Hey bud, I am from India. I too had the same confusion few months back.

I purchased MiBox from Aliexpress as i not only needed chromecast but also support to play contents from a storage device. But it has been a poor experience using MI box - wifi problems, lags etc. May be the latest update would fix that.. Maybe not.

AFAIK firestick does not have these issues and you can get hardware to play offline content as well. So only difference is chromecast which i think you can do on kodi via 3rd party apps so you can use that to cast in firestick.

Also i have been able to play amazon prime on mi box as well after a bit of tinkering and Google

So its for you to decide if you want get a firestick with no chromecast or gamble on mi box which might not work properly due to faulty software

I would suggest the Mi Box 3 or S anyday.

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Simply because of this :

1. The option to connect USB drives.
2. The option to cast easily.
3. The hardware is larger for the long run I believe.
4. Has more internal memory I believe.
5. I can run my prime videos on Mi Box easily.

I think go with Fire TV Stick (4k or normal) since you are so concerned on Mi Box reliability. Getting a warranty from AliExpress import is kind of impossible. In case customs hold it, it will turn out same price as Fire TV Stick 4K price.

Casting factor will not be an issue once you have a Remote in hand. Else you can get an used Echo Dot alongside to complete your handsfree experience. You can get both at almost same price of a Mi Box.

I created a post about it r/India which also blew up with me ditching my tv cable. More than 15 users pm me telling me that they bought Mi box S from aliexpress after my recommendation. If you are reading about issues trust me there are none(the wifi one vary but I never had that issue maybe coz I have xiaomi router). Let me know if you have a question about shipping. If you are worried about authenticity then I should let you know that there are official sellers on aliexpress who belongs to xiaomi.

I hope this helps : https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/b8gmbs/follow_up_on_the_ditched_cable_tv_post/

Fire TV Stick because:

- it a more modern powerful SoC

- Amazon actually implement Dolby Audio properly to downmix / remix all audio if you want into 5.1 DD (Mi Boxes have numerous Dolby Audio problems)

- No issues with 5.1 DD+ audio dropouts.

- the 4K Stick has class leading WiFi

- has a class leading Wireless remote.

- if Amazon is your main focus, you do not run the risk of Amazon spitting the dummy and blocking sideloaded Amazon video streaming access on the (Amazon) unsupported Mi Box They have done such thing before with various platforms.

- No issues with Wake Up from sleep

- Working auto Frame Matching

In fact just see this thread instead:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=336151

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Netflix video playback on my 2016 Mi Box is a stuttering mess, even with new Bug Fixed recent Oreo FW update. I used to be a lot better with old Marshmallow FW.

I don't what Xiaomi or Netflix have done but it is easily the worst for decent Netflix video playback vs any of the other Netflix capable media players I have. On top of that are the DD+ audio dropouts.

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In the end it depends on what your individual priorities actually are.

Skip both of them. Pay the extra and get the Nvidia Shield TV. I only bought it last year and it's amazing. Slick smooth blazing fast, powerful I watch Plex flawlessly from my Plex pc storage server, and the BIGGEST factor. NVIDIA updates these boxes so frequently and it's the best part of it all. 4 years on, this thing just got updates a month ago, it's already running Android 8.1 and they're still improving it

Save for 3 months what you would spend on half the amount of the shield. Then wait an extra month and buy it anyway! It's worth the wait, especially because the mi box will hardly be updated, has a lot of laggy weirdness and even at times strange video quality, and the firestick I don't know about...but it's a stick.... Surely you don't want to have a stick for a streamer ;). Jokes aside, so much more you can do with the shield. I'm busy installing an emulator so I can play old games!!!

What do you want more the Amazon ecosystem or voice control?

Doesn't the Fire TV stick support casting of some sort? Like for example, you can cast YouTube or TVFPlay, etc. Screen mirroring is also supported. If you get a MiBox, you can cast Amazon Prime videos directly to it via Chromecast.