WeTek Play 2 Review

WeTek Play 2 unboxing

As when we tested its predecessor WeTek really tries to package and present their hardware with great sense of detail.

The box itself makes a good impression and when you open it, everything is neatly packed.

WeTek Play 2 specifications, connections and design

The design is quite like the old WeTek Play. A stylish rounded box with a blue/red LED button in the corner to indicate on/standby.

There are also 2 LED indicators at the front.

The WeTek Play 2 feels very light weighing in at only 273  grams and measures 125 mm tall x 180 mm wide x 42 mm thick.

On its right side we find a USB and a micro SD slot.

On the rear is where we find the remaining connections like HDMI, Ethernet, Optical audio out and of course the tuner if you get a WeTek Play 2 with that included. Our came with DVB-C/T2 tuner but we also had the opportunity to test it with DVB-S2 tuner.

It is very easy to change tuners as WeTek are using modular tuners. Just push it out on the bottom tab. Of course it is also easy to install it if you add a tuner later on

Here are the available tuner modules.

Hardware

Pretty good specs. Some may miss 802.11ac WiFi support though. Gigabit Network support is an upgrade over the former WeTek Play as is of course a faster more capable CPU. Bluetooth offers an option perhaps to connect a HTPC like keyboard should you feel the need for this.

Software

WeTek makes their WeOS on the base of Android. The current WeOS and time of writing is 1.4.

Not the most recent Android version but still should do the job. There is no VP9 codec support sadly so no YouTube 4K support.

WeTek Play 2 Remote

The WeTek Play 2 remote we feel is an upgrade comparing to the previous model and feels comfortable to hold.

At the top we find the numeric buttons in the center the navigation / menu buttons.

On the bottom we have the TV / Media buttons. The * star button makes screenshots which came in handy for this review.

WeTek Play 2 Setup

Installation is pretty straight forward. You select your language. The WeTek Play 2 offers many different options.

You also have to setup Network and resolution. We have tested both WiFi and Ethernet and both work fine. Of course Ethernet works best.

WeTek Play 2 Menus and general use

The main menu on the WeTek Play is very easy find you way around. There is menu options for

• TV
• Browser
• My Apps
• File Manager
• Kodi
• Google Play store
• WeUpdate
• YouTube
• WePlayer (WeTek version of Kodi)

At the bottom we fine on screen menu items for power, network, storage, settings etc.

There was a software update ready to install when we did our initial setup. Installation of updates work fine.

Minor detail was that the language did not match our setting English during the Android update loading screen text. Not really a problem since it was English in the menus upon installation was finished.

In the settings menu you can access all the options like audio and display etc.

Even though the receiver offers 4K UHD resolution you of course do not need an UHD TV to use it. Many other screen resolutions are available.

WeTek Play 2 TV

You access the TV section through the WeTV app.

Upon first use you get a setup wizard to help you.

WeTek cater for the Enigma receiver user base with an option to import Enigma 2 channel lists.

You can do FTA only scanning and TV only if you do not want radio channels to be scanned. 

We started our testing with the DVB-C/T2 tuner and a channel scan found all the available channels.

We also tested our the WeTek Play 2 with a satellite tuner. And again everything worked great. 

The Play 2 has both DiSEqC, Unicable and USALS support.

The TV channel information bar has a very clear and logical layout. You get both technical and program information. WeTek even offers many satellite tv channels Picons to be installed by default.

We tested the Play 2 on some of the FTA UHD channels on Astra 19,2 east and it worked fine. We did notice some minor libsync issues at times.

The EPG (here shown in Danish) can be accessed via the blue button. And works as a timeline. The color buttons also give you access to things like subtitles and audio channels. Much like on Enigma 2 based receivers.

The WETV app has it its own settings menu which you access through the 3 line button on the remote.

You can make your own channel bouquets.

The Play 2 can record TV out of the box. But the internal storage is so limited that you really need to add some external storage like a USB hard drive. We did that and the WeTek Play 2 worked just fine using this.

In the WeTV settings menu we also  find a PVR section where you can see you scheduled recordings, setting up storage etc.

Timeshifting can be turned on as well.

Since there is no twin tuner you are somewhat limited when it comes to doing PVR recordings.

WeTek Play Kodi and app experience

WeTek Play 2 actually has 2 Kodi versions installed it seems. There is Kodi item in the main menu which was the 17.0 beta and a different version labeled WePlayer.

The Play 2 handles 4K videos at most the test clips we tested played fine. If you are doing 4K playback from say a NAS you would want to connect the Play 2 through Ethernet and not WiFi. The Play 2 offers audio pass through if you have a surround receiver.

We also tested some video streaming apps like Netflix and it is important to remember that the apps from the Google Play store are still tablet optimized versions. There is no 4K option available with the Netflix app on the WeTek Play 2 but the video quality is not bad at all. Depending on the app you are using the option to use a arrow computer mouse like navigation maybe needed sometimes. It would be interesting to see if WeTek later on can make Android TV devices which has apps optimized for TV use. There seem to be an Android TV unofficial image being tested by some.

To install Google Play store apps you need to use your Google login.

Simple gaming is also possible on the WeTek Play 2 but you may need micro sd memory expansion as there is limited free memory on the WeTek Play 2 around 4 GB.

The browser works alright but you would want to attach mouse to really use it. The mouse pointer on the remote is not too handy in this situation.

WeTek Play 2 Web Interface

We also have to praise WeTek for doing a great job in other areas like the webinterface option you can access from say your computers web browser.

You can also watch TV that way from the Play 2. The is also a simple remote option in there or you can get the WeControl app for your Android / iOS device.

WeTek Play 2

Check out this video by WeTek turorials to get a live sense of the Play 2 in use.

WeTek Play 2 Our Verdict

The WeTek Play 2 is an interesting new option combining TV, Kodi and 4K support in a single box. The TV part of the software has matured since we tested the former WeTek Play. It found all channels during scan pretty quickly and kudos to WeTek for adding Picons install option. One thing that still seems to be somewhat of an issue seems to be lipsync but hopefully that can be fixed. Also some on screen channel renumbering and reordering possibility would be nice. The Play 2 supports the FTA UHD channels on 19,2 east we have tested just fine. Channel Zapping is pretty good all though not as fast as some of the receivers we have reviewed. As the Play 2 does not have a CI slot or built in card reader you have to do some trickery we imagine to watch pay tv on this devices. We have only tested it with FTA channels.

The PVR option seems to work pretty good. We successfully recorded to our attached 2.5″ USB hard drive. Timeshifting is also possible. Since the receiver does not offer Twin tuner functionality you sadly cannot watch one channel and record from another channel at the same time.

Kodi and YouTube works pretty good of course you are somewhat limited when it comes to Netflix as the app does not support 4K output. No 4K as well on YouTube.

The WeTek Play 2 still seems like a great option for those who like to tweak and test out different software builds. There is an active community online around this receiver.