After introducing the Xiaomi X Pro smart TV series earlier this year, the company decided to take it up a notch with the Xiaomi X Pro QLED smart TV series. The existing Xiaomi X Pro series has now been upgraded with a QLED display and the new MagiQ feature. While this seems like an incremental upgrade on paper, does it translate to a real-life experience? To test exactly this, I have been using the 55-inch Xiaomi X Pro QLED for the past two weeks and found the smart TV to be absolutely value for money. Let’s find out why.

Thin and small bezels

Before I talk about the features and viewing experience, I will talk about the design and build of the smart TV for a minute. The Xiaomi X Pro QLED smart TV has an aluminium body and has ultra narrow bezels. The frame of the TV has a premium finish. The Xiaomi X Pro QLED 55-inch is quite sleek with a thickness of 81.7mm. While the rest of the frame is black, the bottom frame has a thin metal strip with the Xiaomi logo.

Like most TVs, this Xiaomi TV can be mounted on a wall or placed on a table. I chose the second option and set it up on a table in my room. Setting it up is easy as long as you have a table big enough to place the TV on. The retail box of the TV includes a set of legs for the TV – which are of very good quality and sturdy too. And if you want to mount the TV on a wall then you have to call customer care and they will do the needful for you. The retail box also includes a remote, a user manual, four screws for the two stands and two AAA batteries.

PatchWall is improved and it’s really better

The Xiaomi X Pro QLED Smart TV series is powered by Google TV with a layer of PatchWall interface on it, coupled with 32GB of onboard storage. It runs on a quad core Cortex A55. The user interface of the TV is intuitive and quite easy to navigate with a simple scrollable horizontal layout. All downloaded and pre-installed apps are on your home screen, so that you don’t have to scroll too much into different folders. The interface is also smart enough to understand the apps you use more frequently, and puts them more to the fore for ease of use.

The updated PatchWall also has a feature called Universal Search, which is essentially a one stop shop for any particular content – movie or show – that you want to watch. For example, if you want to watch That 70s Show on Prime Video, you don’t actually need to open the Prime Video app; you can simply go to Universal Search and type in the name of the show, and the results will tell you which location the content is available in and you can play it from there.

PatchWall also has over 300 live TV channels and a dedicated space for all sports content. However, what I liked most was the built-in IMDB-rating feature, which shows the IMDB rating next to every show or movie you watch, right on the homescreen.

In terms of connectivity, the company offers several options. The device has three HDMI ports, one of which supports eARC. It has 2 USB 2.0 ports, one for Ethernet and one for earphones.

The remote of the Xioami X Pro QLED 55 has a standard design pattern. However, it comes with some additional dedicated buttons for some OTT apps. There were already buttons for Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube buttons, and now it also has buttons for SonyLIV and a separate Apps button. As the name suggests, the Apps button will take you directly to a page that has all the installed apps to choose from.

Setting up a TV is a slow process

While the user experience is largely intuitive and easy, the device has one of the slowest setup processes I’ve experienced. First, since it’s powered by Google TV, you need to log in to your Google account. This process takes some time, and going through the virtual keyboard doesn’t make it any better. The second and bigger problem is that during setup, the TV takes some extra time to process each step. I expected the TV to be smarter.

Picture and Audio Quality

The Xiaomi X Pro QLED series features a 4K QLED display with a 3840×2160 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate with a Vivid Picture Engine. According to Xiaomi, the MagiQ feature we mentioned earlier can deliver “great picture quality”. On the other hand, I think this is a good picture quality for a smart TV priced at Rs 45,000, but I wouldn’t call it “great”.

I had done it harry potter Marathons and Christmas really came early in my house on the Xiaomi X Pro QLED 55-inch. The display has beautiful colours. Even in darker scenes, there is enough clarity so that no details are missed. The aspect ratio of the display is also quite perfect so that most shows and TV fits right in and there are no black bars around the content.

Even while watching movies on the TV during the day, despite the window curtains being open, the colours and overall viewing experience were great. I even watched a few episodes of Friends on it. The display is so brilliant that I will fall in love with Chandler all over again. I miss him. I miss him even more when you can hear every hum and every squeal with such clarity, and that’s thanks to the TV’s dual Dolby Audio speakers. The sound quality is very clear. I was playing the show at 40-50 volume, which is quite loud but doesn’t hurt the ears. And if you don’t want to disturb other people in the adjacent room, you can also connect your earphones to the TV via Bluetooth.

I would also like to mention that my room size is larger than average, and the size of the TV looks perfect there, in fact, it feels like a home theater. However, the size of the TV in a small room can be too big. In some cases, it can also cause too much strain on the eyes.

Overall, the Xiaomi X Pro QLED series has great sound and display quality. I am not really a binge-watcher, but here I found myself in front of it almost every night with a tub of popcorn to watch at least 5 episodes of Friends. I watched the first and second part of Harry Potter in one night. Of course, I love this series, but this TV has made it even better.

Xiaomi X Pro QLED Series Smart TV: Should you buy it?

The Xiaomi X Pro QLED series comes in three different sizes: 43, 55 and 65-inch. Each size is priced differently, with the 43-inch starting at Rs 29,999, the 55-inch variant priced at Rs 44,999 and the 65-inch priced at Rs 62,999. After two weeks of using the 55-inch variant, I can confidently say that if you are on a budget, the X Pro QLED will give you a premium experience at a more affordable price than some of the other products in the market.