

From the looks of things, the announcement of the Xiaomi Mi Android TV Box at Google I/O has been a bit of a hit in Australia, so as I`m here I took the opportunity to check out the Mi Box in person. There was a Xiaomi rep there and I also asked about the big question: Is it coming to Australia?

To start with the box itself is tiny, and light, it could probably be stuck to the back of your TV out of the way with no issues at all. Given that the remote works on Bluetooth, this wouldn’t be a problem, but it’s innocuous enough that it’s not going to be a gaudy looking thing on your entertainment stand anyway. The unit is quite high powered, with support for playing back 4K video.

Those Mi Box Specs include:

Quad-core Cortex-A53 2.0GHz

Mali 450 750MHz GPU – supports 60fps 4K video decoding

2GB DDR3 RAM

802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Dual-band Wi-Fi 2.4GHz/5GHz

Bluetooth 4.0/3.0

DTS 2.0+ Digital Out, Dolby Digital Plus – Up to 7.1 pass through (DTS surround sound)

Ports:

HDMI: HDMI 2.0a x 1 port (HDCP 2.2) (HDR10)



USB: USB 2.0 x 1 port – for additional storage



AV: SPDIF Out / 3.5mm audio output x 1 port



Power: 1 port

Bluetooth voice remote

Optional Mi Game Controller for a console-grade gaming experience.

So, checking out the box, you’ll find there’s nothing on the top except a logo towards the front, and on the back you’ll find all the ports listed above:



The Xiaomi Mi Box Remote is, like the Nexus Player remote, fairly simple:



Lastly the optional Game Controller is also similar to the Nexus Player controller:



Ok. Now the big question you’ve been waiting for: Is it coming to Australia? Well, unfortunately there’s no plans at this stage.

Xiaomi is still concentrating on the Asian market with a push into the US. They’re still relatively a small company they say, so they haven’t got the push to move in to too many markets in one go. The Xiaomi Mi box will be sold through a partner in the US, so we’ll have to investigate opportunities for importing the box when it launches and if they were to move into Australia in the future they would need a partner here too.

We’ll be in contact with Xiaomi in the future as the retail launch of the Mi Box approaches and we’ll look into the import options available when the partners are announced.