At the end of 2015, when Tencent just released this intelligent game console called miniStation, which has a strong sense of design, I once thought it was a new challenge from the world's largest game company to the traditional game console industry overlords such as Dafa, Ju Dong and Ren Hell. However, it was not until the end of 2016, a year later, that the author actually got the miniStation micro game machine cooperated by Tencent and Tidu and tried it for several days that I realized that my original idea was fundamentally wrong.

What is miniStation? "Intelligent hardware that provides living room mobile game solutions". Yes, if you really want to give miniStation an accurate positioning, the words "intelligent hardware" may be the most appropriate. In fact, Goose Factory never wanted to compete with those hardware giants, because it wanted something very clear - your living room; The users it wants are very clear - mobile game players, so miniStation is essentially different from the usual XBOX and other household game consoles: the main function of miniStation is to move the games on mobile platforms such as mobile phones to televisions for large screen display, and to deeply explore the fun of mobile games. The real goal of miniStation is not to win in the positive competition with traditional game consoles, but to effectively improve the entertainment experience of 400 million mobile game players in China.

At the end of the preface, please forgive me for deliberately avoiding Li Xiaofeng and his Tidu company. In fact, Tencent has resources and technology, Tidu has the image of Li Xiaofeng and the brand of professional e-sports. Their cooperation is mutually beneficial... However, Lenovo and Skyworth had the same model of miniStation a year ago, Even Skyworth has set up a second generation miniStation (although I think it is a beautiful generation)

At the end of the preface, thank you again Love to play computer games With the chance to try it out, I wish Aikongji and all of you a new look in the new year! Recently, the smog is really serious. The author has inhaled too much toxic gas recently, and has had a fever for a week, so he has no strength to do the evaluation. So I advise you to avoid outdoor activities as much as possible. It is relatively safe to play games at home.  

Unpacking

In fact, in terms of packaging, this miniStation is still "titanium":

Whether it is the handle or the host, the packaging is always red and black, and the style is relatively simple. From the package, we can see that the game console model is TGB1000, and the handle model is TGC100.

The product name, logo and configuration of miniStation, and the word "born for E-sports" of Tidu are photocopied on each side of the host's packaging box.

Open the package and you can see the host computer in the package box. There are some other accessories in the package box besides the host computer, which will be shown in the table later. Next, look at the handle.

The special handle with the model of TGC100 is a dual-mode handle, which means that this product can support both Android and Windows, and can also be used when plugged into a computer. From this perspective, this handle is very practical.

The handle is a standard xbox 360 configuration, and the classic design of asymmetric rocker and trigger key. The handle is also responsible for accessories such as batteries and connecting cables.  

The last host+handle+accessories:

Pay special attention to this titanium degree, or the user's letter from SKY:

Of course, what the product is like must not depend on feelings, but on specific experience.  

Appearance and design

At the first sight of the host, I felt so full of design that I couldn't believe it for a moment. MiniStation is a product of Tencent, which has always been called "bad design".

It is no exaggeration to say that unlike the usual rigid host, miniStation has its own unique aesthetic style.

The miniStation mainframe is designed as a hollow cube with black body. The body material feels like gold rather than gold. After careful study, the author decided that it should be aluminum alloy.

The hollow part adopts a mirror design, with a silver LED light strip inside. After the host is powered on, the following effects will appear:

In breathing, it is not only beautiful, but also full of science fiction!

In the hollow part, there is also a hidden cooling hole of the host. The hidden cooling hole design not only ensures the integrated appearance of the host, but also can give full play to all the performance of the host.

The bottom of the mainframe is made with a ring of anti-skid rubber pad, and there are some information in the foot pad.

The interfaces of the titanium miniStation are placed at the rear of the host. There are not many interfaces, including a DC power interface, an HDMI interface, a network cable interface and a USB3.0 interface. The number of interfaces is quite small. Although it seems very simple, when it is really used, it will encounter some problems, which are included in the table.  

After talking about the console, let's talk about another component of the game console - the handle.

