generation Google TV 'buddy box' fits into the modern home theater landscape. Thanks to digital cameras and MP3 players, it didn't take long for the multimedia library that we once collected on physical media to start being saved as digital files. Most of us have been downloading multimedia onto our computer for as long as we've had Internet access, and any CD/DVD discs previously purchased were soon converted into digitally-stored backup copies. Once portable multimedia devices became commonplace, people began using them to play back their digital library. Unfortunately, the major drawback for watching anything on a smartphone or tablet device is that the screen is usually too small for high-resolution detail, or audio quality falls flat. Google TV joins the wealth of Internet-available multimedia options with television programming from cable, satellite, and antenna services under one umbrella interface. Google TV is a combination 'Smart TV' platform that either comes integrated into branded HDTVs or embedded into a 'buddy box' such as ASUS CUBE with the same functionality. Many television-inspired applications also exist that stream sports broadcasts over the Internet, joining Google Android apps that deliver public radio scanners or cloud-based music playback functionality. The ASUS CUBE Media Streamer with Google TV is designed especially for modern multimedia enthusiasts. Compatible with every modern multimedia format available, ASUS CUBE streams content to and from HDMI devices at 1080p high-definition. Built upon the Google Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) platform, CUBE natively supports HTML5, Chrome, Flash, and even the installation of Google Play applications. Complementing Android's interactive features, the ASUB CUBE Google TV buddy box also offers both motion control and Google Voice Search directly from the remote.
CUBE FeaturesSource: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
Specifications
Closer Look: ASUS CUBEThe ASUS CUBE with Google TV is a $139.00 (Newegg) home theater 'buddy box' that functions as a digital media player, entertainment console, and programming hub. CUBE utilizes a Marvell ARMADA 1500 (88DE3100) secure media processor system-on-chip (SoC), which pairs well to the well-known Google Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) operating system. ASUS adds an impressive universal remote control to CUBE, complete with keyboard, touch pad, microphone, and motion sensors. If you're like me, over the years you've collected a huge digital library full of music, pictures, and movies onto your computer. Occasionally, I might watch a video from off my laptop or listen to a song while working at the desktop, but high-definition movies and music are really best enjoyed on a home theater system with larger screen and powerful speakers.
As one might expect based on the name, ASUS CUBE with Google TV is shaped like a square cube. Measuring 4.92" x 4.92" x 4.92" (12.50 cm3), ASUS CUBE is a bit taller than most other digital media players we've tested. It also weighs 18.4 oz, so supporting it on a stand or shelf is more likely than mounting it on a wall. At the front of CUBE you'll find the ASUS logo, along with an IR (infrared) receiver window and power-indicating LED that glows when on or in standby. On the right side of CUBE is a one of two HighSpeed USB 2.0 ports, and a hard-reset pinhole.
Primary I/O ports are found at the back of CUBE, with ventilation opening discretely placed along the top with ports positioned below. There's a mini-jack output for the included IR Blaster, alongside separate HDMI input and output ports. The HDMI input can connect a cable/satellite/DVD/Blu-ray player or other HDMI source into CUBE for centralized management. The second of two USB 2.0 ports is located above the 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port. The unit's 12V 2A AC input port is the last item on the panel. Digital audio is important to me, since it resists line noise and other sound artifacts from the source. Any A/V receiver (AVR) made since 2010 will offer plenty of HDMI inputs/outputs, which makes the ASUS CUBE a perfect component for any modern home theater system. However, older AVRs may require digital audio connections by either optical TosLink or digital coaxial cable, neither of which are supported by this device.
ASUS CUBE with Google TV utilizes the Marvell ARMADA 1500 SoC, which is capable of both 2D and 3D graphics to produce detailed menus and yield respectable gaming performance. The unit is passively cooled, so it remains silent with no additional energy requirements for noisy fans. ASUS has added flow-through ventilation on CUBE, with openings at the bottom base of the unit to allow air to rise up and out the back panel. ASUS CUBE AccessoriesGoogle TV is designed to bring your home theater appliances together with online devices. To help this along, the ASUS CUBE 'buddy box' comes with an infrared IR Blaster accessory. This item plugs into the back of ASUS CUBE, while transmitter end has a double-sided adhesive backing to attach near other IR-controlled appliances. The idea is that your CUBE remote can also control the HDTV, audio/video receiver, or cable box.
The backbone to CUBE is its innovative universal remote control. CUBE's remote comes complete with keyboard, touch pad, microphone, and motion sensors. Two power buttons are available, one for IR Blaster-attached devices such as a TV or satellite/cable box, and the other for CUBE. The touchpad works in dual mode, as a directional keypad or touch-sensitive pad with tap to choose, and zoom in/out using pinch motions. Android-themed Back and Home keys are joined by Voice Search and Guide keys. Various hotkeys extend picture-in-picture or Options features, while separate volume control and channel/scroll buttons further help the remote stand out against the competition. Voice Search and Cursor toggle buttons are located along the right side of the remote, however the location could make them an easy target for accidentally depressing while grabbing the remote.
