Fire TV Stick or Mi Box?

by TurbulentAct

I already have a TCL L55P1US 55 inch 4K smart TV with Android 5.0 (2 years old)

BUT -

  1. Not official Android TV
  2. No Widevine L1
  3. Therefore Prime video doesn't play at all and netflix caps off at 480p on a 4k display
  4. Out of the blue, suddenly audio video delays occur which can be fixed only by a hard restart
  5. It struggles to process even images on slideshow
  6. TV doesn't support VP9 so can't play 4K videos on YouTube

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So out of frustration, I feel like buying a firetv stick or some android box for best experience (but also broke to buy something like shield)

I want primarily to be able to watch Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube on 4K.

Which one should I go for?

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FireTV stick 4K or Mi Box 3 or Mi Box S or anything else?

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RealJunaid

Mi box 🔥

tombunyon0

I wouldn't go for a Fire TV if I wanted to watch YouTube, their implementation of it is to open youtube.com/TV in a browser. I would probably wait for the Mi Box S to come out, the current one doesn't really have a stable Oreo build and Netflix doesn't work correctly on some devices like my Mi Box.

BringerOfRainX1

Well narrow it down to Firestick and Mi box S, firestick doesn't have official youtube app so you'd have to get smart youtube or what ever its called. I'm not 100% if it can do HDR on Youtube but it can do 4K. Mi box S I believe has VP9 profile 2 so should be able to do both 4K and HDR on youtube. Prime video also needs to be side loaded on mi box s cause its not supported yet and only certain versions work. There are pros and cons to both so just have to way them up and judge which is more important to you.

watchyirc

You might wanna look at the Jetstream player they got at WM. Same exact hardware as the Mi Box.

dekomote

Mi box is broken. Their support sucks balls. All of the box 3s at the moment are bugged to hell, and before someone says 2179, no, it's shit! It only works on HD(non 4k) TVs and stereo. Play it on a DD/DTS/HD sound and you get dropouts, jitters, frame skips, you name it. And not just netflix, prime, kodi pretty much all around. This happened since the initial version. On top of that, CEC is broken, Wifi is spotty.

I have them both. Fire Stick (non 4k) and Xiaomi. I'd never buy this piece of crap (Xiaomi) again. Fire stick is good.

This is coming from a guy owning 8 Xiaomi phones (since 2014), 2 Xiaomi routers, 1 Xiaomi box etc etc. Their specs are top notch, as is the feel, build quality. Their software is awful.

Also, check that Jetstream. But stay the eff away from Xiaomi Box.

BiggussDikkuss

Wait till reviews of both the v8.1 ATV OS equipped Mi Box S and the new, more powerful (vs any Mi Box) 2018 FireTV stick surface.

The new Stick is definately Google VP9 4K YouTube capable, use the Smart YouTube App.

Amazon hardware has always been capable of 5.1 DD+ > 5.1 DD audio downmixing as well. Expect 2.0 Audio only from Netflix and Prime with the Mi Box if you do not have a DD+ capable HDMI connected audio receiver.

There are DD+ audio dropouts with the current Mi Box.

If Netflix and Prime Video are more important vs 4K YouTube, consider the 2018 FireTV stick if it gets decent reviews.

Amazon will give you better ongoing Firmware support vs Xiaomi.

the_clairvoyant_

Get a Roku. Supports all of the main services you watch. As a former Mibox owner, I cannot recommend a device that can be bricked at any moment with a bad update or a broken remote. Android TV is only really worth it if you want to do Kodi, VPNs, or gaming. FireTV probably works as well if you don't mind using a workaround to get YouTube, but who knows where Amazon's relationship with Google goes.

PaKii94

hey dude just fyi, I am planning on getting the firetv pendant and converting it to androidTV. Should be best of both worlds!

akisnet

Mi box 3