Hands-on with the Honeywld Power Zest ICS settop box at Computex 2012 (video)

Looking for an unwieldy product name for your next game of tech Scrabble? How about Honeywld Power Zest? Yes, don't adjust your television, there's no "i" in Honeywld. Speaking of TVs, this err... zesty little item we discovered here at Computex is a settop box running Ice Cream Sandwich. Feel the power! To be clear, this is not a Google TV device -- it runs Android 4.0 with a heavily skinned, remote control-friendly UI.

The box (available in blue, red, yellow and black) is built around a 1GHz dual-core Marvell SoC featuring Qdeo technology paired with 1GB of RAM. An embedded 2GB microSD card provides flash storage for the OS. In front you'll find a power LED and infrared receiver, while in back there's a power button, 3.5mm AV connector (for analog audio and composite video), optical audio output, HDMI socket, two USB 2.0 ports, an 100BaseT Ethernet jack and a 12V power connector. There's no wireless support.

We took the device for a spin using the supplied IR remote (which includes a mix of standard buttons plus the home, back, menu and search keys required for Android) and the experience was a bit of a mixed bag. It certainly worked as advertised but navigating Android with just a D-pad and four buttons was quite frustrating. Text entry was painful and buggy (an infrared keyboard will be offered as an accessory) -- then again, the box we used was still running early firmware.

Honeywld plans to make the Power Zest available to Taiwanese retailers in July for somewhere between $95 to $120. Retail pricing will be a a little higher depending on markups. Feast your eyes on the gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.

Gallery: Honeywld Power Zest hands-on

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Hands-on with the Honeywld Power Zest ICS settop box at Computex 2012 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 05:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.