The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K is the company’s latest entry-level 4K media streaming device. It’s a compact dongle-like design of the usual kind that’s become very popular with consumers as media streaming usage soars. supports most of the The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K is priced at INR 4,999, putting it head-to-head with the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, which sells for the same price.
design and remote
The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K comes in a simple paper package. Inside you’ll find a streaming stick, a Bluetooth remote, a 5W power adapter and a charging cable with a microUSB connector. Also, although not mentioned in the package, an extension cable for HDMI is included in case you have hard-to-reach or congested connection areas on the back of your TV.
Streaming sticks are easy. A two-tone design with a matte and glossy finish, the latter taking no time to scratch. One side has a microUSB connector for the power cable and an LED indicator for power. The connector causes the cable to stick out at right angles, increasing the chances of conflict with other HDMI cables next to it. Thankfully, with the extension cable, this isn’t an issue.
Bluetooth remotes have a very generic design, with large, easy-to-reach directional pads and shortcut buttons. sponser content partner. The remote also has an IR blaster for use with your TV, giving you one remote for all your media needs.
The remote control is light and easy to hold. In addition, it has a design that makes it easy to understand the orientation without looking at it. The plastic and rubber are a little sticky, but considering the price, it’s acceptable. However, it feels inferior to the Fire TV remote both in terms of button layout and overall build quality.
Software and features
Xiaomi TV Stick 4K works with Android TV 11 with Google TV interface. The device is powered by what appears to be an Amlogic S805X2 with a quad-core Cortex-A35 CPU and a Mali-G31 MP2 GPU. It also has 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, of which about 5.2GB is available to users.
The new Google TV UI is essentially the same as the old Android TV interface. On the home screen, you can pin apps or select “channels” from installed apps to display content on the home screen.[発見]The tab shows recommended content from your installed apps and other apps, and uses your Google account to sync and personalize them. Apps displays all installed programs, categorized into regular apps and games.
Xiaomi also has its own PatchWall UI, which basically does the same thing as the Discover app. Both of these display content from different services and present it as if you can always access it until you click on one of them, first install that app, then sign up for a subscription that clicks right away. You will be prompted to Come back and never bother again.
In my experience these hubs are not very useful. At best, it serves as a way to search multiple services at once if you’re looking for a particular movie or TV show and want to see if it’s available everywhere.
Xiaomi TV Stick 4K comes pre-installed with some apps, most of which cannot be removed. These are mostly just media streaming apps along with PatchWall, Miracast and WallPaper apps.
It also includes Xiaomi TV+, a live TV application. It’s completely free and doesn’t even require a sign-in, so you can always watch something, even if you don’t subscribe to the service. The content available is fine in a way like “I have nothing to do in this hotel room so let’s watch all the channels” but the app is playing too slow to start playing I often get the message “I can’t do this”. Please replay the error for this item.
Chromecast continues to be a great feature of Android TV devices. Being able to cast from almost any video or audio app along with your phone, tablet or desktop browser screen is incredible. This is something Fire TV devices don’t offer, at least not with the same level of usability or ubiquity.
The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K’s settings menu has only a handful of options.Off by default[コンテンツのダイナミック レンジに一致]option can be enabled. This setting tells the device to output HDR only when HDR content is playing, instead of always outputting in HDR. This is definitely something that should be enabled. The only reason companies want to turn it off is to avoid the screen blacking out for his second when starting or stopping an HDR video when the TV flips back and forth between HDR and SDR is. This is no big deal and no reason to keep HDR on all the time.
setting
The only other settings related to output are resolution and refresh rate options. This can be left on auto so that the device will always output the maximum combination supported by the display. Unfortunately, there is no way to match the output refresh rate with the content refresh rate. This is what you see on Fire TV and Apple TV devices. Xiaomi TV Stick 4K will always output at the resolution and refresh rate you set. If you’re worried about telecine judder with 24p content, you can manually set your device to 24Hz, but elsewhere he loses a lot of UI fluidity.
Overall, the Xiaomi TV Stick 4K’s software experience is good, but it’s still not as polished and user-friendly as the Fire TV’s UI. Android TV often feels like his UI on the phone has been forced onto the TV, and there’s a certain amount of clunkiness that no amount of rebranding can remove. None of these are Xiaomi’s faults per se, but what they are.
performance
Xiaomi TV Stick 4K has excellent audio and video performance. And I mean it’s reference quality.This basically means that everything looks and sounds like it should. This is what you would expect from any video and audio source. Quality ultimately depends on the content. This is because the chipset is not coloring the content before passing it through.
In terms of video, the Xiaomi TV Stick 4K supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Most of his HDR content on the internet these days is in Dolby Vision and almost everything is at least HDR10, so this covers most HDR content. However, this device supports neither HDR10+ nor his HLG. The relevance of HDR10+ is still inconclusive. Because it’s the only major company streaming HDR10+ without offering a Dolby Vision replacement.
However, most HDR content on YouTube is in HLG format, as HLG is often the default format for most cameras that support recording in HDR. Also, because it’s fundamentally different than other HDR standards, YouTube doesn’t offer his HDR10 fallback when HLG isn’t supported, so content is played in tone-mapped SDR instead. This leaves the majority of HDR content on the biggest streaming sites unavailable on the Xiaomi TV Stick 4K.
UI performance was fine on tested firmware. Navigation through the home screen and app list was smooth and responsive. Navigation in most apps was also fine.[検出]Some parts of the UI slow down while loading data, such as tabs. The Play Store also feels sluggish, when was the Play Store scrolling experience better on any device? I was.
Where it’s not solid is the gameplay experience. Media players aren’t the best choice for games, but you can install some games from the Play Store. The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K doesn’t have the GPU horsepower to play games, even basic ones like Crossy Road. That’s why it’s best to avoid them altogether.
You can have a better time just by streaming your games. Installing and setting up Steam Link on my device was relatively easy, and I was streaming Elden Ring on my Xiaomi TV Stick 4K within minutes, streaming from my desktop PC. Moving the character with the remote’s directional pad was actually pretty fun, and while the latency is noticeable for seasoned gamers, it’s not game-breaking enough for a simple game casual he player.
The connection performance of the unit was good. Wi-Fi was reliable, even when the connection was a little slow after the device woke up from sleep. Bluetooth worked well too, and latency was low enough to use wireless headphones without any noticeable lag. This is almost certainly not the case in terms of bandwidth, but the HDMI forum states that simply supporting one or more HDMI will avoid manufacturers claiming HDMI 2.1 support on HDMI 2.0 devices. It’s a 2.1 feature, so it’s here.
Conclusion
Xiaomi TV Stick 4K is a very capable media player that offers excellent audio-video quality and UI performance. Unfortunately, the lack of HDR10+ and HLG could be a big problem for video enthusiasts looking for a more comprehensive HDR experience.
Unfortunately for Xiaomi, the Fire TV Stick 4K has no such limitation. It also has a great UI and remote, and considering it’s the same price, it’s a great media player overall.
Still, if you’re deep into Google’s ecosystem and don’t mind the imperfect HDR support, the Xiaomi TV Stick 4K is also a good option.
