Tv box xiaomi mi box mini review. TV box Xiaomi Mi Box Mini. Most frequently asked question from customers

There are a lot of TV boxes with Android inside, among them there is a whole line Mi Box from Xiaomi... With one of its representatives, the company enters the Western market, choosing Google as a partner and changing the proprietary system to Android TV. It was the interest in this platform that became the main reason for writing this review.

Design, connectors and packaging features.

Technically and externally, the international version does not differ from the Chinese one. This is the same exact black box made of black rough plastic with an embossed Mi logo on top. There are no other superfluous elements on the console, but it looks quite nice due to the bends of the case.

There is an activity indicator on the front, thankfully not very bright and not annoying at all. There are only four connectors on the back: power, full-format USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0 and a dual port (SPDIF + mini-jack) for connecting a separate audio system. There is no Ethernet in the set-top box, which for some may seem a serious disadvantage. The USB port is designed for connecting external media, and its bandwidth is enough for playing a 4K movie from a USB flash drive. Wired controllers, mice and keyboards are also stuck there, which Mi Box recognizes without problems.

The set-top box comes with a compact Bluetooth-remote made of the same rough plastic with an extremely ascetic set of elements that is sufficient for controlling. In addition to the power button, there is a cross made in the form of a circle with a confirmation key in the middle. Just below the navigation elements (back to the home screen, calling the voice assistant) and the paired volume control. On the upper end of the remote control there is a microphone hole, through which you have to communicate with Google Assistant ... QWERTY keyboards or digital block no, the stake is on voice commands and the simplicity of the system interface.

Xiaomi has included a power supply unit and an HDMI cable with the console, but this is not enough for a carefree use of the device - the kit lacks two AAA batteries ("little fingers"), so you will have to take care of their purchase separately.

Filling

In this version, it is built on the basis of the Amlogic S905X platform, equipped with four Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency of up to 2 GHz and a five-core Mali-450MP accelerator. It is strange to expect super-high performance from such a solution, it is a multimedia chip with support for hardware decoding of 4K ‑ video, including the increasingly popular H.265 and even VP9 Profile ‑ 2. It works with all popular video containers and audio formats, including Lossless. There is also support for DTS (digital multichannel sound), which is natural for a multimedia device.

Xiaomi prefix also got 2 GB random access memory DDR3 and 8 GB storage, of which a little more than 5 GB is available to the user. Those who like to download movies in 4K from torrents will have to get an additional external USB-drive or get used to the frequent reconnection of "flash drives".

The modem integrated into the set-top box supports Wi-Fi a / b / g / n / ac, it can work in both 2.4 ‑ GHz and 5 ‑ GHz bands. Bandwidth more than enough for a hassle-free 4K streaming experience. Through Bluetooth, in addition to the complete remote control, controllers, mice and keyboards are connected to the Mi Box.

System

The main feature of the international Xiaomi versions Mi Box is the Android TV inside, which has replaced the company's own shell. At the time of this writing, the set-top box has an assembly based on Android 6.0. There is no information about the update to Nougat yet, its appearance depends on the release of drivers by Amlogic.

Shell control and most applications are controlled using the remote described above, but compatible game controllers can also be used. The search engine abandoned icons on the television platform, moving to the ones familiar to users SmartTV picture tiles.

Russification is almost complete, although in the settings there are items in English, and for some reason the called keyboard is only in English. There is a suspicion that the problem is inherent specific device rather than the system as a whole. Something was broken in Xiaomi.

Initial setup of Mi Box requires the user to connect to a Wi-Fi network and Google account, which is typical for the platform. The easiest way is to navigate it through your Android smartphone, it will require just a couple of clicks, even a password from home network you don't have to enter it manually. By the way, this process will prompt and install the remote application for Android control TV. There is also a manual initial setting, which I even had to use once, since the smartphone did not want to see the set-top box. It is also simple and well explained right on the TV screen.

