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Greetings,
I've been planning on buying an external dvd drive for my laptop. I found an interesting feature in samsung slim drives. For example, the samsung SE-208AB has an AV-Connectivity mode that turns the drive into a sort of external HDD! We know that android and the note 8 can already read flash drives via OTG. If this external DVD drive has this external HDD funcitonality, can we in theory connect it to the note 8 and get external DVD rom functionality? here's a you tube video connecting a samsung drive to the nexus 7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvoyab75QgQ
As an external HDD, the drive is read with files in it so you can't really play the disc as a DVD rom (so no DVD menus I guess) but the VOB and other data files if present can be read. I know that samsung already released a dvd drive (Samsung 218bb) which android devices can detect but the problem there was that there was no app that could recognize DVD, iso formats.
but I recently tried XBMC! and XBMC can read ISO and even NRG images! Tried reading one off of the NAS via WLAN. with this app, is it possible to connect these samsung drives and read them as native roms using XBMC? has anyone tried it?
This is a real deal breaker for me. I don't think that the ASUS or Lite-on external drives have this kind of functionality. If a can get a drive that is read/write for my laptop and potentially "read" (in the least) for the note 8 then this is a no brainer purchase.
So has anyone tried this? Thanks.
UPDATE: after doing some more reading on XDA I found these threads:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2171111
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1086842
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2009186.
There are mixed bits. some say that the note 8 does not support external drives but here there is clearly evidence of external drives being read by android. So is it simply the MHL not supplying enough power in the case of the note 8? in another thread, an external drive with an external power source was suggested while another thread noted that this fried the drive and his note 10? These are all for different devices however. Just want to know if anyone has experience with the note 8 in particular. So far the only video showing this actually works is the you tube video with the nexus 7 shown above.
I own a Samsung Mobile SmartHub <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tsst.app.opticalsmarthub>. It works but in my experience the audio quality SUCKS. Much better to just rip the DVD and stream over standard DLNA.
---------- Post added at 01:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:26 PM ----------
Also, I've never had a USB external DVD drive work with any of my devices (as they would a laptop). Not sure if I've tried on my GN8 though.
Spidey01 said:
I own a Samsung Mobile SmartHub <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tsst.app.opticalsmarthub>. It works but in my experience the audio quality SUCKS. Much better to just rip the DVD and stream over standard DLNA.
---------- Post added at 01:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:26 PM ----------
Also, I've never had a USB external DVD drive work with any of my devices (as they would a laptop). Not sure if I've tried on my GN8 though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh? Thanks for the reply so iI guess video/audio/media playback has better alternatives. but what about reading and copying files off of the dvd while using the AV-connectivity (External HDD) Drive mode? Sometimes at meetings people still have discs instead of flashdrives, the note 8 is already slowly replacing my laptop but lacks this last functionality: reading/copying files off of a local disk. if it could do this than the laptop stays at home completely as the note 8 almost completely replaces it now for presentations, media serving/control and the like. I'll just bring the external disc drive. It's better than still lugging a laptop. Thanks again.
ProjectER said:
the note 8 is already slowly replacing my laptop but lacks this last functionality: reading/copying files off of a local disk. if it could do this than the laptop stays at home completely as the note 8 almost completely replaces it now for presentations, media serving/control and the like. I'll just bring the external disc drive. It's better than still lugging a laptop. Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't say that I've tried it in that mode. Picked up the unit dirt cheap and almost never use it because of the streaming quality. Was so disappointed I basically gave up on it lol.
Using a USB OTG cable it's possible to access FAT and NTFS volumes on USB Mass Storage devices, like flash drives and external HDDs. I'm using the one from my moms Acer A700 but they're quite cheap off Amazon. Sometimes useful. Anything that is exposed like that (class 08h / UMS) should work. Hubs, most HID devices like keyboards and mice also work via the same means. I haven't tried the drive that way, just a little ASUS unit, which doesn't function as a USB mass storage device.
USB OTG works a hell of lot better on my GN8 than my nexuses, and if memory serves tthe optical hub bridges the disc to a FAT based UMS.
At home, rather than use an external hard drive or optical discs, I use DLNA for movies and things like Dropbox/Google Drive for files. I rip my movies with MakeMKV, store them on my server machine (bigger HDDs then my gaming PC), run a DLNA server on that and point an app from my tablet at it. Least pain I've had, give or take Chromecast and video apps. I can get Chromecast to play the content via DLNA as well but where as the Galaxy Note can handle 30 Mbit/s full HD video (Wi-Fi permitting) the Chromecast really should be kept under 3 or 4 Mbit/s.
thanks for the reply
Spidey01 said:
Can't say that I've tried it in that mode. Picked up the unit dirt cheap and almost never use it because of the streaming quality. Was so disappointed I basically gave up on it lol.
