Hello and welcome to TV box stop, my name is Nick, and I want to extend my warmest greetings
to all my friends and the viewers of the streaming community, and for supporting me on this channel.
For today’s video I bring to you the Mi TV stick from Xiaomi.
This TV stick is geared towards delivering premium streaming services such as Netflix
and Amazon prime video in HD and 4K quality, running on Android TV operating system.
As usual in this video I’ll give you a full breakdown of its hardware and features, along
with benchmarks and live demonstrations.
So don’t go anywhere, a full review is up next.
So I’m back, and these are the contents of the box.
You have the Xiaomi Mi TV stick itself.
A wireless remote with Google assistant feature.
A micro USB charging cable.
A 5V 1A DC power adapter.
And some user documentation.
And now a quick look at its design and ports.
The body is made of plastic with a male HDMI connector to the top.
To one side you have a micro USB power port.
And to the front side you have an LED power light and the Xiaomi logo.
And that’s all there is, I will now set this up on my TV and continue.
Welcome back.
So I’m all set, and when you start for the first time you will be presented with a Xiaomi
logo and the Android animation, after which you are presented with a wireless remote setup
Wizard, then you have to complete the Android TV setup wizard.
The entire process takes around 5 to 6 minutes then you are taken to the launcher.
So here we are at the launcher, and for those who are familiar with the Android TV operating
system there isn’t anything different about this one.
And for those who are just getting started with their first Android TV box please note
that Android TV OS is not the same as the regular mobile version.
Android TV was designed to work on Televisions, so its appearance and interface, Google play
store, and access to apps are different.
It was designed to work with a direction pad and the Google assistant ferature, and not
so much a mouse pointer.
So that means Android TV does not have a navigation bar or status bar.
Features of this operating system include.
HD display up to 1080p at 60Hz.
You have screen position settings.
You have HDMI CEC options.
Google assistant feature.
Built-in Chromecast feature.
Netflix ESN certification.
And digital audio surround sound formats, and I will attempt to confirm this later in
the video.
There is no root switch, 4K display, HDR display, or Dolby vision settings.
In the apps section, installing apps from the Android TV version of the play store is
straightforward and simple, whereas sideloading apps is a pain.
The Mi TV stick does not have a USB port or an SD card slot that can be used to install
APKs, and using an adapter to connect a flash drive to the microSD card port proved unsuccessful.
You are then left with Downloader, Aptoide, APKpure, and the file linked bulk downloader
tool which can be a pain to navigate without the use of a mouse pointer from an AirMouse,
that you cannot connect due to the lack of a USB port.
So after an hour of struggling to install my apps I finally got them in, and first let’s
have a look at its system and hardware information.
The Mi TV stick comes with a 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, from which this is
the remainder after the android installation and apps installed.
The Bluetooth version is 4.2 according to the product description, which is represented
by the 4+.
It CPU which is the Amlogic S905Y2 is a 64 bit quad core cortex A53 processor, with a
CPU clocked range of 1.4 GHz configured in 32bit mode.
Below it shows that it only has support for 32bit ABIs which limits it to only 32bit applications.
It’s display is powered by the ARM Mali 450 GPU with a refresh rate of 60Hz and open
GL ES version 2.0 which is not recommended for gaming.
Under network it shows that the 5 GHz band is supported.
Under Android it shows that it’s running on Android 9pie, and below it shows that it’s
not rooted.
Under thermal you only have a snapshot and not the live temperature reading.
Under codecs I see they have included the DTS audio recorder, but I couldn’t identify
any Dolby decoders in this list.
So that’s it for its system and hardware information, let’s take a look at its benchmarks.
First its RAM copy speed and its internal storage read and write speeds.
The Mi TV stick has a RAM copy speed of 2597 MB/s.
It’s internal storage as a read speed of 103 MB/s, and the write speed test did not
give a reading.
These scores are consistent with budget devices.
Next the results of the Wi-Fi bands speed tests.
The results show that on the 5 GHz band it achieved 100% of my bandwidth, and the 2.4
GHz band achieved 50%.