The entire Android TV interface is divided into several zones. At the top is the multimedia content selected especially for you by Google in all installed applications whether it's YouTube, Google Music, or other programs and services. You can take away this opportunity from any program, for which you have to climb into the menu.

To be honest, I didn’t like the “smart” mechanism of Google, for some reason he is sure that if I live in Russia, then I am interested in funny videos in my native language. But the system has data about my subscriptions and watched videos on YouTube. Over time, Mi Box adjusted the content in the “recommended” block to suit me, but the starting algorithm is frankly bad.

The recommended area is influenced by collections from all smartphones and tablets connected to the set-top box, on which the same applications are installed, and especially the content that was launched on it. So the sudden appearance there of a selection of the best songs of the "Combination" group is not worth it. This is all about Google applications, but third-party programs sometimes behave strangely. For example, even after authorization, Twitch shows videos in this area from the general global Top, and not letplays of those to whom I subscribed.

In the same zone, tiles of background active applications are also displayed, for example, the cover of a track played in Play Music with a name. Unfortunately, so far there are very few programs working with this area.

The second section from the top, titled “ Mi Box Recommends"Is practically useless for a Russian-speaking owner. It contains only Netflix and RedBull unremovable tiles that send to Play Store to install applications. Next is the section with games, which appears if at least one is installed, and the last one is an application. It is there that is located and Play store Market.

There are two icons at the very bottom of the shell. The first opens the system settings, again made in the form of tiles, albeit smaller in size, and the second is responsible for connecting to a Wi-Fi network.

Overall home screen experience Android TV positive, but the flaw on the part of Google is felt. The search engine should have made more stringent requirements for interaction with the shell, at least for large services that launch their clients on the platform.

Applications

Out of the box, the Xiaomi Mi Box for the international market has the basic google apps, including YouTube, Play Music, Play Movies and Play Games. Their interface has been redesigned for TVs, which is primarily expressed in moving the list of sections to the left and some repainting. Most of third-party programs for Android TV has the same design, generally convenient for control from the remote control.

However, some discomfort is sometimes felt due to the need to make many clicks on the “back” element to move from one section to another, which is especially noticeable in Play Music. This problem of interaction with the interface can be solved by allocating a separate button on the remote for calling side menu, but for now it is as it is.

There are very few applications for Android TV in the Play Store now, and some of the existing ones are not rewritten for TVs. However, a certain basic set is still available in the store, the eminent MX Player, the popular Plex media server, gaming Twitch, customers of domestic and foreign streaming services, and even a couple of Russian channels are available. From mobile operators launching own application for viewing channels on the platform, only Beeline has so far taken care of.

Notably, there are no Chrome or other web browsers for Android TV. Google probably doesn't believe in watching pages on TV.

Games

Surprisingly, the selection of Android TV games is more than regular programs... The store has platformers from Disney, hits from OrangePixel, Despicable Me from Gameloft, several decent games once exclusive to the OUYA console, and even a number of classic Final Fantasy editions. True, for the purchase of many of the titles presented, you will have to pay a tidy sum, sometimes exceeding 300 rubles. There are also races, including Asphalt, but only an old Airborne. But because of the not too rich filling, the Mi Box runs only at medium settings.

Some of the available games can be controlled directly from the remote control, while others require a gamepad to be connected to the Xiaomi Mi Box, as warned in the description. I regret to add that not all games with original touch controls are well ported, in the "Despicable Me" runner, for example, sometimes you have to scroll through the lists of results to start the next race. However, this can only be explained by Gameloft's disregard for the platform, since other developers have managed to resolve this issue.

By the way, even if an application or a game is not in the store on the console itself, it is often quite officially possible to install them from the Play Store from a computer. Android TV also supports downloading third-party APKs, just like any other Android device. Although not all applications installed in this way will function normally on the Mi Box. For example, the button that starts testing in the AnTuTu benchmark does not work.