Using a USB OTG cable it's possible to access FAT and NTFS volumes on USB Mass Storage devices, like flash drives and external HDDs. I'm using the one from my moms Acer A700 but they're quite cheap off Amazon. Sometimes useful. Anything that is exposed like that (class 08h / UMS) should work. Hubs, most HID devices like keyboards and mice also work via the same means. I haven't tried the drive that way, just a little ASUS unit, which doesn't function as a USB mass storage device.
USB OTG works a hell of lot better on my GN8 than my nexuses, and if memory serves tthe optical hub bridges the disc to a FAT based UMS.
At home, rather than use an external hard drive or optical discs, I use DLNA for movies and things like Dropbox/Google Drive for files. I rip my movies with MakeMKV, store them on my server machine (bigger HDDs then my gaming PC), run a DLNA server on that and point an app from my tablet at it. Least pain I've had, give or take Chromecast and video apps. I can get Chromecast to play the content via DLNA as well but where as the Galaxy Note can handle 30 Mbit/s full HD video (Wi-Fi permitting) the Chromecast really should be kept under 3 or 4 Mbit/s.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply!
so there is hope that it can access data files on the disk. Plan to use it mainly for raw data transfer at work but only for those still not keen on a flashdrive. It's rare but some still use discs...(i guess it's more resistent to viruses and malware...).
Don't plan to use the external drive really for playing media. As you already enumerated, there are a ton of options for that already, The review for that samsung wifi optical disc media hub is that its a great idea introduced way too late and executed too poorly for it to compete with our NAS's and WLAN's. I personally use XBMC for android, it runs on all devices now, android, windows, linux and even iOS i think. Then I have yatze or bubble upnp as well. I realized that with XBMC, don't really need chromecast anymore, although I use "cheap cast" with my android minipc I realized it's simply easier to send the you tube link to xbmc. Instead of having a you tube play list(for chrome cast), I can send the vid to xbmc and play it there and still play another you tube video on the note 8. XBMC now also reads Iso's and NRG's so all those dvd's ripped into images just run on it even via the wlan/upnp/network. Just my take on the whole video streaming option.
But I haven't tried this MakeMKV app you suggested. I hope to compress my stored DVD collection. Is it like handbreak? Can it compress a 4 gig dvd into a smaller MKV file? My NAS is slowly getting filled up. Anyway thanks! More power to XDA!
BTW: Since we're on the topic of streeaming, I'm thinking of starting a thread on the note 8's miracast/ALLSHARE CAST/screen mirroring. I realized that Samsung's screen mirroring is not really miracast compliant (just like the S4) in the sense that it doesn't work with all screen mirroring devices (something with HDCP and samsung proprietary software which i think is just there to "encourage" you to buy they're all sharecast dongle).
Here's the link: http://android-minipc.azurewebsites...ast-fails-to-mirror-samsung-galaxy-s4-screen/
Do you know of a fix for this? or should I start a Q/A thread for it? Thanks...
With regard to MakeMKV, it seems to decrypt the disc and remux the content streams into Matroska (.mkv) files, or at least about as lossless as you can get off the disc. You'll get the same MPEG-2/AC3 stream off a DVD as what's on it. No compression.
I do conversions either via Handbrake on my gaming box or by directly running ffmpeg on my server with about the same options as handbrake uses. My server's faster at it, hehe.For DVD, I normally use H.264 with x264's constant quality set to 22 or 23, and convert the audios; normally stereo with Dolby Pro Logic II downmix and another stream that's AC-3 pass through. Good enough that I don't usually notice quality loss vs the original DVD. DVD's usually end up under 2GB and especially for things like episodes of The Simpsons, can be really small. Sometimes a movie is still like 3~4GB though.
Some of Samsung's devices are certified, never tried them with another dongle. Miracast's latency is high enough that it's more limited then the MHL cable, and my old GS3 tended to soft reboot when using any video output until the 4.1 update lol. One of the CM developers had posted about issues between Samsung, Google, and perhaps a few other implementations. I think they support different HDCP versions but I'm not sure of the details.
