Kukai TV is a new Internet TV brand established in 2013. With the aim of becoming a "technology trendy product for young people", it has always taken technology, innovation and high cost performance as its product strategy. It has launched many products with design, quality and cost performance. Today, we will experience the Kukai 50A2 TV, which is the first model of the "big content" of Kukai's new strategy, Provide consumers with perfect video and audio viewing experience with rich resources and content. In today's increasingly homogeneous hardware, the follow-up user experience and resources are the fundamental to improve user stickiness.

Configuration parameters:

Product model: Kukai 50A2

Body size (excluding base): 1099 * 68 * 640mm

Body size (including base): 1099 * 332 * 685mm

Thinnest part: 9.9mm

Weight (including base): 15.5kg

Overall power: 110W

CPU： 4-core processor Cortex A72 * 2+A53 * 2

GPU：Mali-T820*3

Operating memory: 2GB DDR3

Built in storage: 8GB eMMC5.0

Screen size: 50 inches

Resolution: 3840 * 2160

Response time: 8ms

Screen scale: 16:9

Interface: 3 HDMI 2.0; 1 AV in; 1 line out; 2 USB 3.0; One RJ45 network interface; 1 RF interface

Unpacking&Product Details:

The packaging of the Kukai 50A2 is quite solid. The packaging box of a 50 inch TV is about the same size as that of a 60 inch TV. The manufacturer has spared no effort in protection measures. The thick packaging box can effectively prevent the TV from being damaged during transportation.

Open the top cover to see the real TV, and use foam&plastic wrapping paper for protection to prevent shaking or relics from scratching the screen during transportation.

The accessory is relatively simple, including two aluminum alloy brackets, power cord, remote control&battery, signal transfer cable, etc.

The whole body of the remote control is designed to be skin like. It is soft to hold and is not easy to leave fingerprints. It is very comfortable to hold it softly. It is a pity that the attached remote control is a traditional infrared remote control, rather than a popular Bluetooth remote control.

The aluminum alloy bracket adopts a split design, and the workmanship is very meticulous both on the outside and inside the interface. There is no burr formed by casting, and it looks solid.

The bracket is fixed with hexagon screws, and a hexagon wrench is attached, which is very fast and convenient to install.

After installing the bracket, you can see the real Kukai 50A2. Kukai is quite simple in the design of the fuselage. Ultra narrow frame+ultra-high screen proportion+metal perforated front panel form the front face of the fuselage. The ultra-high screen proportion gives a deep impression at first.

The combination design of black panel+black inner frame+silver metal frame makes it look like there is no frame far away. It is quite thin and has strong impact.

In fact, there is a circle of black inner frame in the inner layer of the frame, which is integrated with the whole display panel. The design is very pleasing and gives a great visual effect.

The most prominent part of the fuselage is the metal perforated panel that runs through the fuselage panel at the bottom. The design that runs through the entire fuselage not only perfectly hides the sound inside the fuselage, but also improves the heat dissipation effect of the whole machine and prevents the fuselage from overheating in hot summer. Compared with the safe design of drilling only in the audio part, the scheme of penetrating the fuselage is more symmetrical. The logo of COOCAA&JBL is printed on the lower right corner of the fuselage, indicating that the identity of the audio system is jointly designed and manufactured by Kukai and JBL. JBL is also a symbol of sound quality assurance in the industry.

There is a function key in the lower left corner. You can use your phone or tablet to pair as an independent sound through Bluetooth after gently pressing it. It is very fast and convenient to use. This combined design not only improves the use rate of TV stereo, but also saves room at home. Why not integrate Bluetooth speakers into TV?

All kinds of interfaces are located on the left side of the back of the fuselage, which is very rich. The Kukai 50A2 provides three HDMI 2.0 interfaces, one AV in interface, one Line out interface, two USB 3.0 interfaces, one RJ45 interface, and one RF interface. Sufficient interfaces allow us to connect many devices at the same time, such as high-definition set-top boxes, game consoles, and so on.

The guard plate on the back of the fuselage is also very well designed. In order to strengthen the strength of the whole machine, the back plate uses a stiffener design. The overall stress rigidity is enhanced by concave convex stiffeners of different widths. The back plate is thin but not fragile.

Below the stiffener is the white plastic body, where the main board and power supply are all located. The plastic back cover has openings at the top, bottom, left and right to enhance heat dissipation, further enhancing the heat dissipation capacity of the whole machine.

The protruding part at the bottom is an independent HiFi sound. There are two double bass radiators at the bottom to help improve the middle and low frequencies. SoundBar logo is printed at the bottom left.

