I was looking for a cheapo chinese tv box for my mom (for netfix and usb media) but I'm startng to think a quality xiaomi one would be better. I have a few questions.
Is it easy to play movies with subtitles from a pendrive in vlc player?
can you put an external usb 3.0 hard drive on there? (i doubt this one)
does it has "cast" features or some compatibility with xiaomi phones?
I have a Mi Box. I find USB devices are not how swapable, that you need the flash drive connected as it powers up in order for the MiBox to recognize it. Works best with FAT32 or ExFAT formatted drives, but wont see NTFS formatted ones. I have tested this with both Kodi and VLC and find Kodi to be easier to deal with, fewer clicks of the remote to access video files. I have not tried subtitles with VLC, but I know it works with Kodi.
An external USB drive (be it 2.0 or 3.0) will only work so long as it has its own power supply. So a HDD that gets power over USB probably wont work.
My 5 year old daughter often casts to the MiBox, mostly YouTube Kid videos.
I had the mi box 3. It has allot of issues with Netflix. Maybe it was just mine but Netflix would crash after 20 seconds.