At the beginning it is worth to mention the design of the device, MI TV Stick is available only in black, and its design resembles a Wi-FI adapter or a flash drive. This dongle has dimensions of 92.4 x 30.2 x 15.2 mm and weighs only 28 grams, so it is a very small and compact device. The special advantage of this type of construction is that we plug the device directly into the TV, so our stick is invisible in contrast to bigger media players. There are two versions of the device available - supporting 4K resolution (with 2GB DDR4 RAM and 8GB ROM memory) and a cheaper FullHD solution (with 1GB DDR4 RAM and 8GB ROM memory) both accessories are powered by a quad-core Amlogic S905 Y2 processor with Mali-G31 graphics.
It is also worth noting that the included remote control is very similar to the one included in the set with Xiaomi Mi Box S. The remote control has dedicated buttons for Google Assistant, thanks to which we are able to control the device with simple voice commands, we also have access to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video with buttons on the remote control.
Xiaomi Mi TV Stick works on the latest Android 9.0 TV operating system, which was designed to transform classic TVs into Smart TVs. The possibilities of the available software are almost limitless, including such possibilities as downloading games and applications directly from the Google Play store, moreover, the system allows you to watch movies and play games, so in a way the Xiaomi dongle can replace our smartphone. The software is multilingual, so we don't have to worry about foreign menus, and the device itself connects via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2
By far the biggest advantage of this dongle in terms of competition is the use of the latest software Andriod TV 9.0 with Chromecast. It is no secret that Google is already working on a new second generation of Chromecast ultra, which is supposed to unify the Chromecast and Android TV platforms, but for the time being we do not have more precise information when Google is planning to release a new version of its device, so far the key hardware is Xiaomi, which is the only one that combines this functionality. For the title question we have to wait a while longer for the device to reach reviewers and users - the product is already being sold on Gearbest and is scheduled to be shipped between 7 and 15 July.
In the Gearbest store for MI TV Stick for the basic version with Full HD (1GB RAM) we will pay $65.88 (261.23 pln), and a better device configuration with 4K(2GB RAM) resolution costs as much as $97.99 (388.52 pln).