Thinking of picking one of these up for a new TV in the basement and just making it a streaming device. Any experience with it? My only requirements are really to be able to sideload a few APK's, and not have updates pushed that can change the device (like disallowing sideloaded apk's).
Using it for 5 months now....It's not bad, not great either. Quite useful for turning dumb TVs into smart ones though.
If your "new TV" is a 4K smart TV, don't bother with the mi TV stick and go for CCwGTv or NVIDIA shield or other 4K streaming devices ( depending on availability & your preference)
If you can't get a Chromecast with Google TV or a Shield, then get the Mi Box S, which will give you better performance
I have 2 of them. out of the box they just get the work done. if you fiddle a little following this guide the performance improves quite a bit.
you can sideload APKs via wireless adb and block the updates following the guide.
for the same money (here in NL) of a chromecast, you get a google tv. the new chromecast is 3x the price of the stick.
Been using it for only 1 week as of now. It's a bit slow and clunky. Definitely it's biggest issue is performance problems and lack of an usb port (or at least it should have otg support) which both of these issues are covered by it's big brother, mi box s. The problem is, at least on where i live, mi box s costs twice as much.
It works just fine in my experience with an 1080p tv, i sideloaded an iptv app and a streaming app and they work just fine with no crashes or chopiness so far, the only noticable slowness is at the Netflix opening animation which has low fps, but that's it. Where i live there is really no other alternative with a recognizable brand name that is at a comparable price, if that is the case with you too then i recommend it
Save like 20 extra bucks and get chromecast with google tv
I've had it since mid-December. I'd say it's not bad, not great, simply gets stuff done. You've gotta reboot it once in a while as it tends to get unusable after a while. Otherwise not too bad, imo.