Unboxing

On the front, we see a picture of the Alfawise Z1 and that it supports 4K. Which is nice if your TV is also capable of that. On the back, we find some of the specifications like that it runs on Android 7.1 and that it supports 4K at 60 fps. Besides that, there is some information about Alfawise and where it is located.

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Hardware & Design

I’m very happy with the design and the feeling of the Alfawise Z1. It has some weight to it, but not too much. This gives it a nice premium feeling. There are several different connection ports on there and they are well placed. All the connections you need to connect it to your TV, are on one side which makes it easy to place the Alfawise Z1 without cables coming from all the corners.

Overall the Alfawise Z1 feels and looks good. The design is great and the ports are well placed.

Ports/Connections

There are 2 USB ports on the side, where one USB port is also acting as an OTG USB port. Next to the two USB sticks, is a TF card slot to extend the internal memory by max 64GB.

On the back, we have the most important ports. There is the power connector, the SPDIF, the HDMI port, and the ethernet port. Almost all of these ports we need to make the connection from your TV to the Alfawise Z1.

The Remote

This remote looks good but feels cheap. This is something that could have been better. The remote is something that you hold every day that you use the Alfawise Z1 and improving this will have an overall positive impact.

All the basic buttons are on there. Volume up and down, skip forward or backward is at the bottom. The home and back button is above the buttons and in between them, we have the Voice Prompt button. With this button, you can ask Netflix to play “La Casa De Papel” instead of typing it. This can save you some real-time.

Above that, we have the navigation circle and the “OK” button to confirm your selection. And all the way on top we have the power, the mute and the mouse button. With this mouse button, you can change the way of navigation. From selection to a real mouse that moves over the screen with the navigation buttons. For selecting a TV show or movie, I would stick with the normal selection mode.

Software

Everything we need from an Android TV box is there, but the UI is not that good. We saw the same thing at the MECOOL M8S Pro+ where the UI was not great. The performance was, but it is just not looking good.

YouTube is available, Netflix is on there and the Google Play Store, so you have a lot of apps available for the Alfawise Z1.

This Android TV box runs on Android 7.1.2, which is fine. As long as it plays your favorite apps and you are able to stream your media, the OS version doesn’t matter, right? Kodi is available and, for me, that is all that matters.

Conclusion

The Alfawise Z1 is a good and fast Android TV box. The software GUI looks simple, but it works. You can access the Google Play Store and that makes it a very interesting Android TV Box. You are able to install everything you want on it and make it your own. Play games, watch movies or browse the web, you can do it all with the Alfawise Z1. The biggest downside for me is the GUI, which is very basic, and another thing is that the ports are on almost all sides of the Alfawise Z1. Placing this without seeing the cables is almost impossible.

Unfortunately, Alfawise Z1 is not available anymore. Click on the “Click Here” below to see the alternatives.

Like another review? Click here for the IDEAFLY JJ 1S 2-Axis Gimbal!

Alfawise Z1

7

Price/Quality

8.0/10

Product Size/Design

8.0/10

Features

7.0/10

Software/App

6.0/10

Materials

6.0/10

Pros

• Very fast Android TV box
• Size
• Design is good

Cons

• Ports are on almost all sides
• Android GUI is very basic

Click Here see the alternatives!