Xiaomi Mi Box S review: Outpriced and outperformed

Xiaomi is best known for its smartphones in international markets, but it’s a much smaller player in the US. Instead of focusing on smartphones, Xiaomi’s North American efforts focused on smart devices, including a range of Android TV players. One of these products is the Xiaomi Mi Box S. The Mi Box S has a number of compelling features, including 4K support. But is it really worth buying something in this crowded market? We want to find out in our Xiaomi Mi Box S review.

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What you need to know about the Xiaomi Mi Box S.

• Xiaomi Mi Box S: $ 59.99 / £ 64.99 / Rs. 4,999

The Xiaomi Mi Box S costs $ 59.99 in the US, $ 10 more than its current main competitor, the Chromecast with Google TV. It’s also a bit more expensive than the TiVo Stream 4K, which is a more direct competitor as it lacks the Chromecast’s Google TV user interface as well.

This smart TV box is larger than a normal streaming stick and sits next to your TV instead of hiding behind it. The Xiaomi Mi Box S is operated with Android TV, a quad-core processor, 2 GB RAM and 8 GB storage. While the specs may not seem impressive in 2021, that performance is enough to handle 4K at 60 fps. It also supports HDR. The video quality is an important step above the lower Xiaomi Mi TV Stick.

What is good?

The Xiaomi Mi Box S offers Android TV in a larger form factor instead of going the dongle route. In contrast to its smaller brother, the Mi TV Stick, the Mi Box S supports 4K HDR video quality at 60 fps, which is comparable to comparable competitors. It even comes close to the video quality of the Nvidia Shield TV. Audio is also reliable thanks to support for Dolby Audio and DTS 2.0.

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As with the Xiaomi Mi TV Stick, you get a clean Android TV experience. There aren’t any additions like you’d find with the TiVo Stream 4K, and it lacks the newer Google TV UI from Google Chromecast. We can consider this good or bad depending on your tastes. However, if you’re coming from an older Android TV device, the experience will be very familiar to you. That also means you can expect the usual extras like Chromecast support, which lets you send content from your mobile device straight to the Android TV player.

This simplicity of design extends to the remote control as well. While TiVo added a number of additional buttons to the streamer’s remote control, the Mi Box S’s remote control is very easy to use. There are typical power and volume buttons, a few shortcuts to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, and a handy button that you can use to call up the Google Assistant to find out what’s going on, ask simple questions or control your smart home.

What’s not so good?

When we’re honest, the bad outweighs the good when it comes to performance. We had the same general experience with the Mi TV Stick, which is not surprising as the Mi Box S uses the same processor, just with an additional gigabyte of RAM (2 GB total). While we think the Mi Box S performs better than the Stick, both the Chromecast with Google TV and the TiVo Stream 4K outperform that and are $ 10 to 15 below the retail price of the Mi Box S. from $ 60.

The remote control is actually quite decent, but not as small and attractive as the Google Chromeast with Google TV remote control or as functional as the more ergonomic remote control from TiVo. Other than that, we also found it annoying that Mi didn’t even have the required AAA batteries. Remote controls usually contain the first set of batteries. So this seems like a cheap move for a product that is already expensive.

Xiaomi Mi Box S review: should I buy it?

It’s hard to recommend the Xiaomi Mi Box S if it’s not enough to set you apart from the competition. In fact, it’s more expensive than its main competitor, the Chromecast with Google TV, and we know many of you may enjoy upgrading to the Google TV UI as well. Google’s device also outperforms Xiaomi’s, better hiding behind a TV and having a better designed remote control.

Also read: The best Android TV devices

As with other alternatives, the TiVo Stream 4K offers better video quality and faster performance at a lower price. When you’re ready to leave the Android TV ecosystem, there are also great options from Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV range.

If the price was right, we could see its place in the market. Given its performance, features, and current price, there are better options.