Will the mi box s worth it ?

by abeel_siddiqui

I was planning to get the m8s pro l...a chinese box running Android tv OS... but then xaiomi dropped the mi box s. Now there are many reasons why i considered m8s pro l....it has more ram than the mi box,a better cpu and better I/O....the only downsides it has are tht it's running Android 7.1 ,the Chromecast function does not work, Netflix is upto 1080p(honestly i dont care bout having 4K) , and HDR wont work on Netflix The reason i am hesitant to buy the new mi box is due to the same old spec like da hell xaiomi was thinking that 2gigs of ram is nuff in 2018 with the old cpu...and the reason i was considering it was because of Chromecast feature and official google support....but am confused...and dont know what to buy

BiggussDikkuss

The new Mi Box S will be running the same buggy new AMLogic Linux Kernel as the previous Mi Box. That is the root cause of all ongoing problems.

Maybe, BIG maybe the combined WiFi / BT drivers may be fixed this time around. I still have serious doubts. 5.1 Netflix audio is likely to still have dropouts.

But the ultimate question is do you trust Xiaomi any more to even deliver decent Firmware or provide timely ongoing support. They do sweet Fcuk All firmware testing and have no English support forum either.

Seems they would rather just promote and release another cheap Oreo ATV box on the unsuspecting public. That might be OK if all you need is 2.0 audio and 1080p streaming. The lack of an inbuilt Ethernet port is a major limitation if you run into WiFi problems.

Personally I would just buy cheap, seperate Chromecast hardware, it will be guaranteed to work properly vs the Android TV implementation.

If you need Android, do not stuff around with cheap Android TV devices, save up and buy a NVIDIA Shield and be done with it OR wait for reviews of the new (more powerful vs Mi Box) 2018 FireTV stick.

Unless you specifically really need Android or Chromecasting, the other big A - Apple sell a better product and do proper ongoing after sales device support.

You get what you pay for.

krazy9000

For $60 I'd say so. I bought my MiBox for $80 I think and it is definitely worth that. I've had it a couple of years and have had very few issues with it. I only only need 1080p and just just my TV's speakers, so I don't need to do anything fancy with it. For that it's pretty much perfect.

harrybuckman

95% of these will be returned in the first 7 days because they will not come out of standby and the remote is not working. People won't even get to the point of figuring out why Dolby Digital is cutting out.

PalebloodSky

Xiaomi had a change to learn from their mistakes, but instead the S uses the same hardware and thus will have the same buggy software. It's very unlikely things will improve much if at all. They could have at least done a spec bump since it's the same price but they didn't even do that.

That been said, I'm not one of the people having issues with Mi Box. I'm running the latest Oreo and after a factory reset when going to Android 8.0 it runs great for me I use it every day.

Ron_Aldo

Honestly, let's wait for a review and/or see what 8.1 one can do. Personally i'll wait a bit before buying this box. I have the current box on Oreo and after so many factory reset it will still go black with no sound for a second or two everytime I use it. I tried it with CEC on and off because I'm not sure where the root of the problem is. I thought it was only when playing file from my NAS with VLC or Archos, but even on Netflix, Youtube etc, it will do it once or twice a day. Also, I use it as a music player, connected to my soundbar with the 3.5mm jack and spotify connect would suddenly stop. When I turn on the TV to check what is happening, the box seem to hang and the interface would only fill 1/3 of my screen. The only way out of that is to unplug (screen resolution set to manual).

The only reason i'm not buying a shield at the moment is because I need that 3.5mm output

Andriusdude

Sorry if it's kinda off topic but:

I wonder what the "Live" button on the new Mi Box S remote does.

abeel_siddiqui

Ya i was talking about having the live tv feature ,i have seen the remote of 1st gen mi box tho...tbh I wish these boxes had programmable button so u can map ur fav apps to them

drthh8r

I don't think any boxes are worth outside of Nvidia Shield.

elgenes

Buy anything except a fake Android TV box unless you only want to use Kodi on LibreELEC. Netflix won’t work, you won’t get updates, chromecast doesn’t work properly. I don’t know what apps you use, but every now and then there’s an app without Android TV support, but with Chromecast support. Using an app on your phone and then cast is a faster way (at least for me) to start streaming something.

Buy a Mi box or perhaps the new Amazon Fire stick. It is faster, cheaper, and supports HDR10+/Dolby Vision. Future proof.

JDL1585

My new Mi Box S constantly freezes with audio dropouts and stuttering picture.

Only way to resolve this is to unplug the Mi Box S. After doing so, everything seems to work just fine. Hope this can be resolved one day soon!

grokas

No