I look at the Linkifun GT6 Pro Apple CarPlay AI Box in this review. You can buy this AI Box adapter for $202.30 directly from LINKIFUN store – https://bit.ly/linkifungt6pro using my coupon code “carplaylife” at checkout for 15% off your order.
TLDR: The Linkifun GT6 Pro AI box has a unique design with some nice features, but suffers from audio sync issues, performance limitations, and lacklustre wireless CarPlay/Android Auto. It has potential and is one of the fastest 6125 AI Boxes out there, but its key functionality is not fully polished and requires updates to fix them.
I am glad a viewer to my channel suggested the Linkifun GT6 Pro AI Box to me. The brand itself wasn’t on my radar, neither was their great AI Box. The GT6 Pro features some refreshing additions to their own AI Box, including a decent launcher UI, HDMI output as well as input, a unique HDMI second screen switching mode and much more. But is it all greatness in a unique box? Let’s find out.
Features & Design
In the box, you get a paper instruction manual, the GT6 Pro adapter itself, three charging cables – USB-A to C, USB-C to C, and a power daisy chain cable if your CarPlay port isn’t suitably powered. You also get a mini-HDMI to full-sizeHDMI adapter cable, and a 64GB TF card and a USB TF card to add and playback local media files onto the GT6 Pro.
The casing of this AI Box is certainly unique. It is round on three corners and pointed on the fourth. Up top, there is a silver top casing that covers a ring of LED lights that can be customised via a pre-installed app to your liking. Below, there are passive cooling holes and a metal heatsink to keep this adapter cool.
A number of I/O ports are around the edges of the case. There is a USB-C port to power the adapter from your wired CarPlay port. Next to this is a USB-A port for inserting a thumbdrive full of video or music and playing them back via the adapter’s built-in media player. On one side, there is a rubber flap that covers a TF card slot and SIM card slot for providing the adapter local-based internet as well as on-device calling. Lastly, there are two mini-HDMI ports, one IN and one OUT. Between them is a small microphone input hole for onboard calling from the adapter.
Boot-up & Menu Interface
Connecting the adapter took 34 seconds. What follows is a refreshing change to all the mundane and quite boring launcher user interfaces found on most other AI Boxes to date. Here, three themes are on offer, with the pre-installed third being the default selection on first boot. The other two are a little bit underwhelming so it’s good that Theme 3 was chosen for my first experience.
Swiping horizontally reveals additional screens. One screen displays Google Maps in a large tile, another displays a media player tile and GPS location. A second screen displays a few pre-installed shortcuts and you can add additional apps and widgets onto this screen as well. The main screen features shortcut panels to wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, media playback, and up to six user-chosen apps from the App Library. Quick shortcuts are also present and a very nice addition to this UI, to quickly access Wi-Fi, Hotspot, Screenshot and to quickly exit the AI Box back to your car’s main system. A side dock of navigation, music, apps, and video shows to the left or right side of the screen. There’s also the floating button of doom which allows users to go back, go home, invoke the Google assistant, and enter multitasking and split screen mode.
Apps & Gaming
My test apps Google Maps, Spotify, YouTube and Netflix all launched in record time on an AI Box packing the Qualcomm 6125 (665) chipset. Even faster than the slightly boosted QC6225 chipsets, which was a surprise to me. I don’t know how they have done this, likely through some optimisations of resources, but it has the same 8GB RAM and 128GB of onboard storage as any other AI Box on the market.
Playing back video in YouTube and Netflix showcased the first issue with the GT6 Pro: its slight delay in audio sync. Now, this is more of an issue with my car system and other car systems might not suffer as much as me, but it is worth pointing out. This is worth considering because some other adapters aren’t as laggy when used on my VW Golf 7 MIB2.5 car system. Playing back on a portable CarPlay display confirmed this, with the video being a little more in sync with the display’s built-in audio speakers.
