Review: Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus — “Who’s the Newcomer?”

Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus is a next-generation media player powered by the latest Amlogic S905X4-K processor with support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. The device runs on Android TV 11 and features a 4 GB RAM / 32 GB storage configuration. This player boasts Google and Netflix certification, support for the AV1 codec, VP9 Profile 2, 1 Gbps LAN, and Wi-Fi 6.

A distinctive feature of this device is the proprietary Dune HD Media Center, which significantly expands the media player’s functionality. The key advantage of the Media Center is the ability to play Dolby Vision P7 FEL from any container.

I first became familiar with Dune HD products at the beginning of 2021, when I purchased the Pro Vision 4K Solo media player. Before that, for many years I had been using devices from Zidoo, having tried almost all of their models available at the time (except for the most expensive ones). My last device was the Z1000 Pro. Eventually, I simply couldn’t take it anymore — my patience had run out.

With all due respect to Zidoo, I was frankly tired of their media players. Over so many years (I had been using their devices since 2017), the manufacturer did not even bother to add proper Russian language support. What is currently used is a translation made by an enthusiast who did everything himself and sent it to Zidoo’s technical department. Even so, they still manage to break it somehow (for example, in Zidoo Music it still says “Collect” instead of “Favorites” and “Artists” instead of “Performers”, and I won’t even mention “Change vegetation” instead of “Change artist photo”). Since there was no proper localization, it goes without saying that there was no proper search in their Home Theater catalog either (which, by the way, still doesn’t exist). Neither voice nor text search — at least not in Russian. As a result, quickly finding the right movie in a large collection became quite problematic. And this is far from everything that dissatisfied me, but that is a separate story.

So, I decided to look for something new. In parallel with Zidoo players, I also used devices from Ugoos, which left me with very pleasant impressions, but they could not become my main solution, and eventually I had to abandon them as well.

My choice fell on a device from Dune HD. The Pro Vision 4K Solo literally became a breath of fresh air for me. It combined everything I needed, and I didn’t notice any serious compromises for myself. Of course, for a first experience, I chose a more than successful model.

I was pleasantly surprised by the long-term support that Dune provides for its devices. Just open the firmware section and see for yourself: even older devices based on Sigma have their latest firmware dated 2019. As a rule, software updates for all product lines are released at the same time, so models from 2018 are updated together with current ones.

I had long known that Dune has a fairly large and very loyal community, and honestly, this surprised me a lot. However, it quickly became clear that this loyalty did not come out of nowhere. My current device was developing right before my eyes along with other devices from this manufacturer. Try reading two-year-old reviews of other Dune players and compare them with how things are now — the devices are steadily evolving and getting better and better.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the simple firmware rollback procedure. If you don’t like an update, you can simply install the previous version (or any firmware version at all — there are no restrictions). You don’t even need to download anything from the website: all firmware versions are available directly in the settings menu. Just choose the one you need and install it.

After realizing and digesting all this, I became curious — was there some kind of catch? It couldn’t be this good, could it? I wanted to verify everything personally, so by actively using other devices from this manufacturer, I tested almost all current product lines (at the same time getting rid of all my Zidoos, Ugoos, and HiMedias), and even some models that were already discontinued. I should note right away that I couldn’t afford the Ultra Vision 4K — this device turned out to be too “powerful” both for me and for my setup.

There was no catch. The developers squeeze the maximum out of their devices. If there is still something that can be achieved, they do it. And these are not just updates to two applications, as in the case of Zidoo, but full-fledged updates. Compare, for example, the old Zidoo X9S and the Dune HD Pro 4K on similar hardware — the latter is still being updated to this day, unlike its competitor.

For instance, all supported devices (Android-based, of course) received a new interface, which I will talk about below. Indeed, at a quick glance at all Dune models, one might think that they all run the same firmware with the same extensive capabilities. This is not entirely true — miracles don’t happen — but all the key advantages are preserved. This is the first time I have encountered such an approach, at least in the media player segment.

Of course, I couldn’t ignore the current new releases either. There are two of them, since along with the hero of our review, its “younger brother”, the Boxy, was also introduced. Sales have just started. After all, official Android TV combined with all the capabilities of Dune sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Well then, let’s finally put an end to this rather long introduction and get down to business.

Today I would like to tell you about the “senior” device (at least at the time of writing this review) in Dune’s new line of players. In mid-March 2023, the Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus went on sale. Let’s see what this new product has in store for us. And it will definitely surprise us — after all, today it is the most advanced certified media player on the market!