Shield TV is pretty much the best of the best

For streaming music and movies than either a Mi Box or FireTV Box (not stick). Paying a few hundred dollars just to play music and movies would be a waste of money.

Shield tv if you're up for spending the money.

Otherwise, fire stick/tv with Kodi installed.

Don't buy any of those crap Android "tv" boxes on Amazon.

Shield TV. It may be overkill but it also means less fuss about what it can and can't do

Raspberry Pi with Kodi works great in combination with a Synology NAS! The pi itself only costs around $35, so if you can harvest the HDMI cable, power supply (microUSB) and microSD card from your own inventory, this is the cheapest option that meets your requirements. The pi is a fun thing to tinker with, so this also opens a lot of possibilities for other cool things (like a retro gaming station or a smart mirror). Too bad it doesn't support Google cast!

So if you'd like to cast stuff to your new gadget aswel, the MiBox is a great option. It's Android TV, so it supports casting. You can install Kodi, but also Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo, etc etc. It's powerful enough to display 4k (not in all situations I believe, but ok) and it's a great option for casual gaming occasionally (Minecraft, gta, asphalt 8, riptide, a bards tale, Abe's oddessy... Stuff like that)

Both above options have limitations. The best replacement for a PS4 is the shield. It does all of the above, but is much more powerful so it makes a full gaming system aswel. Via moonlight / parsec / nvidia Gamestream you even play your pcgames on your TV. Prices start at $200 I believe, or maybe more...

Ive used Raspberry Pi for a long time myself, just recently switched to mibox. I am satisfied with it's performance! Sometimes I wish I could play more games on it, but I do not play games enough to be paying that much or a shield..(I wish I had one though)

Sounds like a Kodi/Libreelec only box would work fine in your particular case. If you arent needing Netflix/Amazon/other apps you dont really need Android TV. Even then, Kodi 18 does have a plugin available for Netflix that works pretty well.

If you value silky smooth video playback - stay away from cheap Android boxes, and that includes the Xiaomi Mi Box.

You want a device that has Kodi dynamic refresh rate switching to switch a TV's refresh rate to match the video content's frame per second.

And for that you want to be running LibreELEC (or OSMC) Kodi Krypton:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916&pid=2584602#pid2584602

The NVIDIA Shield also has Kodi / Plex dynamic refresh switching.

I have a Raspberry Pi 2 with Libreelec/Kodi installed and it handles everything I throw at it.

Sounds like a Kodi/Libreelec only box would work fine in your particular case. If you arent needing Netflix/Amazon/other apps you dont really need Android TV. Even then, Kodi 18 does have a plugin available for Netflix that works pretty well.

If you value silky smooth video playback - stay away from cheap Android boxes, and that includes the Xiaomi Mi Box.

You want a device that has Kodi dynamic refresh rate switching to switch a TV's refresh rate to match the video content's frame per second.

And for that you want to be running LibreELEC (or OSMC) Kodi Krypton:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916&pid=2584602#pid2584602

The NVIDIA Shield also has Kodi / Plex dynamic refresh switching.

You can install Plex on most of the modern Synology units.

If that is possible on your particular unit, I would do it.

Once that it done, you can stream your content to any box with a Plex app: Shield, Mii Box, Roku, Fire, etc

Shield TV. Run Plex on it and point it to your NAS.

You can install Plex on most of the modern Synology units.

If that is possible on your particular unit, I would do it.

Once that it done, you can stream your content to any box with a Plex app: Shield, Mii Box, Roku, Fire, etc

Shield TV. Run Plex on it and point it to your NAS.

I have mi box 6 months and I'm enjoying every single day of it.