There are openings of different orientations and sizes at the bottom of the sound system. Different resonance spaces of different high, middle and low tones are realized by using different opening sizes and distances from the wall, so as to improve the sound effect of the sound system as much as possible under the limited volume.

The workmanship of various details and joints is quite excellent. Kukai not only has design, but also has excellent workmanship. It has both hard and soft details. We should pay more attention to quality when we have design, which is the cornerstone for a hardware company to go higher and farther.

Body feature: 9.9mm ultra-thin

Kukai adopts an ultra-thin body design of only 9.9mm, which is thinner than a dollar coin. The visual effect is amazing, and it is one of the thinnest models on the market.

Although the thickness is not a hard indicator for televisions, the lower thickness can better meet the needs of users who want to hang televisions on the wall. With the improvement of public living standards, many users will choose to customize a special "TV wall" when decorating their living room, so wall mounted TV has become a common form.

The thickness and weight of traditional flat panel LCD TV are relatively high, so it is not only difficult to hang on the wall, but also difficult to integrate the high thickness with the wall, with a little disharmony. The new generation of flat screen TV, such as the Kukai 50A2, is only 9.9mm. After hanging it, it can also be well integrated with the wall. This is also the meaning of TV's pursuit of lighter and thinner. The Kukai 50A2 is obviously doing a good job in this regard.

Display effect&screen quality test: RGB 4K+MEMC dynamic image quality compensation

As a TV set, the quality of the display panel is of course the most important. The Kukai 50A2 uses a 50 inch RGB 4K panel with a resolution of 3820 × 2160. It has an ultra wide viewing angle of 178 °, a response speed of 8ms, and a static contrast of 4000:1. In the mobile phone evaluation, many users questioned that the "visual angle" is not significant for mobile phones, but it is a very important indicator for TV. Family harmony is one of the traditional cultures of Chinese civilization. On holidays, the whole family, old and young, gather together. Often, everyone will gather in the living room and never watch from an angle at the same time. At this time, the advantage of large visual angle appears. The Kukai 50A2 has a visual angle of 178 °, almost reaching a plane, and can be viewed well except for a very small angle. Let's compare the live shot with the original video screenshot to see how the RGB 4K panel really performs.

We conducted a total of 12 groups of comparison sample film tests, including some 4K video screenshots and some pictures. In the performance of many scenes, Kukai has demonstrated its due level as a 4K TV, and its advantages brought by its ultra-high resolution are all obvious. The picture is exquisite and lifelike, and the color reproduction is very good. However, some scenes are slightly lively, such as 12 groups of sample sheets, the original picture is grayish, and Kukai shows brighter and more lively colors.

However, on the whole, the screen of the Kukai 50A2 performs well. In most cases, it can restore real colors very well, but the overall tuning is more focused on thick ink and heavy color. Some scenes are slightly color biased, but the colors it displays are quite pleasing. In addition, we played a number of 4K videos at the noon of the test. When decoding 4K movies, there was no sloppiness, quick response, and smooth play without stuttering.

In addition to the real image, the 4K test resolution, color and tone levels were also tested. These tests are also special tests for 4K TV.

In the tonal level test, the grayscale test of the gradient is relatively clear, and it is difficult to distinguish when the gradient is above 9 degrees. However, in the test of dark part level, that is, monitoring brightness, the performance is somewhat poor, and it can no longer be distinguished below 10.

In the test of color performance and visual angle, the performance of this screen is fairly good, and the visual angle is also very good, but some color balls appear bands, and the transition is not natural enough. If this part can be further strengthened, it would be better.

As for the gray scale test, the Kukai 50A2 performs very well. Only 4-5 squares in the upper left corner can not be distinguished, and others can clearly distinguish the gray scale difference. In this test, this 4K panel performs very well.

Performance introduction: Mstar6A938

In terms of performance, the Kukai 50A2 uses Mstar6A938, one of the strongest chips in the current TV chip. The chip is a four core design, consisting of two A72 with a main frequency of 1.7GHz and two A53. In terms of graphics processor, it uses three Mali-T820 cores. The comprehensive performance of this processor is higher than that of many smart phones, At the same time, the machine is equipped with 2GB DDR3 running memory and 8GB Emmc5.0 built-in storage, which is more than enough for decoding HDR ultra-high definition film sources and most games. Different from the super high update frequency of smart phones, TV replacement often takes at least three to five years. This Mstar6A938 can ensure that its performance will not fall behind in its service life.  

Audio experience: Soundbar+HiFi

Friends who have a certain understanding of sound should know that due to the volume of the resonant cavity, it is difficult to make sound very thin, and excellent sound is an indispensable part of a TV, so it is difficult for an excellent TV to give consideration to the ultra-thin body and good sound performance. Cookai innovatively designed a split HiFi sound for this feature, This bar type HiFi stereo can be used alone or as the speaker of a TV. It is practical to use one machine for two purposes and kill two birds with one stone.

