What exactly "Sideloaded Apps" - the reason for asking is a LOT of regular touchscreen Android tablet Apps will not work at all on ANY Android TV box. Plus you also need to use some sort of - touchpad or mouse for touchscreen Android Apps.

There are hell of a lot of us that are not having major issues with mainstream 1080p Netflix, Kodi, Youtube etc. on the Mi Box.

Certainly no where near as many issues as the postings on this Reddit forum continually indicate.

The Plex App on Mi Box has known issues. Avoid it completely.

Yes looks beautiful on my Full HD projector!

The audio on it is a breeze, no bugs at all

I don't have major qualms with my 4 miboxes. But I do have two problems on all of them.

1. HDMI cec simply doesn't work for me at all. Different tvs, cables and boxes.

2. I need to use Instatv for live tv from my hdhomeruns, otherwise fast action scenes and sports look terrible. I also have audio/video stutter here and there. My gigabit mesh network is solid, never such issues with my two Shields. I can live with it though.

What did you eventually do?

1080p yeah, just prepare for issues down the road. My MiBox has issues with audio (and for the MiBox fanboys yes I've tried different TVs, cables, and even hooking it up directly to my sound system using the optical output, same issues) and it audio refuses to come out of it unless audio comes from another source. So to use my MiBox I have to turn on my TV, open it's YouTube app and play a random video (doesn't matter as long as it produces sound), the switch to my MiBox before audio will work. Plus sometimes scrubbing video on YouTube and Plex will cause audio to die and when that happens I have to reboot the box.

Personally I'd just shoot for a Chromecast then cast Netflix and your "other" content. Hell I think even popcorn time supported Chromecast before it got shut down.