Turning the remote over reveals a QWERTY keyboard, with alternate function Shift, Ctrl, and Fn keys that lend a second function to many keys. Similar to the front, Android-themed buttons are also available on the keyboard and allow users to choose to control devices from either side. Two AA alkaline batteries come included with the ASUS CUBE kit, with one installed at each end.
ASUS CUBE comes with a universal ADP-36EH AC adapter, identical to the ASUS Eee PC, which produces 12V 3A output. While ASUS specifies 10W power draw from CUBE, our testing used a Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter to measure true electricity consumption. In standby CUBE consumed 13W, later increasing to 18W during streaming movie playback. The universal remote control transmits and infrared signal out of either end, and in testing did not require direct line of sight with CUBE. Commands were received with 360° vertical/horizontally rotation of the remote. IR range is very good, with positive transmission up to 20-feet away in bright daylight - or better in dark environments.
The ASUS 90YM00B1-M1UAL0 kit includes: CUBE with Google TV, AC adapter with plug cable, multifunction remote control, IR Blaster, Quick Start Guide, and CD-ROM user manual. While it would be ideal to include at least one HDMI cable, most users will already have one available with their HDTV. Google TV Test ResultsGoogle Android devices are everywhere, and the ASUS CUBE with Google TV is hardly the first non-smartphone product to feature this mobile-inspired operating system. We previously experienced Android 2.2 integration on Patriot's PBO Alpine Media Player, and an immature implementation of Android 4.0 later forced the cancelation of testing for the Pivos XIOS DS Media Player. But after a week of testing Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) on the ASUS CUBE, it seems that someone, namely Google, finally put serious effort into developing software suited for specific hardware. ASUS CUBE is supported at the Google Play store, although there are not as many applications available for Android 3.2 as versions of the O/S found on smartphones. Most second-generation Google TV devices, both Smart TVs and Buddy Boxes like the ASUS CUBE, utilize the Marvell ARMADA 1500 (88DE3100) secure media processor system-on-chip (SoC). ARMADA 1500 is a high-definition audio/video decoder that includes two high-performance ARMv7 compatible PJ4B processors with symmetric multi-processing. Although not directly specified, software information forms our estimation of 1GB RAM on ASUS CUBE, with approximately 390 MB reserved for the Android O/S and 632 MB available system memory to applications. According to the Task Killer app, it's not unusual to have only 20-40% (128-256 MB) after start-up. CUBE comes with 2GB of onboard storage space for apps and files, which can be expanded with 50GB of free ASUS WebStorage space. Like every product, some features will be appreciated more than others. Some folks may only want a cable TV subscription, but for me online services such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, HBO GO, and YouTube are more important. While the Google TV features offer a convenient means of organizing television programming, I primarily used the ASUS CUBE for streaming multimedia content from all major online sources. These premium content provider apps (most of which work transparently through Google's Chrome browser for Android) functioned flawlessly, without so much as a single playback issue. The Android YouTube app, on the other hand, occasionally went unresponsive and required a device restart... reminding me the cost of free entertainment. All streaming multimedia sources require an active broadband Internet source to receive content, although picture and audio multimedia will require much less than streaming video. Internet connection speed will dictate the video quality from these streaming services, but from my experience a 6 Mb/s DSL connection is the bare minimum while 10 Mb/s cable or 12 Mb/s DSL are ideal streaming speeds. Of course, faster is better, and even my 20 Mb/s connection did not always guarantee 1080p-quality streaming video. If you're only going to use ASUS CUBE for multimedia file playback, then connection speeds are obviously much less important than CODEC compatibility. Google TV joins together a wealth of Internet-available multimedia options with television programming from cable, satellite, and antenna services under one umbrella interface called PrimeTime for Google TV. Many television-inspired applications also exist that stream sports broadcasts over the Internet (most require subscription), joining Google Android apps that deliver public radio scanners or cloud-based music playback functionality. The vast library of streaming premium entertainment choices on the Google Play store are easily discovered through Google Play Movies & TV or Google TV Search app interfaces.
