The humble media player is an unsung hero in the home entertainment industry. It’s a little device that bridges the technology divide between older “dumb” TVs and modern smart TVs with impressive results.
Last week, we spoke about a few of the new smart TVs from Xiaomi. They’re fantastic, and I am considering getting one of those models for my new living room. When I showed a friend the three models I was looking at, his first response was “…but I want all those smart features on my TV too.” He has a five-year-old smart TV that still looks great, but the operating system and app ecosystem are letting him down due to dwindling app update support. Moreover, it’s not a Google platform, so many apps aren’t even available to him.
There are many consumers like him out there, people with still-great-TVs but software that is out of date or simply not as functional as the Google ecosystem. The other big use case for media boxes is where someone upgrades their TV and moves the old TV into a kid’s room or the entertainment area. Connecting a media box like Xiaomi TV Box S 3rd Gen 4K UHD Media Player unlocks a number of great features for any TV, including the ability to cast any content from your phone to the screen using Google Cast.
Naturally, I recommended that he look at this little device. Retailing for R1,399 (RRP), it’s a no-brainer when you want all the smart functionality of a high-end smart TV without needing to buy a new high-end smart TV.
Now in its 3rd generation, the Xiaomi TV Box S offers 4K UHD resolution (3840 x 2160), but it can also be used with 1080p TVs. This new model features a more advanced 6nm Amlogic S905X5M chipset, with a 25% faster CPU and 130% improved GPU for smoother navigation, app performance, and even gaming. Yup, you can download some mobile games from the Play Store directly to the Xiaomi TV Box S 3rd Gen 4K.
Xiaomi also quadrupled the storage of this model from 8GB to 32GB – a pretty huge upgrade that will allow you to store a lot more data, video, and other content directly on the box. Of course, you can still connect an external storage drive to play content from.
Probably one of the best improvements is the new Dolby Atmos and DTS: X audio support, which goes a long way to improving movie audio, no matter if you use the TV’s built-in audio or a soundbar. The results here speak for themselves, especially in cases where the movie’s audio dialogue is bad and hard to hear over the foley effects. This happens more than you might expect.
With 4k video, data throughput and connectivity play a significant role, especially when a household has multiple TVs and/or media boxes. The Xiaomi TV Box S 3rd Gen 4K now supports the upgraded Wi-Fi 6 protocol for faster connectivity, and trust me, this makes a big difference in the overall user experience. And if that is not enough, this media box now also sports the latest Google TV 14 (32-bit) operating system which improves on the user interface, broadens the app support and, aggregates content from over 10,000 apps like Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, DStv Stream, Showmax, into a unified interface for tailored recommendations when you don’t know what to watch.
Suffice it to say, it’s a hard offer to pass up – if you can unlock so much more functionality on your old TV, would you not do so? Well, my friend purchased the Xiaomi TV Box S 3rd Gen 4K from Takealot, there and then, even before I could say, “wait for my full review on NAG.co.za soon.”
You can check out the Xiaomi TV Box S 3rd Gen 4K and grab yours from Takealot, HiFi Corp, or Incredible.