Chromecast (Google Cast)

As with all Android TV devices, Xiaomi Mi Box has a built-in full-fledged software Google cast named there Chromecast... It works in the same way as with a separate "dongle" for TV - press the broadcast icon in a compatible application on your smartphone or tablet and the stream starts broadcasting on the TV. There is also a full display mirroring mode mobile device launched in google program Home. Judging by some indirect signs, the Google Cast layer seems to be parallel to Android TV, that is, there are essentially two OSes in the device.

This is also confirmed by the fact that Mi Box uses the same images as a screensaver as in individual Chromecast devices. They can be configured in the same way from Google Home, for example, by telling the prefix to display the user's own pictures from the Google cloud.

Google Assistant and voice input

An important part of Android TV at the current stage of its development is the built-in voice assistant Google, launched by the microphone button on the remote. He recognizes requests well and gives answers, but he does not know how to conduct a dialogue in Russian, which makes it less interesting. However, you can find out the weather forecast or the growth of Mikhail Boyarsky from the assistant.
To a greater extent, voice input is interesting for searching multimedia content inside applications, for example, in Youtube... It ideally replaces the much less comfortable virtual keyboard.

Summary

From a purely technical point of view, the Xiaomi Mi Box is nothing more than another set-top box with support for 4K and a large number of formats that the processor provides. The built-in Android TV left a mixed impression. On the one hand, it does not require additional gestures to set up and even has its own store, but on the other hand, there is not enough compatible content on the Play Store. You can also feel some dampness of the interface and the logic of working with it, yet you don't expect such childhood sores from a Google product.

However, choosing between an expensive TV with a built-in SmartTV shell and a simpler one in conjunction with the Xiaomi Mi Box, I settled on the second option. Despite Google's love of killing projects, I believe in the viability of Android TV, and its capabilities are much higher - which only costs support for Android applications and games.

Since recently, the set-top box can be bought in Russia from an official partner who asks for 7,990 rubles for it. Xiaomi Mi Box's price Chinese stores constantly swims in the area of ​​$ 80 (4,750 rubles). Analogues with an identical set of "hardware" (processor, RAM and media) start somewhere at $ 45 (2,670 rubles) - the difference is more than serious. Will she outweigh her with a nice looking on big screen the shell and design of the device itself, as well as a really working voice input, everyone decides for himself.

I needed a set-top box, not an Android computer, so the choice fell on this variant of the Mi Box. The most important factor was full support for Google Cast, the whole family is very used to Chromecast. Those who like to dig deeper and read the forums should pay attention to the alternatives, which will cost less.

Buy Xiaomi Mi Box TV Box is most profitable in the GearBest store, with a discount coupon: TOPCN2 its price will be only $ 66.99.

A TV box is a device that can turn your old TV (lamp coffins from the last century do not count) into a home multimedia station for only $ 60. To give it a second life, it is enough to use one HDMI-connector. Thousands of TV channels that are conveniently sorted by headings (sports, news, children's, fashion, etc.), watching TV programs in recording (if you missed the series), YouTube, online movies, games, music, and even weather forecast, alarm clock, quick search of information - all this is easy and convenient, using your home TV. Moreover, you can even connect a webcam to organize a video surveillance system for the apartment. To understand a little better what is at stake, we recommend watching our video on this topic.

In this video, we talked about the Xiaomi Mi Box device, its problems, and also considered, as it seemed to us, a more successful alternative from an unknown Chinese manufacturer. But immediately after the release of this video, many of our subscribers drew attention to one very important nuance, which we, for some reason, forgot: when you deal with Xiaomi equipment, you need to roll up your sleeves and create your own happiness with your own hands. In general, the situation is the same as with smartphones. This does not mean at all that Xiaomi is a bad brand. On the contrary: it is rather silly to scold the constructor for being supplied unassembled. The manufacturer provides excellent hardware for minimal money, and to criticize the brand for its ideology is, at the very least, wrong. Therefore, we are forced to admit that we have not understood the issue deeply enough, but this time we will try to correct ourselves.