ASUS CUBE is dependent upon Google TV's internal demuxer and decoder for audio/video playback, which supports MP3, WMA, AAC, Dolby Digital Plus audio CODECs. As a result, the Movie Player application (known as GTVBox Video Player, later released as ViMu Player for $2.99) played back all the modern media containers. My largest (10GB+) AVI, ASF, FLV, MPG, MP4, MOV, MKV, WMV, XVID, TS, and MTS video files played perfectly fine, with one significant exception: apparently many Google TV devices do not support DTS sound. So when it came to multimedia files encoded with a DTS audio track, CUBE would not render them or revert to compatible stereo sound. Along with lack of support for DivX 3.11 files, the absence of DTS compatibility will be a major issue for anyone wanting to play back their DVD and Blu-ray digital backups. Practically every movie made since 2006 has DTS audio, making it difficult to ignore. I'm not entirely certain where the blame lies, since the Marvell ARMADA 1500 SoC featured in many Google TV devices includes an integrated post-processor that enables advanced audio algorithms such as Dolby, DTS, and AEC output. There's some indication that non-Sony players have simply disabled the DTS decoder. Regardless, lack of DTS support is a problem that exists on many other Google TV systems as well: Logitech Revue, LG SmartTV with Google TV, Vizio Co-Star, Hisense Pulse, NETGEAR NeoTV Prime, and TCL Movo. The universal remote control that comes with the ASUS CUBE Google TV media streamer is unlike anything else we've ever tested. Boosted by an IR-blaster accessory that comes with the kit, this remote can control most other infrared-based home theater devices: from the HDTV and cable box to the AVR and Blu-ray player. The remote itself is impressive, combining a keyboard, touchpad, microphone with voice search, and gyroscopic motion sensors. After using the remote for several days I worked past some initial finger-ergonomics, but there were still a few refinements needed. Hotkey buttons such as Netflix might have been better left as generic, since non-subscribers might have benefited from binding this to their favorite service. Side buttons seemed too easy to accidentally depress while grabbing the remote, but can be corrected once you learn how to hold the unit. Available at the front side of the unit, a directional pad also doubles as the remote's touchpad, which is activated by a cursor button located along the right side. Similar to touch commands on a smartphone, the remote's touchpad can drag and drop items, tap to choose, and zoom in/out using pinch motions. A microphone button is located at the side to activate CUBE's Voice Search feature, which I discovered requires very close proximity to the remote's pick-up point below the Play/Pause buttons. A QWERTY keyboard at the backside of the remote is great for text input, although these keys require above-average pressure to depress. Backlighting is absent from CUBE's IR universal remote control. ASUS CUBE with Google TV includes Bluetooth 3.0 + High Speed (HS) functionality, and is backwards compatible with Bluetooth 2.0 Enhanced Data Rate (EDR). Bluetooth is turned off by default, but can be activated in Network settings. This allows users to pair their detected Bluetooth device to CUBE in much the same method as they use for their smartphone. It also allows other devices to be used for file storage or application interaction. ASUS CUBE ConclusionIMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate. Beginning with performance, the ASUS CUBE with Google TV functioned smoothly during all tests and produced fluid audio or video without chop or stutter. Media files played on CUBE seldom ever suffered any frame loss, which is impressive for any portable device. The powerful Marvell ARMADA 1500 SoC is perfectly suited to CUBE, which is why nearly all Google TV systems include it. ASUS includes 2GB of built-in storage space on CUBE, which can be expanded to 50GB using their free ASUS WebStorage service. Although system memory was never any issue, it seems that CUBE offer not more than 1GB of RAM, and would occasionally creep into single-digit availability. 
In terms of product appearance, most will agree that ASUS has done as much as possible to make a cube look sexy. CUBE's larger profile makes it stand tall, thereby excluding wall-mounted positions or other hidden locations, so the simple yet elegant boxed shape is going to be seen, and hopefully appreciated. ASUS is well known for building durable products. The up-side to constructing a device in the shape of cube is that it's going to have plenty of protection from rough handling and accidental impacts with the floor. Likewise with the multifunction remote control, which has a rigid frame and heavy-duty buttons. The ASUS CUBE won't be falling apart on you, that much is for certain. CUBE's functionality offers both good and bad points to discuss. First, the bad news: CUBE, nor any other Google TV device, support DTS audio streams. This means that any digital files with DTS audio tracks simply won't open or play, which becomes a major problem for multimedia enthusiasts who might have made digital backups of their movie library over the past ten years. Next, the B00CBYYKKY kit contains only one IR Blaster, which means you'll have to choose only one other device to control through CUBE. The only other 'problem' is that some third-party apps (YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, and Chrome for Android) retain log-in credentials while others (HBO GO) do not... but this has nothing to do with ASUS or CUBE. Otherwise, everything else seemed to work splendidly and made sorting through multiple media sources much easier. I encourage visitors to read the previous section of this review for an in-depth look at functionality. As of May 2013, the ASUS CUBE with Google TV is listed online for $139.00 (Amazon | Newegg). This price puts ASUS CUBE in the same range as other devices, most of which are merely media players and not Google TV buddy boxes. While the going price is very reasonable, I believe most hold-outs would leap at CUBE if it were closer to $119. Overall I like the ASUS CUBE with Google TV as it performed extremely well, although it's not without some limitations. The remote control offers a myriad of functions and features, the most impressive being a QWERTY keyboard, touch pad, and Voice Search. The Google TV platform looks promising, but it's disappointing that none of their devices support DTS audio or implement a simple stereo fallback to preserve playback functionality. Still, ASUS CUBE with Google TV combines many great platforms and sources into one convenient device, which earns the Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award. Pros:
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Comments
2) I wonder why GoogleTV doesn't support WEBM.