So if you have fast Internet over 100Mbps, or a slower bandwidth the Mi TV stick will
have a good performance.
Connecting a USB hub was unsuccessful so using LAN connection is not possible.
Next I show the results of the Antutu benchmark.
In this test the Mi TV stick got a score of 28,472.
This is the low score consistent with budget streaming devices.
In the Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the Mi TV stick got a score of 628 single core, and
1564 multicore.
To be quite honest this score is not too bad compared to some TV boxes.
The final benchmark is from the 3D Mark gamers bench GPU benchmark.
The app shows that the Mi TV stick does not have Vulcan support, nor does it have support
to run the slingshot test.
So the only test it qualified for was the ice storm extreme test, and in this test it
got a score of 2918.
This is a very low score and it immediately disqualifies it from the gaming segment in
my videos.
So I will would not be playing any games on it because it would just be a waste of time.
And that’s it for the benchmarks and let’s see how it places on the chart.
So after entering the scores on my rankings chart, the Xiaomi Mi TV stick is at position
41 in reference to Antutu benchmarks scores, which puts it deal last on this list.
You can view this chart on my website in full spreadsheet format where you can view the
top TV boxes for 2020.
See the link in the description directly below this video.
I now move on to its features.
First we already know that it’s not rooted so I will go directly to its DRM information.
And it shows that it has Google Widevine level 1 with no HDCP protection.
This is the official version of Android TV so I believe with this level of DRM, it qualifies
the Mi TV stick to show Netflix and Amazon prime video in HD quality only, not 4K, because
it’s limited to 1080p resolution.
With the Mi TV stick you can use alternative launchers.
Here I installed the ATV launcher from the Google play store and it works without issues.
Another feature of Android TV is Google assistant.
The included wireless voice remote comes with a dedicated Google assistant button and it
works without issues.
Who is the President of the United States.
I now move on to the selling point of this TV stick which is its ability to play Netflix
and Amazon prime video in HD quality.
Now even though this may be accurate as you can see in a video description this TV stick
has the required certification and DRM protection to play in HD.
However, they made a serious blunder by not allowing 4K resolution for this TV stick,
whereby limiting these services to HD 1080p only, which defeats the whole purpose of someone
wanting to purchase a device such as this in the first place.
So as I tell all my viewers please be advised.
The same applies to YouTube.
Here you can see YouTube plays up the HD 1080p only.
When it comes to other ways of streaming you can install the Kodi media player and install
all your favorite add-ons without issues.
You can also install the file linked bulk downloader tool and install your favorite
APKs without issues.
For more information on how to set up these alternative methods see the link to my blog
in the description below this video.
Next this may be its strongest feature, which is the official Chromecasting feature.
Here I am casting my mobile phone to the TV stick and it works without issues.
At this point there will be no 4K video demonstration because this TV stick does not have 4K resolution
or HDR display, so I sideloaded some 1080 P videos with Dolby and DTS audio formats
to test its digital surround sound audio output.
So in this test it proves that the Xiaomi Mi TV stick has Dolby Atmos, DTS X HD master
audio, and THX.
However it does not have Dolby TrueHD.
In summary, the Xiaomi Mi TV stick though it has the right concept and some of the features
required of a premium streaming device, it has some deal breaking attributes to it.
Yes it has the DRM support to play Netflix in HD, it runs on a certified version of android
TV OS, it has the official Chromecast feature, it has Dolby and DTS surround sound audio
output, and it can run Kodi and Apks.
However, it only has 1080p resolution, it has low benchmarks with its CPU clocked at
1.4 GHz, it has a very limited internal storage, it overheats a bit, and it has no USB or SD
card ports whatsoever.
So it’s kind of difficult to say whether I recommend this device as a good streaming
device or not as it may appeal DRMto some people, wear as it may not for the majority.
So it’s actually up to you to decide.
And with that said I have come to the end of this review
if you would like to get the Xiaomi Mi TV stick links can be found in the description
directly below this video where you can get it at the lowest price online.
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