Pipo x8 review - Hardware 2024

PIPO is one of the Chinese manufacturers of tablets best known among users, today we bring you the review of its TV Box PIPO X8 which is characterized by its dual boot with Android 4.4.4 Kitkat and Windows 8.1 operating systems and above all for including a 7-inch screen on the top of the device, a differentiating point compared to other solutions. market.

First of all, we thank the Gearbest store for the trust placed in giving us the PIPO X8.

Content and design

The PIPO X8 arrives in a cardboard box in which the white color predominates. On the front we find an image of the device in addition to the logos of Intel, Windows 8.1 and Android 4.4.4 KitKat, meanwhile on the back we see some details about its specifications.

PIPO X8

The PIPO X8 is housed inside the box wrapped in a protective bag and is only accompanied by a compatible power cable, be careful because we will need an adapter to be able to use it in the Spanish electrical network, I have bought mine in a Chinese bazaar so You should have no problem in this regard.

If we focus our attention on the PIPO X8 we see a curious wedge-shaped design that will facilitate the use of the device resting on a table, for this purpose it includes a 7-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels with very good image quality as well as good viewing angles. On the right side we find two USB 2.0 ports, the power button, the volume buttons, the headphone jack and a speaker. If we focus on the back of the device we see an HDMI 1.4 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a slot for microSD memory cards, the connector for the 12V power cable, an antenna to improve the reception quality of the WiFi signal and an Ethernet port. On the left side of the device we found nothing.

specs

The PIPO X8 has dimensions of 17.4 x 12.0 x 5.0 cm and a weight of 426 grams. It is built with an Intel Atom Z3736F processor consisting of four Silvermont cores at 22nm with base / turbo operating frequencies of 1.33 GHz and 2.16 GHz respectively, along with an Intel HD GPU that operates at frequencies between 313 and 646 MHz. The processor is complemented by 2 GB of DDR3L RAM and a 64 GB eMMC internal storage that we can expand thanks to the microSD slot. Its specifications are completed with WiFi 802.11 b / g / n and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.

Windows 8.1

First, let's focus on Microsoft's Windows 8.1 with Bing operating system that comes standard and perfectly activated on PIPO X8. A total of 36.5 GB is reserved for this system, of which we will have about 29 GB free once we have started the device and the available updates have been installed. Before the updates were installed there were about 32 GB free.

As you can see the system comes in English by default although it can be put in perfect Spanish by installing a package, something very simple to do.

We have carried out a series of benchmarks to get an idea of the performance of the PIPO X8 under the Windows 8.1 system, I already tell you that it moves perfectly fluid without any problem and its startup is very fast. First of all we have evaluated the hard disk with the CristalDiskMark software that has given us the following results:

We observe that the eMMC storage unit of the PIPO X8 behaves very well, especially in read rates, making the device move freely and boot very quickly, the reading speed on the other hand is much more modest although perfectly valid for a device like this.

Below we have evaluated the performance of the processor with the Super Pi 1M and Wprime 32M tests to see how it behaves in single and multi-threaded environments, these are the results obtained:

As we see the Super Pi 1M test has been completed in 40.6 seconds and the Wprime 32M test has completed in 97.6 seconds. Figures that are not the best in the world but have much merit in a processor with a typical consumption of 2.2 watts.

In the Windows 8.1 system we can configure the system so that the image is displayed only on the integrated screen or on the screen connected to the HDMI port, we can also keep the image on both screens if we wish. We have found two small bugs, one causing the built-in display to stay with the backlight on from time to time and the other causing the screen orientation to change from horizontal to vertical (or vice versa) when user account control jumps to run an application so best to disable it.

Android 4.4.4 KitKat

We now turn to see Google's Android 4.4.4 KitKat operating system. Firstly, we observe a very clean design that indicates that we are in front of a "pure" version of Android as Google has designed it and without layers of customization or add-ons that penalize performance. As for the installed software, we see that there are not many applications, thus avoiding filling the memory (AnTuTu and the screen capture application were not installed).

