So the Mi TV Box 4 looks like an incredible deal, because for just 3,500 Rs. you can have a device that can convert a regular 4K TV into a 4K Smart TV, and even if you have a Smart TV, like a Mi TV 4, it may not support all the features that this box offers. But while it is a really great deal overall, there are some areas where Xiaomi has cut costs to reduce the price, so we’re going to talk about that, and we’re also going to compare it with Amazon’s Firestick 4K, and Xiaomi’s own Mi TV Box 3 to see how good it actually is.
Let’s get started. In the box, You’ll get the Mi TV
Box 4 itself, the Bluetooth remote, an HDMI cable which is great to have, and
finally the power adapter. The design of the Mi TV Box 4 is pretty simple and
minimal, and I do like that a lot. Unlike the previous version which was more
rounded, the newer box has a flatter design with sharper edges. On its back,
you’ll find a port for power, an HDMI 2.0b port, a USB 2.0 port, and finally an
audio jack which supports both analog and digital audio out, which is pretty
cool. You also have a very muted white LED on front which lets you know if it’s
awake or sleeping. The great thing about having both analog and digital audio
out is that not only you can just plug in a 3.5mm jack and connect any headphone
or speaker system, you can also use a mini tos link cable to connect it to an
advanced audio system or DAC to get a much higher quality audio. The setup is
very simple, you have to just plug it to your TV or receiver with HDMI, power
it, and follow the instructions on screen. The remote on this newer Mi Box has
more buttons and features, but it is actually a cheaper variant of the Mi
Remote. While the Mi Box3 had the same remote that came with Mi TV 4, the Mi TV Box 4’s remote has Mi TV 4A’sremote design which is cheaper. It
has very cheap feeling buttons in comparison, but other than that it works well,
and having dedicated buttons for Netflix and Prime Video , along with an app
launcher button, and the ability to launch Google assistant and speak to it are
some nice to have features.
The Firestick remote
feels way more premium in comparison, and the fast forward, backward, and pause
buttons are also way more useful then extra buttons on Mi TV Box Remote, and
while its power and volume button can control your TV’s volume and power, I
actually don’t like this setup because it doesn’t let you control the volume on
firestick itself which is really stupid. Now one big difference between Mi TV
BOX 4and Firestick 4K is that the firestick 4K can deliver a 4K 60Hz signal
without color compression by delivering a complete 12 bit RGB or YCbCr444
signal, while the Mi TV Box can only deliver an uncompressed signal upto 4K
30Hz, and if you go beyond that at 4K 60hz,the color signal will be compressed
to YCbCr420. Now you might not even need to go beyond 4K30Hz, but if you are
watching any gaming content on YouTube, or any other content that is shot in
60Hz, or if you just don’t want a terrible experience with an interface that
looks choppy, you will need to have a 60Hz signal. RGB signal is essential if
you want to use it on a monitor as compressed signal makes text look weird, but
most video content you will watch on TV will already be in a YCbCr420 signal,
so as far as video content goes, you don’t need to worry about that. But all
digitally rendered content on the interface like text, icons, and any games
that you might play will look slightly better with a full RGB or YCbCr444
signal. It may not even be noticeable difference, but it is something that
firestick 4K does offer.
You can also screencast from your phone on the
Mi TV Box, which you can also do on fire stick, but both of these methods
deliver very compressed signals to the TV so I never use them. The Mi TV Box
supports DTS, and Dolby Audio, and HDR 10 for video, but it doesn’t support
Dolby Atmos for audio and it also doesn’t support HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision
for video, but the firestick supports all these audio and video formats. Now it
may sound like Mi TV Box has a huge disadvantage, but in reality you won’t find
many titles that the Mi TV Box doesn’t support, BUT if you have a more advanced
setup, or you may upgrade to one in future, then the Firestick 4K will definitely have an upper hand. One
definite advantage that the Mi TV Box has
is a USB 2.0 port that will allow you to easily install apps, and watch all the
videos that I know you have legally downloaded. It does add a lot of
convenience, and while you can also plug in USB drives or accessories to the
firestick using a special adapter that also has power, it's a much jankier
solution compared to just putting the pen drive indirectly.
The interface on the Mi TV Box is the
stockAndroid TV 9.0, and it is pretty good. It has a nice logical layout of
elements on screen, and also offers easy access to settings and customization.
It also integrates very well with Google services, and the assistant can also
help you a lot by syncing with your Google account, so that is really great.
Firestick also has similar features with
ALEXA , but Google Assistant is obviously much better. The Playstore on
Android TV is superior to Amazon’s appstore , and while you can technically
install any app on both as both are android devices, running the stock android
TV OS does make it much easier to do everything. So you can watch YouTube,
Netflix and Amazon Prime in 4K HDR, which is great, but the app for Amazon
Prime isn’t as good as the one on Firestick for obvious reasons, but it's still
nice to see Amazon Prime working on a non Firestick System. Coming to the
internals, it is kind of disappointing that Xiaomi has the exact same Quad core
processor, RAM, and storage as the Mi TV Box 3, it is still powerful enough to
handle everything well, but I do feel like a upgrade to the processor would’ve
made it perform better, as the Android TV 9.0 could use more processing power
to feel more fluid. The CPU on the firestick 4K is significantly faster by 30%
though, so it is more expensive because of superior components. You don’t really
need a very fast CPU on a media streaming device but there is a definite
difference in raw performance. The internal storage is 8GB on both devices, which
isn’t much, but you shouldn’t need to install many apps on a TV Box anyways, unless
you’re into gaming on TV, which it can actually do, even with the TV Box
remote, which could be fun for kids to experiment with.
So overall, I do think that the
Mi TV Box4 is a really great purchase for 3500 Rs., it does really have all the
features that you need to get a great smart TV experience at 4K, and even with
some cost cutting and lack of upgrades to it compared to the previous Mi TV
Box, it will be good enough for most people. The stock Android TV experience is
great, and it will also allow users to easily watch local content by plugging a
pen drive, but this does not completely make Firestick 4K obsolete, as the
Firestick 4K supports some extra audio and video formats that will be useful
for you if you have an advanced home theater setup, and it’s price also drops
to around 4000 Rs. during sales. So that was it, let me know which of these you
like more in the comments section below.
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