Beelink S82 Plus Review: Quadcore Android Media Player

The Beelink S82 Plus is a quadcore Android media player powered by the Amlogic S812 and running Android 4.4.

Thanks to Pandawill for providing me a sample for review. Click here to get the latest price.

What is the Beelink S82 Plus?

The Beelink S82 Plus is an unique-looking Android mini PC. Powered by the Amlogic S812 chipset and running Android 4.4, it’s a unit capable of offering great performance for both gaming and media playback.

What’s in the box?

Beelink have provided pretty much everything you’d need to get started. Inside the box, you get:

• 1x Beelink S82 Plus
• 1x HDMI cable
• 1x USB OTG cable
• 1x Power Adapter
• 1x Remote control

Beelink S82 Plus Unboxing and Demo

Beelink S82 Plus Technical Specifications

• Operating System: Android 4.4.2
• Chipset: Amlogic S812
• CPU: Quad core ARM Cortex-A9r4, 2.0GHz
• GPU:  ARM Mali-450MP6
• Memory: 2GB DDR3
• Internal Storage: 16GB eMMC + Micro SD card slot (up to 32GB)
• Connectivity:  10/100M Ethernet, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0
• Audio/Video Output: HDMI 1.4, SP-DIF
• Interfaces: 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x micro USB OTG
• Power Supply: DC 5V/2A
• Other: IR Sensor, Power button

Beelink S82 Plus Design

The Beelink S82 Plus has a really cool puck-inspired design. The top of the case features Beelink branding and subtle grooves etched into the surface, much like a record. All of the ports are located at the back of the device, following its curve.

The front section of the device is flat but houses the IR port and blue power LED. Heading to the back of the device, we can see all of the ports. Moving from left to right, we have the power button, 2 USB 3.0 ports, composite video output, DC In, Ethernet, HDMI Out, Optical Audio, microSD slot and a micro USB OTG port.

The included remote control is identical to the one featured in the Beelink i One. It’s basic but covers off all the key functionality. A directional pad is flanked by the typical Android functions and and  in-built mouse control is also featured. Whilst this is great to have, it is controlled via the directional buttons so it’s a little clunky. If you need to use the mouse alot, i’d invest in an air mouse like the Rikomagic MK705.

Beelink S82 Plus First Boot and Initial Impressions

The device doesn’t turn on until you press the power button. Booting was a relatively slow compared to similar boxes, with a cold boot taking around 30 seconds. Resuming from standby is instantaneous however, so I don’t believe this is a massive negative.

The first boot loads a setup wizard which gets you up and running, ensuring that you are connected to the internet and your resolution is set correctly. It’s a nice touch that also appeared on the Beelink i One and makes great strides into making these Android mini PCs more accessible.

Beelink S82 Plus User Interface and Included Apps

Beelink’s UI is the same Mediabox reskin featured on the i One. Adopting an appealing light blue color scheme, it is appealing enough and does help differentiate it slightly. It would have been great to see a custom Beelink launcher here but it does work well.

The home screen features a clock/weather widget which can be configured, a selection of commonly used applications a customisable favorites menu. Moving outside the home screen on the left or right also reveals some category-specific tabs for apps such as Videos and Games.

The “MboxSettings” application houses the devices settings and is identical to the one seen in other devices using the Mediabox Launcher. However, its very intuitive to use and has all the key settings you need without having to dive into the complex and remote-unfriendly stock Android settings app.

Rest assured that the Google Play Store is installed and the device rooted out of the box.

EShare

The Beelink S82 Plus features EShare. This is a common application across Beelink’s newer Android boxes and allows you to not only can you share movies, music and files to the Beelink S82 Plus, but the application can also act as a remote, touch pad or air mouse, in addition to mirroring the mini PC’s screen on your phone and controlling it. With clients are available for Android, iOS and Windows, this is a big plus for Beelink’s current Android boxes. It was great to be able to control and monitor the box remotely, as long as I was connected to my WiFi network. I was impressed with both how well it worked and the immense amounts of useful functionality they crammed into the app.