As for Android storage, we see that 16 GB of the storage unit have been reserved, of which we will have about 12 free GB that are not partitioned, excellent decision!

We have also wanted to evaluate the performance of the set on Android, for this we have chosen what is surely the best-known benchmark, AnTuTu obtaining the following results:

A good result that places the PIPO X8 at the height of mid-range smartphones and tablets today, something that we see when we see that it moves the operating system in a very fluid way without any problem in this regard.

As for 3D performance games like Asphalt 8: Airbone run smoothly on the PIPO X8 so it can be an excellent choice to use as an Android console.

A negative point under the Android operating system is that the included screen stays on all the time, it only turns off when playing a video in full screen and has a bug that makes it turn on for a few seconds every so often causing a small I stutter in the video playback although it is not serious.

User experience

The PIPO X8 is a very capable piece of equipment, offering exceptional performance coupled with very low power consumption thanks to the high efficiency of its processor. The commissioning is very simple, we just have to connect the PIPO X8 to the electrical network and press the power button. The device will show us a selection screen for the operating system allowing us to boot with Android or Windows. Once inside the operating system we have restart buttons on the other system without having to go through the selection screen.

Both operating systems move very smoothly thanks to the power of its eight-core processor along with 2 GB of RAM and the eMMC storage unit. Web browsing is very fluid and the pages load with remarkable speed, to make a comparison I tell you that the browser moves much better than my Asus Seashell 1215N with an Atom D525 processor and an Nvidia ION 2 GPU.

The reproduction of multimedia content at 1080p resolution is excellent, completely fluid and without cuts, although in the case of streaming, we must ensure that our connection to the network does not limit the performance of the PIPO X8. Again in this regard this mini PC far exceeds my previously mentioned equipment.

WE RECOMMEND Pipo X8 Mini TV with Windows 8.1 and Android 4.4 system

The negative point in the experience of use is the integrated screen that seems not to be as well implemented and managed as it should when we connect the device to an external screen. As indicated above, it presents a series of bugs in both Android and Windows.

In the case of the Windows 8.1 system, it is highly recommended to deactivate the user account control if we are going to use the equipment connected to an external screen, since otherwise when opening an application that makes the system act, it will cause the rotation of the screen not returning after its initial state, something that completely ruins the experience of use.

The other bug in Windows makes the backlight of the integrated screen stay on despite the fact that only the image is transmitted to the external screen by HDMI. This bug does not seem to appear if we let the PIPO X8 start completely before turning on the external screen, at least in my case it has almost happened so far.

As for the management of the integrated screen under Android 4.4.4 Kitkat, it is not possible to turn it off when we use an external screen so that we will always have the image in duplicate on both screens. It only turns off the integrated screen if we play a video in full screen and turns it back on if we touch the mouse in the slightest.

Operating temperature

Much has been said on the network about a problem present in the PIPO X8 and that it inherited from its predecessor the PIPO X7, overheating and loss of system performance. PIPO has taken note and solved the problem by improving the heat transfer from the CPU to the aluminum base of the device, after a few minutes of operation the base feels hot, a symptom that heat is transmitted well from the CPU, of made in this unit the CPU has been stabilized at 69ºC after running Prime95 for 10 minutes, not bad considering that it is a fanless device and you can see the heat in the environment.

So we confirm that the overheating problems of the PIPO X8 are history, behind were the units in which the heat was not transmitted from the CPU to the base, making the intel chip reach temperatures around 90 ºC in a few minutes of running causing Thermal Throttling.

conclusion

We are in front of a team that offers excellent performance for a very low price and energy consumption. Thanks to its Android 4.4.4 KitKat operating system we have access to all the applications and games on Google Play and for those who are more demanding it also includes Windows 8.1 perfectly activated and upgradable to Windows 10.

The PIPO X8 has no problem navigating the network very smoothly as well as playing high-quality videos, of course tasks such as office automation do not pose any challenge for your SoC. All this with absolute silence, we are in front of a completely passive system with no mechanical parts that also offers an excellent operating temperature. In short, for a price of 92 euros we can enjoy an excellent team with Android and Windows operating systems.