The Xiaomi Mi Box is an Android TV box by Xiaomi, obviously. When the company launched the Mi Box back in 2016, it was well-received thanks to its considerably beefy specs. The Android TV box run on Android TV 6.0 but that should not darken your hopes.
Despite being a outdated, the availability of the Mi Box in Kenya is set to excite some geeks. The device which is set to retail at Kes.5,000 offers users an output resolution of up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second.
You can probably feel the excitement in me as you read this, on top of this crazy resolution, The Mi Box also supports HDR10 standard that promises improvements in colour and contrast coupled with Dolby Digital Plus and DTS Surround Sound for a great audio experience.
Other specifications of the Mi Box include 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage which is expandable via USB. The device is powered by a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU and Mali 450 GPU. The Mi Box tops this up with a Bluetooth enabled remote that supports voice commands that can also be used a controller while playing Android games.
As for ports, the device has one HDMI port, one USB 2.0 port and a 3.5mm audio output. The best part, however, is access to Android TV operating system. Though an outdated software experience, users of the Xiaomi Mi Box will have access to a variety of Android apps and services such as YouTube, Google cast and even streaming services.
The availability of the Mi Box in Kenya threatens Safaricom Giga Box, seeing that the company has gone for cut-throat pricing to beat the competition. Xiaomi Kenya has not yet revealed how customers can lay their hands on a device, however, we do know that they only have a 100 units. Once we get availability details, we shall update the article.
Update: Interested customers can purchase the Mi Box directly from Xiaomi Kenya offices; BIHi Towers, Moi Avenue, 11th Floor, Room 8.
Update 2: The Xiaomi Mi Box is upgradable to Android TV 8.0