I finally baught the samsung external dvd drive se-208. I tried AV connectivity mode so it get's recognized as a fat 32 flash drive. Well my laptop recognizes it (but my laptop recognizes it as a disc as well so that really isn't the point). Tried AV connectivity mode and connected it to my note 8. The drive just keeps spinning but my note 8 never recognizes it. Really sad. I then connected it to my samsung TV which allegedly can play media files off of a USB thumb drive. The drive still isn't recognized. Weird cuz on you tube, they connected it to a samsung TV and it worked. I tried media files and data/doc/pic files, the drive never gets recognized. Only my laptop recognizes it as a "flashdrive." Any suggestions? (I know switching to AV connectivity means pressing the eject butto for 1.5-3 seconds so I'm sure it's in AV connectivity and not in ODD or optical drive mode). Could it be power? but the drive lights up and spins when connected to the note 8 and the TV. Thanks for any suggestions.
BTW, i'm not interested in streaming as i already have a NAS for all my videos. Just want the functionality of an optical drive reader without having to bring a laptop around. The note 8 is already amazingly functional...this would just max it out even more. Thanks.
The bottom line is the device (whether it's the tablet, computer, TV or whatever) needs to have the drivers built in not just to access the optical drive, but also to read the file system on the optical disc (which I think is UDF, but don't quote me on that). You could try to find a custom kernel that has that support, see if there's a program on the Play Store or elsewhere that has that support built-in, or compile your own kernel with that support built in. But usually, when it comes to hardware support, it almost always comes down to driver support (I'm assume there DVD drive plugs into the wall so it's not an issue with lack of power).
Spidey01 said:
Can't say that I've tried it in that mode. Picked up the unit dirt cheap and almost never use it because of the streaming quality. Was so disappointed I basically gave up on it lol.
Using a USB OTG cable it's possible to access FAT and NTFS volumes on USB Mass Storage devices, like flash drives and external HDDs. I'm using the one from my moms Acer A700 but they're quite cheap off Amazon. Sometimes useful. Anything that is exposed like that (class 08h / UMS) should work. Hubs, most HID devices like keyboards and mice also work via the same means. I haven't tried the drive that way, just a little ASUS unit, which doesn't function as a USB mass storage device.
USB OTG works a hell of lot better on my GN8 than my nexuses, and if memory serves tthe optical hub bridges the disc to a FAT based UMS.
At home, rather than use an external hard drive or optical discs, I use DLNA for movies and things like Dropbox/Google Drive for files. I rip my movies with MakeMKV, store them on my server machine (bigger HDDs then my gaming PC), run a DLNA server on that and point an app from my tablet at it. Least pain I've had, give or take Chromecast and video apps. I can get Chromecast to play the content via DLNA as well but where as the Galaxy Note can handle 30 Mbit/s full HD video (Wi-Fi permitting) the Chromecast really should be kept under 3 or 4 Mbit/s.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, have you tried if screen mirroring works between the Note 8.0 and Chromecast? I'm thinking of buying the dongle, but I'm interested mainly for screen mirroring, so I wish to know if it works well.
Thanks
gabripranzo said:
Hi, have you tried if screen mirroring works between the Note 8.0 and Chromecast? I'm thinking of buying the dongle, but I'm interested mainly for screen mirroring, so I wish to know if it works well.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Performance when mirroring to Chromecast sucks but it does work. I would say latency is around 0.75 seconds to 1.20 seconds from when I scroll left or right in Nova Launcher to when I see it finish on the TV. Encoder quality also sucks at rendering transparency or anti aliasing and it tends to peg the CPU to full clockrate most of the time. I haven't tried video on it. I believe my Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 is simularly Crappy. Nexus 5 and Galaxy S5 work better, so it seems like only my Snapdragon 800+ chipsets seem to have decent mirroring performance over Chromecast. I don't think Google has optimized things very well for Exynos & Mali. I can say the GS5 will mirror to it well enough to watch a video not that I'd advise it. Really, Samsung's very crappy AllShare Cast dongle works better in terms of casting performance. Miracast is only useful for videos or stuff like email/websurfing because of the latency (e.g. not gaming) but Chromecast is the worst mirroring I've ever used, and I've even SideSync mirrored my tablets to my PC before. My Amazon Fire TV box works awesome sauce as a Miracast Display to all of my current devices (GN8, GNP12.2, and GS5) in terms of performance but sometimes will not connect; I've yet to determine why, maybe it just hates my monitor/switch more than my TV.