Beelink S82 Plus Media Playback

Antutu Video Tester 3.0

To test media playback, I started with Antutu Video Tester 3.0. This application runs through a number of video files with different codecs and outputs the results. The final test score was 1086. Antutu Video Tester stated that the S82 Plus fully supported all the codecs it covers.

App-Based Video Playback.

To test real word media playback, I played a number of video samples in both MX Player and Kodi 14.2. In situations where I had issues in Kodi, I then tested the video in the SPMC, the Kodi fork specifically for Android devices.

I was able to play the Sintel Bluray ISO in Kodi, so it appears that Bluray ISOs are supported.

Overall video playback performance was excellent, with only some of the more demanding codecs tripping the box up. I did experience some issues with HEVC in Kodi but installing SPMC, a Kodi fork tailored for Android devices, solved the issue.

Screen Mirroring

I was able to mirror my Samsung S4’s screen using the HD setting in the built-in “WiFi Display” app, . Some lag was present, but I was able to complete a race of Tabletop Racing with minimal breakup.

Beelink S82 Plus Gaming Performance

To test gaming performance, I installed 2 games – 1 2D and 1 3D title:

• Angry Birds
• Beach Buggy Racing

As you can see in the attached demo, both games performed well on the device. Angry Birds was nice and smooth, without any perceivable slowdown. Cranking Beach Buggy Racing to maximum settings, I was able to maintain a good framerate, with minor slowdown occurring when there were lots of objects on the screen.

Gaming Controllers and Bluetooth

I was able to connect my iPega 9025 controller over Bluetooth without any issue and play Beach Buggy Racing without any noticeable lag.

SixAxis Compatibility Checker reports the device as compatible so you shouldn’t have any issue using your PS3 controllers over Bluetooth.

Networking Performance

To test networking performance, the device is connected to the router via WiFi or Ethernet. The router is located approximately 5.7m from the device without minor obstructions. A 100Mb file is transferred between the device and a PC running the benchmarking server application. This is repeated 3 times for each direction and the average is taken.

Wifi performance was great. I was able to get upload and download speeds of 9.5 Mbps and 45.1 Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, . Switching over to 5GHz saw an improvement thanks to lower competition on the frequency, achieving an upload speed of 14.5 Mbps and a download speed of 80.8 Mbps. It’s clear the wireless AC chip helps.

Ethernet performance was good, reaching 78.6 Mbps down and 75.2 Mbps up.

In terms of real world performance, I had no issues streaming 1080p and 4K H.264 videos over 2.4GHz WiFi.

Beelink S82 Plus Benchmarks

Antutu 5.7

The Beelink S82 Plus scored 41807 on Antutu 5.7. However, the score was unable to be verified so take this score with a grain of salt.

Epic Citadel

Epic Citadel achieved 39.3 fps at 1920×1080 on the “High Quality” performance level.

A1 SD Bench

The internal storage achieved read/write speeds of 28.18MB/s and 25.50MB/s. The RAM copy speed was 958.92MB/s.

Other Notes

Custom ROM Support

At this stage, there are no custom ROMs for the Beelink S82 Plus.

Beelink S82 Plus Temperatures

Temperatures were measured after benchmarking using an IR thermometer. With an ambient temperature of 20.9°C, the top and bottom case temperatures were 36.2°C and 45.2°C respectively. CPU-Z read the SoC chip at 74°C.

Beelink S82 Plus Power Consumption

Getting One

If you’re interested in getting the Beelink S82 Plus for yourself, click here to get one from Pandawill.

Alternatively, you can get one from Geekbuying, GearBest, Amazon or Aliexpress.

Additional Photos

Beelink S82 Plus

The Beelink S82 Plus combines an unique puck-style design with a powerful SoC. Offering solid gaming and media performance, coupled with strong networking and the EShare application, make this an great Android box for the price.

Pros

Cons

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