Articles

CONCLUSION

   Been testing Dune HD hardware media players almost from day one and i can't say i ever had serious problems with them. Yes, i may have found myself in situations where top of the line players of theirs weren't able to play some media content but that was primarily due to faults in encoding. Still there have been issues other people did notice like the lack of HDR meta data, wrong frame rates and the ff/rw functionality all of which "plagued" the original Pro 4K model. These may not have been game breakers for some people (myself included) but even so I’m happy to report that Dune HD has resolved those with the Pro 4K II model as they have with the issue of color banding (at least to a large degree - this however seems to be an issue caused by the Realtek chips and not Dune HD) and the playback of menus from 4K UHD Blu-Ray backups (folder/ISO). I was somewhat disappointed to see that the remote control lacks illumination but it is what it is.

   The Dune HD Pro 4K II is currently available for USD377/318Euros (Futeko.com) a price tag which is on par with what anyone would expect for such a product manufactured by one of the oldest and leading media player manufacturers in the world. That of course doesn’t mean it’s affordable and that’s what I hope Dune HD can work to improve, especially since there are a couple of similar players out there that cost quite a bit less. Price aside however Dune HD has one more plus other manufacturers don’t, very good product support and that alone is enough for many people to choose their products. Personally, I think that the Pro 4K II is their best media player to date, yes it may not feature some of the “cool” things found in larger models like the MAX (Blu-Ray Player / 3.5” tray) but it delivers the best performance I’ve seen to date and for that it gets the Platinum Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Realtek RTD1619DD SoC (6 Core ARM A55 / Mali G55)
- 4GB DDR4 RAM
- 4Kp60/24 HDR+ & VP9 Profile 2 Playback (Up To Well Over 100 Mbit/s)
- DTS: X & Dolby Atmos Support
- 802.11ac 2T2R Dual Band WiFi
- 3 USB Ports (2xUSB 3.0 / 1xUSB 2.0)
- External SATA Connector & Micro SD Card Slot
- S/PDIF, HDMI & Analog Audio Outputs
- HDMI Input
- OS (Android TV v9.0)
- Product Support

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Menu Resolution Bug (update: according to Dune HD the GUI is rendered at 1080p even if the HDMI output is set at 4k)
- Current Availability
- Remote Control Without Illumination