The Tanix TX6
This won’t really be an objective review of the TX6, nor will this be a tutorial, though both will be linked throughout. Instead, this is more of my experience using this in various experiments.
The Thing Itself
The TX6 is a small android based set-top box made by Tanix. It has an Allwinner H6 SoC at it’s core and mine came with 4 GB of DDR3 soldered down and 64 GB of eMMC. Asides from the thing itself, it also comes with a remote to control it and a 5V 2A power brick with a barrel jack.
I bought the TX6 off of Amazon for around £30 in 2020 after my parents bought another android box based on an rk3188. There are a lot of cheap android boxes coming from chinese OEMs and they give SBCs like the Raspberry Pi 3 a run for the money.
As an Android Box
The TX6 comes with Android 9 preinstalled with its own custom launcher that provides a 10-foot ui. Additionally, it also comes with some apps like Chrome and Kodi as well as Google Play Services so you can install your own apps. Using it with the provided remote is a pain as it essentially uses the arrow keys to move about, which android was not designed for. The remote also has a mouse mode where the directional buttons instead move a mouse cursor around the screen, which is only marginally better as android was also not made for mouse. If you’re getting this, consider also buying a keyboard mouse combo or all in one so you can plug it in and hopefully have a better experience.
An important thing to note is that these android boxes tend to come with some nasty malware built-in, so you may want to think twice before leaving them plugged it 24/7 on your network. Also, since it first came out, it has had only one major update from android 7 to android 9, and hasn’t gotten another since. This means that, if it doesn’t already have malware on it, that exploits that were patched may still work on the box.
As a Linux Box
In theory it has good support for linux, a premade DTB, a u-boot defconfig and somewhat mainline linux kernel support for the H6 it uses. However, one main thing mainline linux doesn’t support is ethernet. More specifically, although the MAC drivers for the H6 have been merged since 5.0, the integrated AC200 PHY has yet to be merged, only existing in kernel patches scattered across the internet. There are some forks of armbian which add support for ethernet and other devices such as wifi through those patches but they run outdated kernels with little way to upgrade, so you go back the problem of security. That being said, libreelec and lakka both offer prebuilt images for the TX6 so if you want to use it as a media player or a light retro gaming box, it might work out. It is woth noting that mainline kernels will boot on the H6 so if you have an external wifi adapter or an ethernet dongle, it may also work for you.
One major issue with the TX6 in general is heat. The H6 generates a lot of heat, the provided heatsink is too small for the purpose, and for some reason, the board is upside-down when sitting. All these mean that, especially with linux, the processor will get past 60C on moderate loads and even shutdown on heavy loads. I had to flip the box over and cut a hole for a small fan to manage temperatures.
Final Thoughts
Despite its drawbacks, the TX6 has its uses. Kodi plays 1080p movies smoothly with libreelec and Lakka can emulate older systems such as the SNES fairly well. However, if you want this as an android tv or as a Raspberry Pi replacement, you might be disappointed, especially considering the Raspberry Pi 3 goes for about the smae price and has vastly better linux support. I’ve tried many time to use it as a server, but being stuck with armbian is a pain. It’s probably going to sit around for a while until more things get merged into linux.