I bought it earlier this year, and about a month ago updated the OS on it... then it started going to the Mi boot screen and getting stuck. Did this fix: https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/9fo34b/xiaomi_mdz16ab_solution_to_downgrade_from_flaky/ worked for a week.. now its doing the same thing. Any thoughts/help?
I'm writing this post not because I dislike Android TV nor because I dislike the idea of a cheap and official Android TV box, but rather as a summary of my experience with the Mi Box S after my Mi Box 3 stopped booting. My hopes are that Android TV someday reaches its full potential on standalone devices and doesn't simply run as a Smart TV Operating System. (Edit: This may be a rant tbh)
My first impressions of both devices was positive for the most part, with everything Android TV offered working as promised. The Voice Search tool, Live Channels, and overall look and feel was left untouched by Xiaomi, spare for some channel recommendations that you can't get rid of. Performance wasn't buttery smooth but it was acceptable on both devices. Overall I was happy with the boxes and their features.
Within a month of owning m Mi Box 3, issues started popping up. At first they were minor, like apps stopping randomly once or twice a week; however, they soon escalated to bigger problems like the box not powering back on without being disconnected and reconnected to power. Eventually Nougat was released and I naturally assumed the box was no longer being supported. That was fine, as things still worked for the most part. Oreo came out and it was all the new features with the same old issues. I'd reset the box several times at that point, and was kinda tired of it. It wasn't until about a month ago, after owning the box for just under two years that it turned off and never booted back up.
Frustrated, I contacted Xiaomi Support and they exchanged the device for the "new" Mi Box S. Although I was aware that this box contained the same internals and was more a design refresh than anything, I had been hoping that at the very least some of the bugs that were present in the Mi Box 3 would've been fixed. Within a week of receiving the box however, I am faced with not only the same performance and power issues, I am also faced with a network issue that prevents the box from maintaining a stable connection to my Wireless Router. The solution to this problem seems to be unknown at the moment, but at this point it seems like Xiaomi either doesn't know or doesn't care enough to fix these issues in their product.
At this point, I'm torn. My favorite part of the Mi Box was the idea that there was a cheap alternative to the Nvidia competition, but as I saw in a recent r/TalesFromTechSupport story, "Good Stuff isn't Cheap, and Cheap Stuff isn't Good." Even in the higher price tiers, there still doesn't seem to be a proper Android TV aside from Nvidia's offerings, and honestly the demand seems so low that I can see why. So I guess the point of this all is really to stress that if you wanted an Android TV without having to buy a new TV, you've basically got one option and that's it. Maybe someday we'll see more Android TVs that don't look like Gaming Machines or Kid's Toys (I've neglected to mention the AirTV because of its atrocious design.)
