This box only has 100Mbit/s ethernet.
Instead of posting each of the several thousand china boxes, it seems easier to me, if you just write down your requirements for such a device (Wi-Fi / LAN speed / HDR / no clock / proper cooling / low price / …), and maybe some of our users can recommend something that fits your expectations.
You can also take a look into this post in the Kodi forums:
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916
Thanks will take a look.
This is fake box. No Magicsee, all that is writen on the label is “N5 Max”. I got scamed too with one of those.
A friend of mine is in the same position right now and is in the market for a new box for the same price point as the H96 Max S905X2.
So my starting point for consideration, taking into consideration general spec and price point is that I would immediately say forget the S905X2 and focus on S905X3 as price differential is very small and so best to go with the later SOC, which may also have longer term support.
The key differences between S905X2 and X3 boxes is that X3 boxes tend to come with 1 USB 3.0 port as standard, the X3 is faster and is also more power efficient.
But first a little bad news. Just about every cheap Android TV box (and rather too many expensive ones too) comes with crappy firmware, most of which may see an update or two that will fix little, leaving it in the hands of independent devs to produce custom firmwares to make them more practically usable and stable. Which boxes get such support can often depend on what is popular, so if Android is a really key priority for stability, performance and reliability, do some research on sites such as Freaktab, xdadevelopers and others.
For the purposes of media usage, then of course, CoreELEC is so much better than Android and has way better support by a country mile.
Most boxes will come with WiFi and Bluetooth and so I would say that if WiFi is important then go for a box with dual band WiFi and even better, supporting the AC standard.
Bluetooth functionality is fairly standard but as each manufacturer will use differing WiFi/Bluetoooth chipsets, do some research on here to make sure that the tyoe you may choose is supported by CE. Pretty much most WiWi are but Bluetooth is not quite as universal, although it is possible and cheap to add a generic USB Bluetooth dongle to provide support, albeit at the expense of using a USB port.
The cheaper the box, the more possibility of having 100Mbit Ethernet and whilst adequate for some needs, I would personally recommend going for something with 1000Mbit (Gigabit) as not only will it be faster for streaming but also handles higher bitrate videos without annoying buffering, especially via the internet (noting that slow internet connection means potentially slow streaming and buffering anyway).Some boxes with the same name will have differing specs in terms of Ethernet (and sometimes WiFi) dependant upon specs, so watch out for that as it can make a cheap purchase suddenly seem like a bad one.
Most X3’s will come with 1 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0 and a select few will come with an extra USB 2.0, which might be handy if you need more ports for perhaps TV tuners and other things.
There is only one X3 that I am aware of that also has a 2.5" HDD/SDD bay.
Then there is of course the user experience and reviews, which it always pays to research on forums and places like Youtube. The time will be worth spending to ensure that you get what you want.
There are some fake boxes out there that look like the originals but have inferior and even different hardware under the hood. Fleabay is a particular place to find them, so always purchase with insurance just in case.
RAM and Storage will be dependent upon what you yourself need but with USB ports, micros SD card slot, you do get immediate storage expansion options. The more RAM the better but 2Gb should be the minimum to start with and perfectly fine for CE use but Android will use more RAM in general and if gaming is your thing, I’d say go for 4Gb.
For my friend, based on them not wanting to spend more than £45 I have currently recommended the X96 Air, with one proviso.
They can get the 4Gb/64Gb model, with Gigabit Ethernet, 3 x USB ports (2 x 2.0, 1 x 3.0), dual band WiFi, Bluetooth.
Reviews are good and user experience seems quite positive.
But the proviso is not one that is entirely uncommon to TV boxes, cooling/heat dissipation.
The manufacturers of the X96 Air failed to provide any vents for heat dissipation,which does mean a hotter box, although only seems to be an issue under high load/stress.
So I shall be taking the case apart and drilling some holes/vents into the plastic to reduce overheating, which may not be something that you want to do.
If your budget were to stretch further then you might even consider an SBC (single board computer) such as the Odroid C4, although that is an entirely different discussion.
As far as dual boot from eMMC is concerned, which has pretty much been covered by others, you did the right thing to ask if a particular box was capable and I don’t know if the X96 Air is, although there are a couple of discussion thread about it on here, so you may well find the answer there.
Good luck OP and be prepared for some ups and downs along the way but it’s all worth it for the most part.