We are grateful to the subscribers who pointed out our mistakes and suggested solutions to the problems encountered. We are now fixing and publishing our customization option. It should be noted right away that everything is not as bad as we thought, but not perfect either. In addition, all of the following can be done on any other TV box, so Xiaomi Mi Box still has practically no advantages over its competitors. Moreover, in our opinion, it still loses to the MX10 box, because the latter has 7 times more free memory(28 GB versus 4 GB for the Xiaomi Mi Box), 4 USB port, full Android with a normal market and Root-rights, a little more powerful processor(although not a fountain either), an Ethernet port, and a host of other advantages. Nevertheless, Mi Box also has the right to life, because, thanks to the recommendations of our subscribers, it is now also quite comfortable to watch movies online on it, even stream torrents, and the box also has a pleasant appearance and a good remote control that can be used. on an ongoing basis, but for absolute comfort it would still be much better to separately purchase a special remote control with full keyboard, joystick and gyroscope (or touchpad).

Setting instructions

So, below we enclose a list of steps that will make your Xiaomi Mi Box “candy”. Let's start from the very beginning (first run):

Download the archive from the link. We unpack it to a USB stick. We insert the USB stick into the TV box.

We turn on the TV box, connect it to the TV via HDMI and go through the initial setup: select the Russian language, connect WiFi, enter your Google account.

Go to Settings - About device - System update - check the update.

Launch Google play, install ES Explorer.

Launch ES Explorer, open the LeanKey + Rus installer from the flash drive.

Go to Settings -> Applications -> System Applications-> go to the end of the list -> select XiaomiLeanbackCustomizer - select “Disable notifications”, then click “Disable”, confirm and reboot the system.

Install MX Player (from USB stick or Google Play). Required for some programs to work.

Install HD Video Box (from USB stick or Google Play).

Install Movian (from a USB stick or Google Play).

In the Movian application, go to the Plugins section and install everything that may be useful to you ( Screen keyboard- Cyrillic, Video streaming - Rutor, etc.).

Functionality

Thus, only 2 applications (“HD Video Box” and “Movian”) are able to almost completely solve almost all problems and deploy a real multimedia station in your home. On the other hand, you become a hostage of only two applications from, to put it mildly, not the most famous developers, and if these applications for some reason stop updating (and there are prerequisites for this), then the situation may become much less rosy. Of course, there are other alternatives, like the same “ProgTV” and others like it, but all of them cannot be compared. And when I decided to delve deeper into the topic: create my own quick access library, change video decoding parameters, configure streaming sound from other wireless devices (not TV), etc. - I immediately began to catch various errors and slowdowns, up to the freezing of the application, so this whole story can be described as follows: installed and used. Changing some superficial additional parameters usually does not entail any sad consequences, but some deeper settings work extremely unstable and, probably, you should know about this before you decide to plunge headlong into this whole venture with the purchase of a TV box. ...

conclusions

In general, a TV box is certainly not just a toy, but a really useful device that you will be happy to use for many years. As for the Xiaomi Mi Box, this is a pretty good device that is really capable of a lot. We have to admit that initially we greatly underestimated him and were wrong when we named him useless device... On the other hand, other similar devices for the same money can offer you all the same, and even more. The only objective advantage of the Xiaomi device is its remote control remote control, but, as already mentioned above, for real convenience it would still be much better to separately purchase a special 3-in-1 remote control for the box: keyboard (rus / eng) + game joystick + gyroscope (or touchpad). Such a gadget will cost around $ 10 - $ 30 (depending on the model), and you will enjoy using it for several years.

Good day, dear friends, acquaintances, readers, admirers and other personalities.

Today is another great piece from our summer series of device reviews. This time we will look at another of the TV Boxes from the wonderful company Xiaomi (you can see the article about the older model, if you missed it).

This time we will talk about a simpler and budget model, but no less interesting and useful in every possible way. It will be, as you understood from the title, about.

Let's get started.