If cash is a primary concern and mostly mirroring: I would suggest a Fire TV Stick (which is Miracast Certified) or some real Miracast adapter like the Netgear PTV3000 ($50) or Belkin Miracast Adapter ($60). Chromecast is great for leaning back and casting video from apps like Netflix, Plex, AllCast, etc but not so awesome at screen mirroring. Perhaps like Chromecast's video decoder it will improve with time but it's just not that awesome for mirroring right now. MHL wired adapters are still better for screen mirroring IMHO.
Well, I wish to use the screen mirroring function mainly to stream videos: sometimes it happens that my Bd player hasn't the right codec for the video, so I wish to stream it directly from tablet to TV.
Hi guys & girls here's my review on the Ainol Windows 8.1 Mini pc.
Iv had this little beauty a wile now & im very pleased with it, Great overall quality a really nice looking Mini pc.
Windows 8.1 mini pc Mod Edit: Selling site link removed.
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"lightbox_close": "Close",
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"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
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"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
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Windows is activated (Not a trial)
The Ainol windows 8.1 mini pc has an modern looking aluminum case witch doubles a great heatsink (No modding required) and measures 15cm x 10.5cm x 1.4cm and weighs about 12 ounces.
The device looks & feels like its of high end quality and is very well made "That well made i cant open it up as of yet" but as soon as i find a way into it i will upload some photos of the guts. This rely feels like a premium device.
The front of the device has a small power button two full sized usb ports & a star shaped power indecator light,On the rear of the device we have a mini USB 3 port,a micro SD card slot,Mini HDMI output port,a 3.5mm head phone jack port & a 5v DC power port.
In brief
Ainol Windows 8.1 Mini PC TV Box uses a 64 bit Intel Bay Trail-T Z3735D quad core CPU, pre-installed with Windows 8.1 operating system, with 2GB DDR3L RAM and 32GB Emmc ROM, supports Bluetooth 4.0 and wifi. It comes with a USB 3.0 interface and two standard USB 2.0 interfaces. This Mini PC is also a power bank with a 7000mAh battery and can charge for other mobile devices.
Setup
The first thing i did when i got the ainol was to create a backup recovery to a USB stick using this guide for the pipo (Thanks go to Bob for putting this guide together)
http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?22092-First-thing-you-should-do-with-the-Pipo-X7
I then let windows do its thing & update everything after several restarts more updates & 3 hours latter i was ready for the next step.
One thing I will say is for some reason the windows updating processing screen is in Chinese:face
Thanks to Trebor there's a fix to get rid of the Chinese writing at the start up ect
Control Panel
Language
Advanced settings
Change override
Apply language settings to welcome screen system account and new user accounts
Window that opens
Welcome Screen and new user accounts
Tick Welcome screen and system accounts and New User
OK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then i made a system image backup by following the above guide guide (step3)
I also midified the boot.wim using this guide so my recovery was in english
http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?22176-English-Language-Recovery-USB-Disk
After i had done all the above it was time to start playing,When it was fully charged to 100% i upplugged the power lead & iv played some films from a external HD powered by the ainol for just over 6.5 hours now & the battery is at 19%.The ainol is not even warm & I mean no heat at all thats using no external power surply just the built in battery.
Also iv just Installed kodi this runs great (IMO kodi runs better on windows than android)Easy to install & does what it should.
Below screen shot shows CPU temps after almost 3.5 hours of using kodi web streaming
Wifi speed test
Pc wifi download speed test 12 feet from router
Ainol wifi download speed test 12 feet from router
As you can see the download speed seams to drop on the Ainol more or less straight way I don't no whats coursing this maybe some interference from some other devices I have running.
Quick facts
Boot time is 12 seconds
shut down is 3 seconds
logitech c270 webcam works
64GB micro SD works
128GB usb Stick works
Samsung 1TB un powered HD works fine using just the ainol battery
I use an app on my android phone called unified remote to controll my ainol its very simply to use it has mouse & keybored input i highly recomend trying it
https://www.unifiedremote.com/
Ainol Mini PC TV Box specifications:
OS: Windows 8.1
CPU: Intel Baytrail Z3735D quad core, X86
GPU: Intel HD Graphics
RAM: 2GB DDR3L
ROM: 32GB eMMC
Card Extended: Yes, support TF card up to 128GB
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0
WiFi: 802.11b/g/n
G-sensor: 3-axis G-sensor
USB: USB 3.0 and USB 2.0
HDMI: Micro HDMI 1.4
OTG: Supports exfat, NTFS, Fat32 USB - OTG devices
Battery: 7000mAh, can be used as a power bank
Power: DC input 5V, 2500mAh; output 800mAh max
Earphone Interface: 3.5mm
Language: English,Chinese etc.
