Foreword: Mi TV 4
The Xiaomi Mi TV 4 is not a new product, but was presented to the international audience at CES 2017. Despite the international presentation, the TV appeared exclusively on the Chinese market in June 2017. Internationally operating import shops such as GearBest have not yet included the television in their range, the Mi TV series is largely uninteresting for the international market due to the very strongly integrated MIUI TV, which is only available in Chinese. However, on February 14, 2018, Xiaomi took a new step and presented the 4 inch version of the Mi TV 55 in India. Although the MIUI TV installed on this device is mainly aimed at the Indian end user, the user interface, which is also available in English, opens up new possibilities.
Design and connections
Xiaomi advertises the Mi TV 4 as the world's thinnest LED TV. With a thickness of just 4.9 mm and an almost frameless design, the TV is actually a real eye-catcher. Of course, not the entire television is as slim as advertised. The stand, as well as the electronics including connections, have to be accommodated somehow. A corresponding housing is located in the lower third (39 mm) of the TV. At the widest point, a thickness of 49 mm is achieved. The connection options amount to three HDMI 2.0 sockets (1x ARC) with HDCP 2.2 compatibility, a coaxial SPDIF socket, an AV output, two USB sockets, one of which is USB 2.0, the other USB 3.0, an RJ45 Ethernet socket, and an antenna input. A wall mounting option is provided.
4K HDR and Dolby Audio
With the Mi TV 4, Xiaomi also tries to compete with well-known names in the home entertainment sector in terms of image quality and sound. With a screen diagonal of 55 inches, the television offers a resolution of 3840 × 2160 pixels. The built-in LED panel comes from Samsung. The HDR10 standard is supported to further increase the quality of the image reproduction. According to Xiaomi, the statistical contrast ratio is 6000: 1. The manufacturer specifies the refresh rate as 60 Hz. The response time is 8 ms. In terms of sound, the Mi TV 4 is also very well equipped. Two 8 watt speakers, as well as support for Dolby Audio and DTS HD, ensure a sound television experience.
MIUI TV with PatchWall
The Xiaomi TV gets its Smart TV function through MIUI TV with PatchWall AI compatibility. Anyone who has already dealt with the Xiaomi set-top boxes will already know MIUI TV from these devices. There is nothing else in the Mi TV 4. The Smart TV hardware integrated in the TV is characterized by an Amlogic Cortex A53 quad-core processor with 1.8 GHz clock rate, a Mali-T830 MP2 GPU as well as a 2GB RAM and an 8GB flash memory . MPEG1 / 2/4, REAL, H.265 and H.264 decodes the integrated box on the hardware level. A wireless connection can be established via WLAN (802.11 a / b / g / n) or Bluetooth (BLE 4.0).
Although the hardware of the Mi TV 4 presented in India is identical to the Chinese model, Xiaomi has adapted the MIUI TV of the Indian TV set accordingly. The decisive factor here is the option of English voice output. Although the Indian MIUI TV is still strongly tied to the respective market due to its regional apps, it is quite conceivable that Xiaomi will subsequently provide Google Play support as a sideload in accordance with the Indian market. This means that what would be unthinkable with a Chinese Mi TV 4, namely offering Google Play support, would be quite understandable with the Indian counterpart, if you want to compete directly with Samsung, LG and other sizes.
The PatchWall is MIUI TV's "Artificial Intelligence System". The artificial intelligence searches all TV apps for content and, among other things, provides film suggestions based on user behavior. The PatchWall AI was previously only available to the Chinese market.
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With the Indian launch of the Xiaomi Mi TV 4, it could be exciting to see how Xiaomi's regionally severely restricted usability of MIUI TV will change. The English voice output and the possible Google Play support alone open up new possibilities, which could also make the Mi TV interesting for local import shoppers. With users from China and the reviews published there, the Mi TV 4 performs extremely well and, measured against the price of $ 624 or 507 €, would be a real price hit!
Product page (international): mi.com/en/mitv4/
Product page (India): mi.com/in/mi-led-smart-tv-4-55/