Top post, thank you for that certainly lots of food for thought. 
Well the H96 Max is not on my list anymore as it seems easily brickable!
Not in any rush and may even decided I don’t want the stress but we’ll see. Now off to read about the X96 Air!
Can’t find much out about this box but it is listed here to run CE so…
What the temps and general feel of the unit like?
Had this box incorporated gigabit ethernet then it would be on my list for consideration of an S905X3 and reviews, from what I have seen, are generally positive, such as this one.
Whilst I appreciate that you are searching for the best box for your needs, I personally would be wary of creating multiple threads about it as it might not go down too well in terms of receiving voluntary responses.
Thank you, I merged the two topics.
That’s a fair point but I did search here and although it’s listed as CE compatible I couldn’t find much out about it. The gigbit ethernet is probably important for 4K content and those that go for giant files even when only 1080p. The extra bandwidth isn’t an issue for me as I run most stuff from a local drive.
Sorry about that I suppose I thought the box needed a bit of attention. Perhaps all compliant boxes needs a dedicated thread as it would make a good repository of info for each?
So as this is an ‘ng’ box/chip should we expect dual boot to work? Or is it still at the users risk?
There are some boxes out there with a internal NAND storage instead of eMMC. These aren’t supported.
Also there are some boxes out there with an encrypted bootloader what will prevent you for the usage of BL301.
I don’t remember this two devies anymore but I am sure you will find it on the forum.
In general are only devices supported by ceemmc if we tested it by ourself on the hardware. But you can rsearch the forum about other user experience.
If 100Mbit Ethernet is OK by you then I would say that it’s a pretty good choice.
Yes and it seems dual boot does work but obviously I’m still a bit nervous. I was going going for an X96 Air but the last one, at a good priced, sold on ebay! I thought it was the old ‘only one left grab it now tactic’ but it seems it was the last one! Bummer!!
So it’s currently between the Magicee N5 Max and the T95Max+ as they’re both listed here as compliant units. Just need to recheck that they both have been configured by users for dual boot from internal/emmc.
And for those thick like me:
eMMC and SSD are two different types of memory storages. eMMC stands for Embedded MMC, while MMC stands for MultiMediaCard. It is a type of memory card standard that is commonly used for solid-state storage. SSD stands for Solid-state drive or Solid-state disk. The primary difference between the two is that eMMC is a type of flash storage based on the MMC standard, while SSD is a type of Solid-state Storage.
Read in Full: http://www.differencebetween.info/difference-between-emmc-and-ssd
I own a X96Air and am happy with it after thermal mods (see my posts in the respective thread). However, the hardware specs of the X96Air have changed a couple of months ago. The first gen had Gigabit Eth (on the 32GB and up models), what is on sale now is 100Mbit. For me that would be a no-go.
If I were to buy another X3, I would go for another H96 Max X3 (I also own two of those for the kids’ rooms). Saw the reference to it being easily brickable, maybe, has not happened to me though so far.
A useful heads up regarding the Air, although it’s often the kind of thing that would generate a lot of complaint and I’ve not read anything about it myself, only that there are multiple board revisions, P1, P2, P3, P4 and V2.
Yes I read that as well and someone even suggested that some of the boxes were only 100mbit internet but I’m not sure I believe that. I did notice from trawling the web that the Air doesn’t seem to have a heatsink! The N5 Max should have a heat sink as several pix seemed to confirm.
I can assure that I saw announced by some dealers in AliExpress that the 2gb RAM 16gb was only 100 mbit ethernet and no Bluetooth. There are many different specs in this devices.
It is a pain when the manufacturers change specs on the fly without telling anybody,including the re-sellers.
Profits must be good not to care much about quality control and customer support.
I remember seeing a year or so ago in Gearbest a device on sale. They had a note saying “it can be delivered randomly with S905W or S905X” which are very different things. So… That’s what it is.
OP have you looked at Ugoos? The X3 Cube or Pro should be running the 905X3.
They have pretty good support for firmware on the Android side. And there are a lot of nice small additions to the firmware like global refresh rate changing, multi channel pcm, game pad customization,et.
I recently bought the older X2. You can also get a Rom from Ugoos that dual boots Android and CE.
Some folks here would say you’re better off using the emmc tool found here but so far so good on my end.
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