Video: up to 1080P, AVI, 3GP, MP4, MKV, MOV, MPG, VOB
Audio Formats: MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, AAC, APE, MP2, AMR etc
Image Formats: JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF
Ports
1 x USB 3.0 (Micro)
2 x USB 2.0
1 x Earphone jack
1 x Micro HDMI Port
1 x TF Card Slot
1 x DC Port
What's in the package
1 x Ainol mini TV Box
1 x Charger Adaptor
1 x HDMI Cable
1 x Manuel
1 x Warranty Card
Unboxing Video
Sorry about the quality I was in a rush to try this baby out + im not a big fan of unboxing video's but I no some are so here it is.
View My Video
I got mine from Mod Edit: Selling site link removed.
I just recently bought the same ainol mini windows 8.1 pc with the air mouse which works great. can you please explain whether you are getting audio out of the hdmi cable?
I am getting no audio at all from the hdmi cable and drivers etc are upto date according to the device manager with no yellow exclamation mark. I would really hate to plug in an av cable.
I really look forward to your experience with audio out via the hdmi cable. Please note all basics such as turn off mute, check tv/amplifier volume is up etc are all correct.
stealthdragonb said:
I just recently bought the same ainol mini windows 8.1 pc with the air mouse which works great. can you please explain whether you are getting audio out of the hdmi cable?
I am getting no audio at all from the hdmi cable and drivers etc are upto date according to the device manager with no yellow exclamation mark. I would really hate to plug in an av cable.
I really look forward to your experience with audio out via the hdmi cable. Please note all basics such as turn off mute, check tv/amplifier volume is up etc are all correct.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello there.
My Aniol did not come with a air mouse
The audio works fine for me with just using the HDMI lead I had to change nothing in the settings it worked fine out the box.
I have seen this on another intel tv box you may need to open Control Panel and go to the sound settings and change the default to the other output device.
Blinkone
blinkone said:
Hello there.
My Aniol did not come with a air mouse
The audi works fine for me with just using the HDMI lead I had to change nothing in the settings it worked fine out the box.
I have seen this on another intel tv box you may need to open Control Panel and go to the sound settings and change the default to the other output device.
Blinkone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to pay an extra $20 or so for the air mouse. What is really upsetting is that I have tried a number of things to get audio via hdmi out but nothing is working. There is also no other option in the control panel to change the default which is on the headphone jack which gives out sound.
I have tried installing drivers, restarting the mini pc with hdmi already plugged in etc etc but nothing is working. Do you have any other suggestions?
stealthdragonb said:
I had to pay an extra $20 or so for the air mouse. What is really upsetting is that I have tried a number of things to get audio via hdmi out but nothing is working. There is also no other option in the control panel to change the default which is on the headphone jack which gives out sound.
I have tried installing drivers, restarting the mini pc with hdmi already plugged in etc etc but nothing is working. Do you have any other suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Iv lost sound now a few times I go to control panel/hardware & sound/sound
Play back tab
Select HDTV
Set as default
Apply
Also have you done the windows update mine took over 3 hours to insltall all the updates when I first got it
Windows update did begin yesterday although I might have shut down before everything installed. I will need to double check this.
As for the sound option in control panel, I do not get HDTV to show up at all. All I get is the first option in written in chinese
I can confirm after the update, everything is now working by selecting the tv under sounds in control panel.
Thanks heaps!
now if there was some way of just getting rid of this chinese text which appears when booting or installing certain stuff. I have changed language etc and cleared cache.
stealthdragonb said:
I can confirm after the update, everything is now working by selecting the tv under sounds in control panel.
Thanks heaps!
now if there was some way of just getting rid of this chinese text which appears when booting or installing certain stuff. I have changed language etc and cleared cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad you got the sound sorted anyway
heres a driver pack good to keep by you side
http://drp.su/
Yes you can get rid of the Chinese text
Thanks to Trebor from freaktab there's a fix for this
Control Panel
Language
Advanced settings
Change override
Apply language settings to welcome screen system account and new user accounts
Window that opens
Welcome Screen and new user accounts
Tick Welcome screen and system accounts and New User
OK
Works perfect no more Chinese
Hi,
could you test the usb3 performance at the port and file transfer over wifi?