About the handle, let me first say the conclusion - I am very satisfied with this handle! The handle itself is a classic XBOX asymmetric design plus classy materials. In general, it is also the most commonly used classic design.

In any case, although the workmanship of the handle is not exquisite, it is still very good. It supports wired and wireless dual-mode, and has a very good feel. Although it is not better than the original XBOX handle, it is not inferior to the 100 yuan handle of XTong, an old manufacturer on the market. In general, the key feedback is very clear.

The hand-held part of the handle is also made with anti slip lines.

However, this handle is not designed for charging, but uses two AA batteries for power supply. This can be good or bad. Finally, it should be noted that the Bluetooth receiver of the handle is hidden in the chrysanthemum of the handle and squints manually.

In general, the design and appearance of the titanium mini station micro game console is absolutely excellent. Even if it is not used on the desktop, it is also an excellent decoration. Well, it seems that there is some truth in the products that can win the red dot award.  

Installation and commissioning

  As an intelligent terminal device, the installation of titanium miniStation is relatively simple.

Plug in the HDMI and DC power cables in turn, and then power on. If you need to sleep, you can press and hold the touch button on the top of the host for 3 seconds. As for power-off... you have to unplug the power supply

After completing the installation and seeing a cool boot animation, you can see the above picture. This screen also indicates that the primary connection of the host is successful.

So the problem arises. Because the monitor without audio is used by the author in this test, wouldn't the miniStation with HDMI interface and no AUX audio output interface be able to output sound? This is a big failure! Finally, the author used a third-party APP to call out the Bluetooth interface to solve the problem of voice output. First of all, it is strongly recommended to add audio output interface to the next generation products.

After seeing the above picture, you can choose to use your phone to start connecting to the host to complete the next setting.

First of all, the titanium mini station micro game console supports two control modes: mobile phone and handle. However, it seems that the initialization and setting can only be done by mobile phone.

Follow the prompts to download the APP on the mobile phone. The APP interface will first provide users with a simple introduction guide.

Then follow the prompts on the display screen to complete the scanning host and password input one by one, and you can easily complete the docking between the phone and the host.

After the connection between the mobile phone and the host computer is completed, it is also necessary to select the external network to be connected for the host computer. Here, I want to mention that the console computer supports 5G band, which should be praised decisively! After completing all the above steps, you can see the touch panel in the above figure. As long as you use this touch panel, you can easily use your mobile phone to control the host.

Because the miniStation itself is not large, it is also completely OK to put it behind the display of the author.

Finally, when talking about the handle control, the author thought that the miniStation body directly supports Bluetooth, as long as the Bluetooth handle is connected to the host. However, when playing, the host simply does not have the option of Bluetooth. Finally, with the mentality of trying, he took out the Bluetooth receiver in the watch chrysanthemum and inserted it into the USB interface on the host chrysanthemum, The handle is connected to the host successfully... However! In this way, the only USB interface of the host must be used for the handle! There is no place to connect USB flash drives and other third-party devices!

  To sum up, the titanium miniStation game console is relatively easy to install. Just plug in the corresponding connection cable and follow the prompts to connect and operate with your mobile phone. The only thing to note is that the Bluetooth receiver of the handle needs to be inserted into the host to complete the connection between the handle and the host. In the process of installation and debugging, the author also found two problems related to interfaces: one is that the host is not configured with an audio output interface, which will be awkward when connecting a display device without its own speaker; The second is that the host has only one USB interface and is occupied by the original handle, which makes it impossible to connect other devices. In a word, in terms of the number and function of interfaces, titanium needs to be more user-friendly.  

Hardware performance test

When writing the application reasons for this issue, I once wrote that: I think the final experience of game consoles like this Android platform depends on two things: the first is the absolute hardware performance, whether they can move smoothly with the current mainstream games, and whether the SOC will reduce the frequency due to heat, resulting in reduced game experience; The second is interaction and optimization. Whether we can make enough adaptation and optimization for the main games dominated by mobile games, whether we can have enough excellent resources, whether the handle operation is convenient when compared with holding the phone directly, including how comfortable the handle operation is, all need to be considered.