Photos, packaging and unboxing

Let's start, traditionally, with unboxing the device, but before doing this, in fact, I will remind those who did not know that there is a TV Box and why you need it (well, you never know, you missed the article):

TV Box is a device that, if you have a TV and Internet with Wi-Fi at your home, will turn this TV into pure uncomplicated happiness.

That is, to put it simply, you no longer need to, for example, connect a separate cable, catch a radio on your phone, stick in flash drives with movies or download your favorite serials from torrents. All this will be on your TV right away, without unnecessary surcharges, overpayments, contracts and gestures, or, more simply, at the click of the remote control.

In a nutshell, somehow it is like this, but a little more information you can get, so to speak, in a practical way, namely by reading this material.

So, let's unpack. The device arrived in such a compact and traditionally unpretentious (which pleases) box:

From the photograph, it certainly seems that it is large. In fact, the packaging is not much larger than an ordinary television remote control, and, in fact, it is precisely because of the remote control that it is of this size. Just in case, here's a photo of you with a 5 ruble coin:

Let's open, perhaps. What do you think, where in the photo below is, in fact, myself XiaoMi MIUI TV Box? It is quite difficult to guess the first time, especially considering that the upper part is larger in size.

In fact, the TV Box itself is located in the bottom box and is barely larger than a matchbox in size, which is damn amazing considering the power of the device and the functionality it is capable of. Let's take a closer look at it:

To make it clearer about the size, here, in fact, is the view with the same 5-ruble coin:

The bottom view will delight you with an orange "TV Box" belly, and from which, in fact, the paws for sticking (some word) of the device into an outlet are laid out.

Actually, something like this looks like this when decomposed:

The plug is of Chinese type, so an adapter is required. I don't know if there is a version with round pins for our sockets, but in general, the price of adapters is now a penny (about 100 rubles), so this is not a problem.

You can see the complete set of the device in the photo above. It includes, as you can see, the following:

• Myself XiaoMi MIUI TV Box;
• Remote control from the device;
• HDMI cable (by the way, what I love XiaoMi for is that they are not too lazy to put the cable down, while the same manufacturers of MFPs even cling to a USB cable for kilotons of rubles);
• Instruction.

In an outlet, the device looks like this:

This is a little .. It was unexpected and strange, because it turns on there directly, and not through the power supply (as is the case with the Xiaomi Mi TV Box 3 Enhanced from, which can be put on the table). But because the remote control is not a classic television, but still based on Bluetooth, you won't have to aim somewhere under the table.

In general, with unboxing, that is, unpacking, perhaps everything, and therefore let's move on to the technical characteristics, use, conclusions and impressions.

Specifications, use and impressions

So .. This little box carries the following on board:

• Processor: 1.3GHz quad-core processor (MTK MT8685A Cortex-A7);
• Operating system: Android 4.4.2;
• Memory: 1GB DDR3 RAM and 4GB EMMC high-speed flash memory;
• Wireless technology: Bluetooth 2/3 / 4.0 and dual Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz standards 802.11a b / g / n;
• Formats, decoders, resolution and more:
  • Decoders: H.263 / H.264 / H.265, MPEG 1/2/4, VP8;
  • Video formats: FLV, MOV, AVI, MKV, TS, M2TS, MP4,3GP, MPEG, OGM;
  • Audio formats: MP3, APE, FLAC, AAC, Ogg;
  • Image formats: JPG, BMP, GIF, jpg, etc.
  • Support for 3D video;
  • Max Resolution: 1080P (1920 × 1080) Full HD;
  • Decoding support for: DTS 2.0 + Digital Out, Dolby Digital Plus.
• Connectors: HDMI, power connector;
• Dimensions: 47mm x 38mm.

These are the harsh powers of such a small box. There seems to be even a separate multi-core GPU ( graphics processor) with a frequency of 416MHz (Mali-450 MP4).

WITH technical characteristics, I think we figured it out, and therefore let's move on to using. Actually, initially it seems extremely simple:

• We plug into an outlet;
• Insert HDMI cable;
• We turn on the remote control.