Would like to use it as a media pc connected to my tv and as a kind of media server with a external usb3 drive.
marcleinen said:
Hi,
could you test the usb3 performance at the port and file transfer over wifi?
Would like to use it as a media pc connected to my tv and as a kind of media server with a external usb3 drive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
Quick tests USB 3 port file transfer from USB 3 stick =11.5 MB/s With this lead
I think this would be better, The above lead was only a cheap one.
Wifi file transfer from my pc to the Ainol =3.2MB/s
COUPON
$10 Coupon Code: BYRON10
Hi all,
I just ordered one after reading your review.
I lost my big desktop about a year ago and have relied on my new Dell XPS 12 2 in 1. Its a nice laptop (or notebook, whatever they call these things today).
I had everything on my desktop, I really used it as a file server.
I was trying to save up money to get another large desktop with a lot of bays to hold all my hard drives and I wanted a PC that had at least 8 SATA version 3.0 ports built into the motherboard. My dead PC had 6 SATA version 1.0.
As of today, I still had the internal hard drives installed in the cage, that was inside the case.
It ran on 2 128GB SSD's setup as RAID 0 and 2 2TB HDD setup as RAID 1.
The SSD drives were setup as the System Drive, this thing booted in seconds, very fast.
The HDD drives were setup as my Data Drive, not as fast but well protected since they were mirrored using RAID 1.
The only thing that broke was the motherboard.
Oh, it had 8 or 16 GB of RAM (probably 8GB, my memory is shaky), running 64bit Windows 8.1 on a Quad Core CPU.
It wasn't the fast gaming machine, but it was good enough for me.
I had attached 2 24 inch monitors that had both HDMI and WVGA ports. The monitors were from HP and are able to be positioned in either Landscape (typical setting) and Portrait mode.
I don't know why I just didn't buy a new motherboard, maybe because it was about 6 years old.
Anyway, in the meantime, I found a backup of my DATA drives and purchased a 3TB HDD which I connected to my Asus RT-AC68U router that comes with 2 USB 3.0 ports, So the 3TB HDD is connected to one of the ports and the other port has my Dymo label printer. My other printers are wireless.
So that is my current setup and its OK the way its working but I niss having my desktop and miss using the large monitors. (I know I could hookup one monitor to the laptop, but I keep the laptop in another room.
But I do want access to the real DATA drives, that backup I used was old and some stuff is missing.
So tonight I purchased 2 different kinds of NAS devices. One cheapo ($60) which has 4 USB ports and one Ethernet port. Its supposed to allow the drives to be seen on the network.
The other NAS device is 4 drive capable housing by Buffalo, also pretty cheap ($189).
I guess I have to wait to see if either of these two work for me.
Then i came across your mention of this AINOL mini PC.
When searching for the NAS stuff, I thought I could just get a PC on a stick and attach some of the drives to it and make then shareable. A poor man's NAS system.
But when I saw this AINOL is was the only thing I found that came with USB 3.0 ports, all the others only had USB 2.0 ports (very old out of the gate).
The last thing I noticed is that this sucker is portable and battery operated! Wow, the possibilities! And able to recharge my smartphone!
It has the right amount of ports to be very useful.
Now to end this, how fast is this thing anyway.
Is it an Intel Atom chip? If it is those are deadly slow for real work, but using it as a file server maybe not so bad?
How is it to really use?
Will I be totally disappointed? I do recognize it will never be as fast as what I had, but if its as good as my laptop (this Dell XPS 12 2 in 1, which comes with an Intel i7 chip 64bit).
I am going to come back here when it arrives to follow your instructions on how to make an emergency recover image and an of the other suggestions you listed here.
And yes, I have plenty of Bluetooth keyboards with mouse combos.
I'm not sure what else I should plan on having or doing before it arrives.
Thank you!
Rob
P.S. I ordered it before I noticed your 10 percent coupon, oh well!
rlanza1054 said:
Hi all,
I just ordered one after reading your review.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well welcome to the Ainol club..I don't think you will be disappointed with the speed at all im very happy with mine I just love the fact its portable has a built in battery that will last for at least 5 or 6 hours & has a 10 second boot up time..