Of course, after a period of experience, I have realized that in essence, miniStation is still an OTT box, but has made a lot of optimization for mobile games, so in the next experience part, some parts will not only talk about mobile games.  

First of all, in terms of hardware, the titanium mini station adopts the SOC of four core A17 architecture, with the main frequency of 1.8 ghz, the display core of Mali-T764 (estimated to be the vest of T760), the memory of 2g, and the storage space of 16g.

As a set-top box, this configuration is very large, but as a game console, the storage space of 16g is really a little small. After all, some large stand-alone games will be nearly 2g in a single packet.

In order to further study the hardware performance of the titanium miniStation, the author installed the rabbit through a USB flash drive and ran the score:

I got about 45000 points, which is about the same as Meizu's ancestral P10. Looking at the 3D graphics performance score of over 10000, the author preliminarily judged that the GPU of this SOC should be T760MP4.

From the perspective of sub items, the SOC of titanium miniStation will exceed P10 in terms of both CPU computing performance and graphics performance, which is almost expected.

The parameters can be seen more clearly through the parameter list of Anthare: the SOC is the domestic RK3288 (mostly used for TV set-top boxes), the 28nm HKMG process, and the quad core A17 architecture (one of the earliest A17 chips). The GPU part is really the Mali-T760MP4 judged by the author earlier (unfortunately it is not the full blood version of Mali-T760MP16, or even the Adreno330). In terms of absolute performance, as a game console, miniStation must be a little weak, which is a huge gap compared with today's Snapdragon 820 flagship mobile phone. Even without testing, we can clearly know that many large 3D games cannot run smoothly because of their high image quality.

However, if it is positioned in an OTT box, its performance can certainly be said to be the best. After all, RK3288 once won the title of the top scorer in 2014. It is worth mentioning that Mali-T764, as a GPU set for STB, can support H.265 hard solution and 4K output, which undoubtedly improves the practicability and functionality of miniStation to a higher level.  

In terms of hardware performance, the titanium mini station equipped with RK3288, the 2014 running scorer SOC, can't match today's flagship computers in absolute performance, but as a multi-functional intelligent terminal, its performance is commendable among similar products. The only slight regret is that the storage space is only 16g, which seems to be a bit urgent.

Experience&fancy play&complaining

Speaking of hardware, experience means interaction and optimization. The first position of titanium miniStation is game console, which is essentially an OTT multimedia terminal. Let's start with games.

First of all, on the interface, the operation interface of titanium miniStation is undoubtedly very simple and intuitive:

On the main interface, you can see the downloaded games. Up is the game market, and down is the system recommendation.

The system recommendation section includes the activity center, multiplayer games, controller area and other most popular games of Tencent.

The application market is also rich in games, most of which are Tencent's games. In the application market, there are also special titanium fitting plates and handle special area plates.

However, too simple UI design also brings some problems, for example, the most obvious one is that the setting options cannot be found on the UI interface. I used the third-party mobile phone remote control software to directly call out the setting interface, and made some basic settings and connection to the Bluetooth speakers.  

Let's talk about basic operations. All basic operations of miniStation need to be carried out with the help of mobile phone APP. Of course, compared with most remote control APP on the market, this APP is also a minimalist design, with only one operation mode: touch. This radical and simple design will also bring inconvenience to users in many cases. I personally think that a 699 terminal can be provided with a remote control. After all, the cost is not high.  

At the end of the composition, the author installed the Wukong remote control for the sake of screenshots, and operated it for a while

I really think that compared with the native miniStation operating APP, the Wukong remote control is really much easier to use

I installed a TV cat and just took it to watch the old version of Liangjian for a while. In fact, I think that the miniStation is clearly a multimedia entertainment terminal. Why does Mao have to limit himself to the narrow range of "game consoles" to brush the fashion  

To get down to business, since it's a game console, let's talk about games first.