The fact is that the device greets us with the Chinese language, which is quite difficult to change with a simple two clicks (especially considering the absence of a USB port). And all would be fine, but all sorts of Chinese software has been installed, which in our region simply refuses to work for nothing.

How to take off with this? First you need to get English, which is done as follows:

• Allow installation from unknown sources by doing the following steps from below (clickable):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Next, we take (this is an alternative settings utility for Android) and place it in a shared (shared) folder in your local network(it must be created at least as a home working group);
• Next, using the built-in Video Player application (I don't know why exactly it is) or Smart Home, go to the folder and install the startSettings.apk file downloaded above:
  
  
  
• Next, go to the settings, namely in Settings, where we select English as the native language for the system (following the screenshots below):
  
  
  
• Actually, we figured out the language and now the TV Box can be controlled more comfortably.

The installation of the rest of the applications follows the same principle, that is, from a shared folder.

Alternatively, you can make it easier and put the MiTVAssistant application on your phone and install any applications from it (for this, the phone must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network as myself XiaoMi MIUI TV Box).

With this application, you can control the applications installed on the TV Box, install new ones directly from the phone (they must be downloaded to it as .apk files in the Download folder), intercept / duplicate the screen, use the phone as a remote control and much more.

And then, in fact, an almost pure holiday begins, because, as I said above, almost everything that can be installed on Android can be installed on the device, and we have come up with many wonderful applications for TV Boxes.

Here you and YouTube:

And television of all stripes and colors (satellite, regular, regular HD, foreign, etc., etc.):

Films for every taste from any online cinemas, of any quality, novelty, translation and voice acting:

You can immediately see the rating on the movie search, reviews, read the description, watch the trailer, watch the likes-dislikes and the devil knows what else:

Serials, films, TV shows, in general, everything is at your service, choose the program you need, genre, quality and go ahead. Relatively speaking, you do not need to do anything, that is, download somewhere and so on (if only the Internet and Wi-Fi were good):

Have established desired application which you like the most and enjoy. At any time and whatever. Without any common house antennas and other horrors of life there.

TV series, cartoons .. Well, in general, you get the idea. You can even listen to any radio, even ours, even foreign, thousands of thousands of channels and all this with one click of the remote control:

Generally speaking, my personal list The minimum software is this (otherwise they asked in previous comments):

• Online cinemas:
  FS VideoBox
  TreeVideoBox
• Satellite TV all over the world, IP TV, torrent TV, world webcams, radio, etc.:
  LazyIPTV and to it Torrent Stream Controller and Ace Stream Controller + playlists (it's not difficult to find on the Internet);
• The keyboard is comfortable for the remote control:
  Fire TV style keyboard
• Lots of TV shows, anime and some films, all in HD and with voice acting:
  HDSerials
• Tons of radio (if you want a separate app):
  PC_Radio_premium
• Video-audio player and other things:
  MX Player
• YouTube client with authorization support and other things:
  SmartYoutubeTV
• If you want to surf the Internet from your TV:
  Opera TV Browser
• Remote control from the phone, transfer of the screen to the phone, etc.
  Mi Remote
  MiTVAssistant

I recommend taking programs from, otherwise it is quite risky to take programs from other third-party sources. By the way, support for Google services, that is Play Market"but, unfortunately, not on the device .. On the other hand, TV Box works on the" install and forget "principle, that is, it is enough to spend a day or two installing the necessary software and you can happily use it without bothering with anything anymore ...

By the way, it is not necessary to be tied specifically to programs, you can simply download what you want to watch to a shared folder on your computer or to a disk / flash drive of a router and just run it on the TV Box, in the same way that you did the apk installation - applications.

The device has enough power for everything (the support of the 5 GHz Wi-Fi range is especially pleasing), there are no special glitches. By the way, you can easily get root-rights in the same way as for a smartphone, that is, using, say, Kingroot about which we wrote, and remove all unnecessary that you do not need, as well as get rid of ads and other horrors life.

On this sim, perhaps, everything.
Let's jump to conclusions.

