KDLINKS A300 TV Media Player Review

KDLINKS A300 Android TV Box

The A300 is the new android box from KDLINKS, having already reviewed the KDLINKS A200 and being impressed l was looking forward to seeing what the A300 has to offer.

Build quality is always very good from KDLINKS and this is often reflected in the price. As the owner of many discarded cheaper units choosing purely on price alone often leads to android boxes that are simply not fit for purpose.

One of the unique selling points of the A200 and the A300 is that they have an interior caddy that will support a 3.5" HDD. Being able to fit a cheap 3.5" Hard Drive internally maintains the sleek STB look of the unit.

Performance

The A300 has a Quad-core Cortex A9 CPU running at 1.5 Ghz, this is comparable to the popular Amlogic S802 featured in other popular high end android devices.

Combined with the Octa-core Mali-450 GPU the Cortex CPU the A300 is capable of running 3D games at a high quality and with high frame rates. The Mali-450 GPU is well supported across the board and support for hardware decoding is built into Kodi.

Memory specification is also very good, 2GB DDR3 RAM and 16GB DDR3 is more than enough for all modern android apps and games.

The Gigabit LAN speed is exceptionally fast with over 20MB/s being reached. Wifi (2.4Ghz a/b/g/n) reception is strong and reliable using the large antenna.

Video and audio support is fantastic, this box handles Dolby Digital 5.1/7.1, TrueHD 5.1/7.1, DTS-HD MA and DTS-HD with ease. The A-300 supports 4K and playbacks 4K at up to 4K30 smoothly making this the best box on the market for viewing 4K.

Interface and XBMC/Kodi

The A300 runs on Android 4.4 KitKat and the google Play Store is preinstalled.

A well designed version of Kodi comes preinstalled as well, as you can now download Kodi frmo the Play Store directly this is not so important but is nice all the same.

Kodi runs like a dream on this box, as you might expect from the hardware used. The interface runs smoothly and is slick if unspectacular.

The full sized remote works well at controlling the box and the IR learning function means it can be used to replicate your own remote controls.

Video Demo: A300 Gameplay and Kodi Demonstration

Connectivity and Internals 

Connectivity is handled excellently by KDLINKS with a HDMI 1.4 connector plus an older composite AV connector.

S/PDIF + coaxial optical audio handle audio, there is also a SD card slot and an external SATA.

There are 2 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0 connectors, this is excellent as it can be surprising how quickly you find something to use up your USB ports.

REVIEW SUMMARY

I could sum up this box easily by just saying 'fantastic', but that's just lazy, so here goes.

It handles every audio or video you can throw at it with ease, playback is smooth and crisp.

Most people will connect a large Hard drive to their android box at some time or another and having the option to use a cheap 3.5" Hard Drive internally is a neat solution, l an surprised more manufacturers have not gone down this root. If you have used other cheaper android boxes in the past i can soocomepprent that you get what you pay for, this is more expensive than most boxes but is easily worth the extra outlay.

The major problem with this box is the availabilty, hopefully this will soon be rectified and more people can rave about this great device.

For

• Internal 3.5" HD caddy
• Android 4.4 KitKat
• 2GB  RAM
• Mali 450 Octo-Core Graphics
• 16GB Internal Flash Memory
• Build quality
• 4K Video Playback
• Google Play Store & Kodi
• IR Learning remote

Against

• Price
• Availabilty