I got one as well, but the problem which I found the hard way is that, it appear I can't boot any USB media, linux or Win7/8. So it just locked to the half-chinese Win 8 w/ Bing that's already on the drive. It's just slightly better than a door stop at this point. If somebody found a way to get around that it would be great.
someone0 said:
I got one as well, but the problem which I found the hard way is that, it appear I can't boot any USB media, linux or Win7/8. So it just locked to the half-chinese Win 8 w/ Bing that's already on the drive. It's just slightly better than a door stop at this point. If somebody found a way to get around that it would be great.
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Just change the language settings to english.
Looks like there are a few drivers which have been installed in chinese, these may be able to be reinstalled in english.
Its fully functional win8.1, it probably has a locked bootloader like the surface so probably tough boot off anything other than the stock OS.
"win 8.1 with bing" is no different from standard win 8.1, but its free for OEMs.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2158...1-with-bing-for-low-cost-pcs-and-tablets.html
Hi it tells you in the first post how to get rid of the Chinese & its very simple to do too
can anyone confirm the usb 3 performance. Result posted by blinkone doesnt seems to be like a usb 3 speed
darn... nvm... just found out that Z3735F doesnt have usb 3 ((
Hi, I just received mine but it does not work. It simply starts the booting process, but it never gets to actually load Windows and make the whole thing usable. It just shows a black screen after the EFI loading screen and it doesn't get past that. Has anyone any idea about what to do in these cases? I tried resetting the PC without luck; enabling or disabling fast boot and secure boot (they were disabled by default, by the way) did not work.
blinkone said:
Hi it tells you in the first post how to get rid of the Chinese & its very simple to do too
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Sure, it's simple to do if you read and understand Chinese. Try doing it when you're staring at a jumble of Chinese characters. I just finished the setup of my Ainol completely in Chinese -- what a frustrating process that was! I wish I'd taken a crash course in Mandarin first.
Hi everyone, I also purchased this mini PC. I'm curious if it's possible to install linux on this box? It the BIOS similar to that of a PC? Could I plug an external drive into the USB 3.0, and then install Ubuntu or something like that on it? I was thinking of using this as a little mini server.
So I recently bought the Pixel C, and also have the Nexus 6P. I have a dual USB-C cable that came with my 6P. I tried plugging the phone into the tablet to transfer some files between the two devices without going through a computer. When I plug it in I see the USB options and select file transfer on my 6P however I cannot seem to find anyway to transfer the files. I have ES File Explorer but it doesn't seem to recognize my device. I tried PTP but and a Photo Transfer tool pops up but it won't let me transfer the videos I want.
Basically I want to transfer some 4K videos from my phone to tablet but I cannot through the method I'm trying. I know there's other methods but I want to know if anyone has gotten this to work.
I'm running stock Android 6.0.1 on both my Pixel C and Nexus 6P.
Interesting idea, never thought about doing this. One of the devices most likely needs to have USB Host support.
Hi there, I was just wondering what you think about dex. This is my first time using it.
I downloaded the app on my macbook pro (latest) and my windows pc (full hd monitor) and I noticed that the resolution of the app in both computers is pretty bad. If I watch a video it looks good, in full hd but the app itself is low resolution. The text looks bad, the apps icons looks bad aswell and is in medium size window, not even full screen.
Just wanted to know if is just me or you guys aswell
yeah connecting my note 10+ to my pc and launching dex using the pc app makes it look absolutely terrible with a lot of input lag it's as if i connected it wirelessly it's even worse
zzcool said:
yeah connecting my note 10+ to my pc and launching dex using the pc app makes it look absolutely terrible with a lot of input lag it's as if i connected it wirelessly it's even worse
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I don't understand why is that. I was looking forward to this feature.
The lag makes it unusable.
That and the fact that almost no apps actually work... Yes, it's not "optimized" for DeX. Run the bloody thing anyway. In an ugly window if you must! The phone handles "ugly" floating windows natively, so why not in DeX?
There's something seriously backwards and wrong with DeX.
daproject said:
Hi there, I was just wondering what you think about dex. This is my first time using it.
I downloaded the app on my macbook pro (latest) and my windows pc (full hd monitor) and I noticed that the resolution of the app in both computers is pretty bad. If I watch a video it looks good, in full hd but the app itself is low resolution. The text looks bad, the apps icons looks bad aswell and is in medium size window, not even full screen.
Just wanted to know if is just me or you guys aswell
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I agree. This is my first experience with DeX and I am not impressed. I never wanted to buy the docks or cables because I figured I wouldn't use it that much. The only real use I could see for me is watching Netflix at work during lunch but when I plug in the Note10+ Netflix it says "Can't show protected content on your computer." Like WTF I pay for Netflix, what are you talking about? I have also tried to login via the Samsung browser or Chrome and it immediately tells to download the app which doesn't work? Also if you try to open the Hulu app it immediately says it doesn't support DeX....