The bar sound system is developed jointly by Kukai and JBL. It uses two silk film tweeters and two rubidium magnet mid low frequency speakers, and is equipped with four bass radiators to further enhance the performance of the mid low frequency band. For many users, the performance of the mid low frequency band largely determines the hearing of the whole machine. This design of Kukai is quite pleasing.

In addition to cooperating with JBL to develop the speakers, the Kukai 50A2 also has a built-in TAS5766 power amplifier chip from Texas Instruments. This chip is rarely used in such devices as televisions. Its design target group is Class D audio amplifiers of more than 2 × 50W. Kukai spared no cost to design it on the 50A2 smart TV, which shows its efforts on HiFi.

In our actual listening experience, the Kukai 50A2 really showed good quality, and the independent audio design exceeded the design of most TV integrated audio systems in terms of audio performance. This customized HiFi stereo has shown good quality in three frequency bands, reaching JBL A-level certification. Under the packaging of four bass radiators, its low stress performance is quite prominent, with thick and powerful bass, good diving depth, clear and rhythmic drums, slightly weak compared with the treble part. Although the quality of two silk film treble speakers is good, But there is a feeling of loneliness and helplessness, and the voice is thin. The performance of the mid-range is good. The performance of the male voice is very good, which can show the singer's deep and slightly hoarse voice very well. The performance of the female voice is relatively simple and explosive, but not sharp and clear enough. However, on the whole, there are still more flaws than merits. As a common design scheme for TV speakers and Bluetooth speakers, it is worth affirming.

System&resource experience:

The Coocaa OS 5.5 operating system is installed on the Coocaa 50A2. Compared with the previous 5.0 version, it has further improved the ease of use and long-term stability. In the long run, the use of Android as the underlying operating system has been criticized by people for slowing down and getting stuck after a long time of use, It not only ensures the smoothness of daily use, but also takes into account the stability of long-term use. After all, the life cycle of large appliances such as televisions is often more than three to five years. Public praise is very important. It is really a good experience to be smooth after one or two years.

The author had a slight contact with Coocaa OS before, and had a deep feeling after trying out the Cookai 50A2. It has been quite improved after evolution to version 5.5, and has also added children's mode, video call and remote assistance functions on the original basis. Some child modes are similar to mobile phones. After the child mode is turned on, Kukai changes into [Entertainment/Parent Child/Lejiao] mode. All themes will focus on the theme of children's early education, and parental control is added. Users can set which resources children can access by themselves. In order to ensure that the user can get timely after-sales help when encountering problems, as long as the remote assistance mode is turned on, the after-sales personnel of Kukai can help you solve problems remotely.

After entering 2016, Cookai has established a new product strategy of "big resources", that is, to provide consumers with perfect video and audio viewing experience with rich resources and content. With the maturing of product design and the increasing progress of OEM technology, the products of major manufacturers in hardware design are becoming more and more homogeneous, especially for products like TV, where the screen occupies more than 90% of the area of the whole machine, it is difficult to produce differential design in appearance, so the subsequent user experience, resources and value-added services are the basis for improving user stickiness, Kukai has formally grasped the psychology of users and vigorously carried out the strategy of "big resources" to firmly grasp the consumer psychology of users.

In order to achieve this goal, Kukai has built in GITV, iQIYI, Kiwi and other resource libraries, and can enjoy Kiwi VIP members for 2 years for free. Maybe many users will use iQIYI every day, but they are not so familiar with Qiqiyi. In fact, it is the TV client of iQIYI. All resources are provided by iQIYI. Having a VIP of Qiqiyi is basically equivalent to having a VIP of iQIYI. Within a period of two years, they will have four major rights: free access to the paid film library, priority distribution of content source network speed On demand advertising free and popular content ultra clear exclusive. With such a powerful film and television resource provider as the backer, users need not worry about the lack of film and television resources.

Summary:

RGB 4K display panel+independent JBL audio+2-year Kiwi VIP. As a relatively inexpensive 4K TV, the Kukai 50A2 has everything a high-end smart TV needs. It not only has a 4K display panel with excellent color performance, but also has HiFi chip+JBL audio support. There is not much to be picky about in terms of hardware. In addition, it also has an ultra narrow frame and thickness, The appearance is simple, bright and generous. The ultra-high screen has a strong impact. In addition to excellent hardware design, Kukai also works hard on resources. It has powerful iQIYI as film and television resources support, and has also provided Kiwi VIP for two years, which is basically perfect at the same price.