Gaming with the Adreno 610 GPU felt the same as most other AI Box adapters packing the same 6125/6225 chipset. Test games Crossy Road and Subway Surfer ran without a hitch and were enjoyable to play with very little to no glitches. Pairing up a Bluetooth controller or remote helps improve gaming on this adapter and support for this method is available should you have the capable hardware to pair it with. Sadly, though, when you give it a more taxing game, such as Asphalt Legends Unite, the adapter’s GPU starts to show its limits, resulting in very poor frame rates. Sticking to more lightweight games will overcome this adapter’s GPU power, or you could opt for its HDMI input and a more powerful gaming console.
HDMI Out & In Support
HDMI on the GT6 Pro has more positives than negatives. The two negatives were that the AI Box requires it to be connected to a CarPlay display in order for HDMI to be output to an external monitor, TV or back seat display. It can’t be connected to a TV outright and be operated. Second, the audio seemed to only pass out of the CarPlay display/speakers instead of separately via speakers on the monitor it was connected to. Audio is shared, so it isn’t possible to play separate video audio on the backseat displays whilst you playback navigation on your CarPlay display, sadly.
The switching mode button works well. You can choose to play video on the HDMI display whilst using the touch screen and apps on the CarPlay display. Pairing a controller could allow gaming or navigation on the 2nd HDMI display, but as soon as the app in focus has switched (via touch input), the controller would also switch to this application. So overall, it isn’t perfect but it can be almost worked around once you know its limitations.
Connecting an HDMI device into the input port opens this adapter’s potential over many AI Boxes selling today. From here you are only limited to the types of HDMI devices and their entertaining content that can be cast to your CarPlay display. This can be portable gaming consoles to powerful Xbox or PlayStations, DVD players, karaoke machines, even mobile phones and laptops. I connected a Steam Deck and I was soon instantly playing high fidelity games such as GRID and Star Wars Squadrons on my CarPlay display. I did experience a one-second or so input lag in general fast-paced gameplay, such as racing games or flight sims, so more slower-paced games would just pass as an experience here. So I’d say to choose your HDMI input wisely.
Wireless Apple CarPlay & Android Auto
Pairing between an iPhone and Android was swift, thanks to some decent Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connection specs within the AI Box itself. CarPlay connected in a quick 9 seconds and Android Auto connected in an even quicker 6 seconds via the CarAuto app. That’s native speeds. Sadly though the experience is anything but native. CarPlay suffered with a low frame rate when compared to most dedicated wireless CarPlay adapters. Audio in calling and music also suffered in a 2-second and 3-4 second delay respectively. This is not perfect, but it is only just barely acceptable. However, Android Autois a much worse story. Although it was responsive and a little faster than the CarPlay experience, with call quality and delay being one of the most responsive I have experienced, it uses a higher DPI setting and as a result the stream is scaled up very poorly, resulting in a disappointing and blurry quality. If you’re wishing to use this adapter’s Android Auto feature, I would be a little hesitant in recommending this adapter to you.
The Linkifun GT6 Pro ticked so many boxes for me, yet it also dropped the ball in some crucial areas – the AI Box holy grail is still up for grabs. Overall, if you’re willing to overlook some of this AI Box’s main flaws (which could be tackled via software updates), then it is difficult to ignore it for its price, performance, as well as its general hardware and software presentation.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Brief overview
0:42 – Unboxing
1:40 – Features & design
3:16 – Installation & demo
3:44 – Main menu interface & settings
7:20 – Installed Apps & RGB lighting
8:05 – Google Maps, YouTube, Netflix, Spotify tests
10:37 – GT6 Pro benchmarks & performance
11:06 – Gaming in GT6 Pro AI Box
12:16 – Wireless Android Auto
14:22 – Wireless Apple CarPlay
16:38 – TF card local media playback test
17:18 – Split-screen mode
18:02 – HDMI Out Test
18:37 – HDMI In Test
21:21 – My Impressions
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