Last year, Xiaomi released the TV Stick 4K 2nd gen with a more powerful chipset and HDR10+ support. Now the company is refreshing its basic TV Stick HD with similar features.
Starting from the exterior, this 4K second generation uses a more rounded design. Alas, the power port is still a micro-USB – come on, Xiaomi. Note that there’s only one USB port and no microSD slot, so if you want to connect additional storage, you’ll have to look at Xiaomi’s TV box. The original stick didn’t support USB-OTG and we’re not sure if this one supports it, but it’s an odd solution nonetheless.
This stick is targeted at older TVs as it tops out at 1080p 60fps output – it can’t do 4K. You can have it if you’re subscribed to a lower tier of streaming services (4K costs extra on most services).
The Xiaomi TV Stick HD 2nd Generation runs Google TV and comes pre-loaded with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube. These have dedicated buttons on the remote control (more on remotes in a bit). Besides streaming, you can also cast photos and videos from your phone.
The stick is powered by a new chipset with a quad-core Cortex-A55 and Mali-G31 MP2. Xiaomi promises 38% better performance than the first-generation HD Stick (which had four A53 cores and a Mali-450 GPU). However, the RAM and storage capacity remain the same at 1GB and 8GB respectively, which is very limited. The TV Stick 4K 2nd Generation has a little more oomph with 2GB of RAM and a Mali-G310 V2 GPU.
As for content, the stick supports HDR10+, but to actually use it your TV will have to support it too (it’s a fairly new standard). More importantly, the new chipset has hardware AV1 decoding, which is crucial for a good YouTube and Netflix experience.
As for sound, the stick supports DTS:X and Dolby audio, but again, your other device (either the TV or your sound setup) will need to support these as well.
The stick connects to your home Wi-Fi network over dual-band 802.11ac (aka Wi-Fi 5). Bluetooth 5.0 is used for the remote control, which also has an IR blaster – this lets it turn on your TV.
Xiaomi TV Stick HD 2nd generation should be available globally soon. We haven’t seen the price yet, but the 4K second generation can easily be found for €50.