Hi guys. I had the same issue about not being able to watch streams on Windows DeX. I was trying to use Amazon Prime Video, I was using a USB to USB-C cable. Once I used the Samsung provided USB-C to USB-C cable I was able to watch. It has something to do with HDCP security. If the cable/port can't do it you won't be able to watch.
BlueKalel
BlueKalel said:
Hi guys. I had the same issue about not being able to watch streams on Windows DeX. I was trying to use Amazon Prime Video, I was using a USB to USB-C cable. Once I used the Samsung provided USB-C to USB-C cable I was able to watch. It has something to do with HDCP security. If the cable/port can't do it you won't be able to watch.
BlueKalel
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How would I use the provided Type-C to to Type-C cable with a desktop/tower computer?
this is the quality i have notice how it looks like a bad camstream
Have the same issue. Picture quality looks blurish..like 720p or even 480p. It's not sharp. (Have it connected with USB-C to USB on PC)
I thought the Dex was a very good feature, While in work i could load up Dex and keep personal personal while on my work PC.
But as others have pointed out, the limited support of Apps and the horrible Lag input has made me not want to use it.
Ive actually found more use out of the App Samsung Flow where i can load my full Phone screen onto my desktop. I can open any game or application without any restrictions! Talk about backwards!!!
I think it is an incompatability with Win10... This may be fixed over time but if you use Dex straight from device to TV it looks 10000x bettter... Nil lag with video's and crisper, sharper look...
I run it on my 65" TV with none of the faults I also experienced with Win10...
Guys, I think the issue of low resolution is because of the USB connection, meaning that I guess is the best that can be obtained with that cable connection, if you want a higher resolution I think you will need to use a USB C - HDMI connection.
Honestly I don't have issue with DeX. High res 1080p. Never any lag, doing anything including video. This is on my home PC and work PC. I use it everyday and it's genius. Btw I use 2 different USB a to USB c cables. Windows 10. Minimal spec computers too except for 20gb ram each.
So I noticed that the icons and icon text look ok, but what looks low res is the menu texts and text within any app. If I increase the font size it makes a huge difference, but it also increases the font size on my phone, which I do not want. I am using the smallest font size.
I think what's happening here is that when we connect DEX to the PC, DEX is being streamed over to the PC. The PC client is acting a video player for that stream. Hence the lag. They can certainly increase the resolution of the stream as USB C should support very high resolutions. My guess is that they want to prevent compatibility issues when people will connect the phone from USB C to USB A ports and it will start stuttering if the resolution is too high. That or that higher encoding bitrates will overload the phone.
In any case, for first time users, try the real native experience by connecting the phone directly to a monitor and it will be very crisp with no lag and no app limitations.
I understand the disappointment with Dex in its current form.
This is more of a proof of concept than of a fully functional OS. Think about what something like this will be in 5 - 10 years. By the end of that time the PC will be dead! Everything will be done with the device in our pocket!
Exciting times indeed!
same for the galaxy s10 even with a Thunderbolt 3 cable
Does anyone know if the Note 10 Plus can access an 8TB Portable Hard Drive ? I would like to use it with both my computer and Note 10 Plus to back up and transfer files …. I found this 8TB Portable HD ….
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401
vja4Him said:
Does anyone know if the Note 10 Plus can access an 8TB Portable Hard Drive ? I would like to use it with both my computer and Note 10 Plus to back up and transfer files …. I found this 8TB Portable HD ….
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401
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I know as a USB connection to a PC you can see the phone in your windows file explorer so any drive you can manipulate there as you like straight to send from the phone.
I've also noticed with both the DEX app and also with SideSync when the phone is connected by Bluetooth, the phone does not appear on the PC's file explorer unless it is also still connected by USB.
Lastly I've got a 500MB OTG thumb drive I use which connects seamlessly with no issue. Not sure if 8TB will work with OTG however...
Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
vja4Him said:
Does anyone know if the Note 10 Plus can access an 8TB Portable Hard Drive ? I would like to use it with both my computer and Note 10 Plus to back up and transfer files …. I found this 8TB Portable HD ….
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401
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Use the OTG device that comes in the box with your phone. Use the cable that comes with the phone charger. Boom, you should have access to the HDD granted it has its own power cord.