First of all, for Tencent's own games, miniStation is almost a perfect fit. You can control the game smoothly with your mobile phone or controller. But the game itself is designed for mobile phones after all, so you need to brush the handle skillfully to play happily.  

As for third-party games, it is certainly no problem to use mobile phones for screen projection, and the handle is also suitable for some parts. But also because of the problem of proficiency, the handle takes a long time to get used to. To some extent, the experience may not even be as good as that of mobile phones. As far as this "Wild Racing 8" is concerned, the first stage is the first stage of how I play with my mobile phone, and the first time I use the handle, I can only run the third stage.  

A game with a strong sense of attack, such as Endless Sword, is still suitable for direct operation on a mobile phone. Unfortunately, there will be some delay in the operation on a mobile phone. However, it is not a big problem to look at the screen instead of the mobile phone.  

When the controller is really useful, it is actually playing some simulator games.

For example, when using a third-party simulator to play the classic GBA game Pokemon, the handle is very necessary. After connecting the handle, the virtual keys on the screen will disappear automatically.  

In general, as far as the game experience is concerned, Tidu miniStation performs well. There are a large number of adaptive games in the game market, and many of them can be operated happily with mobile phones or handles. When the original small screen mobile game is put on the large screen, the effect can only be felt through personal experience. Anyway, I will say one word! Cool!  

As a multimedia terminal, Titanium MiniStation can do many things besides games.

Through the USB interface of the host, we can install third-party software for this machine at will. That is to say, with this method, we can easily escape the restrictions of radio and television, and watch many programs. After all, radio and television tube cannot reach the game console.  

After installing TV Cat and other APPs, you can also watch live TV like an ordinary set-top box:

For example, the author was very happy to watch two episodes of Liang Jian  

The powerful performance of RK3288 can also easily support 4k video, so it is also a good choice to watch a high-definition movie with Titanium mini station on weekends.  

At the end of the experience chapter, where is the future of titanium miniStation? In fact, the official has given the answer:

Virtual reality, also known as VR! Imagine what kind of experience it will be when miniStation develops to the fourth and fifth generation, and it will need supporting VR equipment!  

summary

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, what is miniStation? In fact, the orientation of miniStation from the beginning is not a simple game machine, but to be "intelligent hardware that provides mobile game solutions in the living room". The main function of this miniStation platform, which is cooperated by Tidu and Tencent, is to move the games on mobile platforms such as mobile phones to TV for large screen display, and to deeply explore the fun of mobile games. The real goal of miniStation is not to win in the positive competition with traditional game consoles, but to effectively improve the entertainment experience of 400 million mobile game players in China.

In order to improve the mobile game experience, TitaniumMiniStation has also made great efforts. Its unique appearance design, coupled with hardware, software and interaction, has made a lot of optimization. Of course, some are positive optimization, and some are negative optimization. After all, there is still a long way to go, and a lot of time and energy are needed to explore. For the entire miniStation platform, its market value has not yet been fully highlighted, including its positioning. There is a long way to go, especially up and down!

Finally, summarize the advantages and disadvantages of the product:

Product advantages:

1. Unique appearance design can be used as decoration.

2. It really enhanced the experience of mobile games, and the official game controller and mobile phone can be easily operated.

3. The game resources are rich and the adaptation is in place.

4. It has strong scalability and can install a large number of third-party APPs via USB.

5. It can support 4k video playback, including serving as a network set-top box.

6. In fact, what I am most satisfied with is the original handle, which has a good feel and can also support the Windows environment.

Product disadvantages:

1. The hardware performance needs to be improved, especially the storage capacity of 16g.

2. The UI is too simple, and the lack of system settings will bring trouble to operations; At the same time, there is a lack of adaptation of third-party APP icons.

3. There are too few interfaces, and the USB interface is not enough. At the same time, it is recommended to add an AUX audio interface.

4. The handle can only be used for official games, and is basically powerless for games that are not adapted.

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