Conclusions and summaries

In general, the conclusions and impressions are almost the same as in our article about the previous TV Box, namely ..

• A very powerful device that, after proper setup, allows you to watch and listen to anything on your TV, anytime, in any quality. It doesn't matter if you like TV shows, movies, IP / HD or satellite television, radio, world webcams or something else - with such a box and the Internet, life turns into a holiday;
• With such a thing, you generally forget what downloading something from a torrent or interrupting your computer by launching an online movie theater is. Plus, you are always aware of new products of any genre, type and rating;
• Very small size and low price (with excellent power);
• The ability to easily and quickly get root rights, which allows you to get rid of ads and unnecessary applications that are so intrusively installed initially.

• High "entry threshold", that is, it takes a very long time to set up initially. Until you figure out how to switch the language, while you install the update, until you find out where which programs you can get and which ones are better, until you install all this .. In general, at least the weekend will fly by;
• The absence of a USB port is somewhat overhead at the first stages of configuration and interaction with the device (especially if the simplest network is not deployed).

• A good device, which simply should be at home for everyone who watches something more than the standard 6 TV channels, that is, who is interested in movies, TV shows, and so on. In general, after you set it up, you just get along and do not understand how you used to live without such a TV Box "but in principle;
• In some ways, it looks like a small miracle and gives the feeling that you live in an age of technology and a computer - that's not all. But, you still need to have the strength and desire to adjust .. Otherwise, it simply makes no sense to take, because Chinese television is hardly interesting to you.

Now let's move on to the afterword.

Afterword, discounts, coupons and where to buy

Such are the pies.

Actually, traditionally, XiaoMi MIUI TV Box carefully rendered wonderful. You can buy this miracle of foreign industry right now, and at a really delicious price. As the saying goes, whoever did it, so did the TV Box :)

As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, additions and all that stuff, then welcome to the comments to this review.

In today's review we are looking at the Xiaomi Mi Box 3s, a TV box based on Android OS. The device serves to expand the capabilities of a regular TV: it allows you to connect to streaming services Netflix, iVi and Google Play Movies, can work with YouTube and install applications from the Google Play store, and plays music and video files.

The Xiaomi Mi Box 3s has the following characteristics:

• OS - Android TV 6.
• CPU- Quad-core Amlogic S905X-H @ 2GHz.
• Graphics Processing - ARM MALI-450
• Device memory - 2 GB of RAM, 8 GB of built-in flash memory.
• Network connections- Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac, Dual-band Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz, Bluetooth 4.0.
• Dimensions and weight of the device - 100x100x20 mm, 175 grams.

Supported compression formats H.264 (AVC / MVC), H.265 HEVC, VP9 Profile-2 in resolution from 1080p to 4K and frame rates from 30 to 60. Also, the manufacturer claims support for HDR 10 and HLG HDR.

Package and filling

The set-top box comes with a Bluetooth remote control, an HDMI cable for connecting to a TV, monitor or projector, a power supply, instructions and a warranty card. Mi Box 3s is sealed in a bright orange box.

The box has been updated and is now finished in a bright orange color

By appearance the device stands out with smoothed corners and a matte black color. Dust and hand marks are clearly visible on the material. The base is rubberized for greater stability, it is difficult to drop the set-top box even when connecting cables and large flash drives. The overall design is minimalist, no frills.

The front panel of the device is almost empty, there is only a receiver for the IR signal from the remote control and a status indicator. There are four connectors on the back: power, HDMI, USB 3.0, and 3.5mm audio jack.

The remote control is small: 15 centimeters long and weighs about 60 grams. Thanks to the shape and connection of the edges, it is comfortable and does not slip in the hand, it runs on two AAA batteries. On the remote you can find a circular joystick, volume control, function buttons OK, Home, Back, Voice Input.

