Mi Box S is stuttery when watching Twitch. Color fidelity is overall weak and sometimes it's outright bad to the point where I restart the Mi Box multiple times for the color to go back to how it was. YouTube runs great unless it's 4K60HDR where it works great for a couple of seconds and then a massive freeze hits.
Is the FireStick 4K capable of casting from a phone? Does it have a Twitch app? Is there any way you can get rid of that interface? Is it a better media device than the Box?
Longer version:
So, I've owned the Mi Box S for about 2 weeks now but I started wondering if it was a safe purchase even if it was the price that it was (under 50 bucks in a country where it costs usually 80). The media box showcased a plethora of issues at random times which include but are not limited to:
- Stuttery video feed or VoD in twitch
- Green Screen error in YouTube
- Casting a youtube video on it when it's streaming video on twitch causes it to be full blackscreen and needs restarting
- Oddly dropping frames in the most mundane scenarios when browsing apps
- Oddly changing resolution from 4K RGB or YCbCr 444 to YcBcR 420
- Livestreams on Twitch starting to slow down and skip huge chunks of frames because it's falling behind render speeds
- The Box gets VERY hot very fast
- Colors are very off saturation wise sometimes being unbearable
- Have to have CEC enabled and when it boots up it needs a soft reboot so that helps it to fix itrtsef
- The Box changes it's own resolution at random
And I was wondering if this was even a smart device I should've gotten. And I saw that my only other option right now is the FireStick 4K or the second hand market for an Nvidia Shield 2019 that literally costs over 3x what I spent on this device and I don't believe it's worth it even though everybody praises Nvidia.
But, even though I've seen people praising the FireStick over the media box that I am owning right now, I got some questions.
- Is the FireStick capable of any form of casting from a phone? I mean, if I go in the YouTube or Twitch app, can I send a video to the media device so that it plays it without me touching it's remote?
- Is the Firestick capable of actually showing 4K60 in YCbCr444 or RGB without dumb stuttering occuring? (does the device even allow us to choose color spaces?)
- Is the Firestick interface removable and replaceable with stock Android TV UI?
- Is the Firestick easily overheating or lagging?
- Is the Firestick capable of side-loading apps?
- Is the Firestick a better device hardware/performance wise compared tor the Mi Box?
- If you can sideload apps, can you sideload the chromecast built in apk on it? Will that make it chrome-cast enabled by default in case it didn't work?
What is your honest advice? Please no nvidia jokes, just need somebody who is wiling to give me proper advice and who maybe owns one of these media boxes so that he can give his own input. Thanks for reading.
Edit: added another question
I've owned a Firestick (not 4K). I own the Mi Box, Shield and Roku's for what it's worth. I don't get too deep in the tech specs if it all but I can speak on my experience.
Firestick left a lot to be desired. The UI is clunky it feels like an OS on top of Android TV because it is. Performance was more stable consistently I just felt it was years behind and made things harder than it should.
On the other hand, when the Mi Box is on its game it's far superior. Problem is it just doesn't have consistent stable performance. For me, I can live with the occasional hiccups for a better overall user experience.
Now, what people are saying about the Shield they're not wrong at all. It's worth it if it's your primary TV. I have nothing bad to say about mine. I've owned mine since 2016 I think and can't remember a time I've had to restart, force close or troubleshoot.