About the hardware of the console itself, we can say that it is enough to use the main functionality. During the tests, no microlags or freezes were detected, Xiaomi Mi Box works like a clock. According to the Antutu benchmark, the filling of the device roughly corresponds to Xiaomi Redmi 3, so we do not recommend overloading the console with heavy applications. Most games will work, but on minimal settings.

Using the Xiaomi Mi Box TV Box

At the first start, you need to connect the remote control to the set-top box by turning on the device and bringing it closer to 20 centimeters. Once connected, the device is configured using a remote control or smartphone. You will be prompted to select a working language, drive in a password for Wi-Fi connections and connect to your Google account. The main screen includes:

• search from the same Google, with the ability to use the remote control as a microphone for voice input;
• Google recommendations based on previously viewed content;
• non-removable Netflix and Redbull TV tabs;
• system settings at the bottom of the screen.

The functionality of the applications is the same as on a smartphone, except in a more simplified form for the remote control. Among the shortcomings, we can note the lack of native support by the set-top box for a number of games and applications on Google Play and the inability to minimize the application by launching it later from the same place. Xiaomi Mi Box when entering main screen does not save the state of the program, so when you start Youtube you will again find yourself on start page and not on the last running video.

By default, the Android box Xiaomi Mi Box 3s does not have its own video player, so you will have to install it separately. Works great with all file formats, support for MKV, AVI, WMV, MOV, RM, RMVB is declared. There are also no complaints about the operation of the network, it perfectly catches both in the jam-packed 2.4 GHz, and in the more free 5 GHz.

In general, Mi Box, like the vast majority of such consoles, can be used as:

• a media player with the ability to stream video from a PC or smartphone;
• a device for surfing the Internet, showing presentations and video calls;
• extension for the Smart TV function on any regular TV;
• IPTV set-top box with a subscription to any content provider you are interested in.

If desired, the Mi Box can be flashed for use in other systems or for additional functions.

Features of Android TV and Mi Box 3 marked S

For those who use the Android prefix for the first time, it is important to understand that the system is different from what can be seen on smartphones. The interface is primarily made for the remote control and voice, and half of the applications from the Play Market will not work due to incompatibility. There is also a plus: in the store you can find special applications for Android TV, which with regular phone are not available.

The interface cannot be changed by user means, unlike the smartphone OS Android. Also, you will have medium-serious problems when trying to get Root access to the system, you cannot do this using standard methods (although, of course, there are loopholes).

Xiaomi Mi Box 3S differs from the version without the letter S in the following upgrades:

• redesigned graphical interface(GUI), a system based on artificial intelligence Patchwall;
• the updated model of the Amlogic S905X-H processor is used with hardware decoding of sound, which seriously increases the speed of processing sound files and reduces the load on the system;
• the flash memory has been updated from eMMC 5.0 to eMMC 5.1, and therefore the maximum read speed has been increased from 400 to 600 mb / s;
• a touch-sensitive joystick has been added to the remote control.

In general, in online stores you can find a whole zoo of android prefixes from Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Mi Box International Version is an original device developed in conjunction with by Google, can be found by the words "international version" or "international version". Doesn't differ from 3S in almost nothing

Mi Box mini is a small box based on Android 4.4.2 on Chinese and without the support of Google services. A weak processor with 4 cores and a frequency of 1.3 GHz, 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of ROM, connects only via HDMI 1.4.

Xiaomi Mi Box 3c - a model also for the Chinese market with reduced memory (1 GB RAM, 4 GB ROM) and old version processor. Chinese software and services, do not confuse.

Xiaomi Mi Box 3 Enhanced Edition - top model with a bundle of 2 and 4-core Cortex processor, improved GPU and big amount sensors in the remote control (gyroscope, accelerometer) to bind gestures to the console control. Also known as Xiaomi Mi Box Pro in Europe.

For most systems, there are both official and unofficial Russian and European firmware. Xiaomi Mi Box 3s is officially localized in the CIS and fully supports the Russian language.

Video review

You can buy Mi Box 3s in AliExpress for $ 55.

Would you like to buy yourself such a set-top box? Write the answer in the comments.