Xiaomi MiBox 3 TV box, international version

I’ve already reviewed quite a few TV boxes from different manufacturers, but this is the first time I’ve had a model from the well-known Chinese company Xiaomi in my hands. Actually, no—not the first time. More accurately, this is the first time I’m writing a review of a TV box from this company.
As usual, I’ll take a look inside and test it. I’ll also try to compare its pros and cons with devices I’ve tested before, and of course I’ll add the information to the summary table.


Device specifications:
CPU — Amlogic S905X-H
Number of cores — 4
Graphics — Mali 450 750MHz
RAM — 2GB DDR3
Flash memory — 8GB (eMMC5.1)
WiFi: 2.4 / 5 GHz
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.1 + EDR
Connectors: USB2.0, HDMI, 3.5mm audio mini jack / optical mini toslink
Operating system — Android TV 6.0
Dimensions — 101 x 101 x 19.5 mm

As you can see, this device uses an Amlogic S905X-H SoC. As far as I could find out, it’s hardware-identical to the regular S905X, but comes with a paid license for Dolby Digital, DTS, and DTS-HD.
The small number of connectors also stands out, but more on that later.

The TV box comes in a relatively small orange box. It’s very sturdy, so it should be difficult to damage during shipping. Everything inside is packed into makeshift compartments and doesn’t rattle around.


The package includes:
1. Mibox 3 TV box (MDZ-16-AB)
2. Remote control
3. Power supply
4. HDMI cable
5. Manual


The manual only briefly explains what’s included and where to plug everything in.
The HDMI cable is quite flexible, which is handy.
The power supply is rated for a slightly unusual voltage of 5.2 V and a current of 2.1 A. The manufacturer probably raised the voltage to compensate for the voltage drop across the power supply cable.


The included remote isn’t infrared, as is usually the case, but Bluetooth. I see this as a plus, since you can place the TV box behind the TV, for example, and the remote will still work.


The remote has a minimalist design and just 11 buttons. There’s a microphone hole on its top edge, and the system supports voice commands.


Overall, the TV box has a familiar design: a small, fairly hefty black box.


The case is shaped like a lens, which makes it look thinner than it really is.



At the front is the IR receiver window. Behind it is also a white status LED. It flashes in time with button presses on the remote or keyboard—this is the first time I’ve seen that.


At the back are the few connectors this TV box has:
1. Power connector
2. USB 2.0 port
3. HDMI output
4. 3.5mm analog audio output + optical S/PDIF.

That’s it for connectors. Yes, I used to complain about the small number of USB ports, the lack of USB 3.0 and gigabit Ethernet, and the inconvenient memory card slot. Xiaomi solved all these problems in one fell swoop by simply removing wired networking and the memory card slot and... no, one USB port did survive after all.
Honestly, this is beyond my understanding. It reminds me of something another, more famous company would do...


There’s a round rubber pad on the bottom that serves as the “feet.” It isn’t slippery, and given the TV box’s considerable weight, it barely slides around on the table at all.


Before testing, I decided to open up the TV box out of curiosity. I can say right away that it’s very awkward and difficult to open, at least if you’re not used to it.




As a bonus, here's a comparison with the Xiaomi Mi Box 4.


On first startup, the user is prompted to pair the remote with the TV box. In my case, though, I didn't press anything and the process completed anyway. After that, it's the usual steps: choose a language, connect to the network, and sign in to your Google account.


The launcher is extremely inconvenient, in my opinion. After installing apps, they sometimes end up "nowhere"; navigation is very different from the familiar Android interface, which has a separate app menu.


I couldn't find the familiar Android menu either—not even a button for it—so I had to make do with what was there.
The user gets only about 4 GB of storage, which I think is very little.
It comes with Android 6.0.1, even though TV boxes with version 7 have been around for a long time.


There's a fairly wide range of available resolutions, but for some reason, both with my monitor and with the "TV emulator," the automatic setting detected the resolution as 1280x720, even though other TV boxes had no trouble setting Full HD and 4K.
When selecting the resolution manually, you can choose not only resolutions up to 4K, but also a frame rate of 24/25 Hz. However, my "TV" reports 25 Hz in both cases.


There are settings for HDR and an option to enable AFR.


CPU-Z didn't give me any new information, which isn't surprising since the chip is already quite old.


Since the chip is already familiar to many people, and its performance is well known too, I'll put the tests under a spoiler. The usual processor temperature test will be there as well.


As was clear from the specs, the TV box has a 2.4/5 GHz Wi-Fi module, so I tested both bands.
On the 2.4 GHz band, speeds reached 50–70 Mbps about a meter from the router, and around 20 Mbps when the router was in the opposite corner of the room. I’d call these average results.
The 5 GHz band (green and blue graphs) did noticeably better: 125–220 Mbps at 2–3 meters from the router, which is pretty good. The TV box could still “see” my router from across the apartment, but couldn’t connect to it.


A little about the preinstalled apps. First, there aren’t many of them; I even had to install a basic file manager from Google Play. Of course, it’s possible I simply didn’t find it on this TV box, but in my view, if I couldn’t find it, there’s a good chance most regular users won’t either.
There are a few preinstalled apps for watching online videos, but they all have some complaint or other and ask for money. One of them wanted 35 UAH to watch a single movie. As far as I know, a cinema ticket doesn’t cost much more.


I mentioned above that the remote has a microphone, so voice search works too. I once reviewed a Mikul TV box with similar functionality, and it works about the same here. Search only works when connected to the internet, and if the connection is very weak, it can lag a little.
Just for fun, I used voice search to launch YouTube and chose to watch 4K videos. For some reason, the app only offered Full HD resolution at most, but everything worked great.


The separate YouTube app does offer videos in 4K, and that resolution is selected automatically, although sometimes it chose 1440p even when 4K was available.


Alternative apps for watching online videos behaved a little strangely.
TorrentTV worked, but the picture would occasionally “break up.” It didn’t happen often, but it was noticeable.


But LOL TV!, which is usually quite reliable, surprised me. When I tried to watch a channel, it asked me to install Ace Stream, even though I’d already installed it for TorrentTV. What’s more, it offered a download link that ultimately took me to Google Play, where a search couldn’t find Ace Stream.
I did spot Lazy IPTV, though, and later found out it needs a playlist, even though the app itself launched.


So I downloaded a version of the app with a playlist already built in and launched it. There were almost no problems: I tried about a dozen channels, and only one froze on me, which I think is pretty good.


Video playback test results. A dash after the filename means no problems were found.
1024x768_h265_AC3.mkv — no sound
2560x1600_AAC .mp4 - minor frame drops
3840x2160_AAC .mp4 - minor frame drops
4096x2160_AAC .mp4 - minor frame drops
gopro-hero-3-be-avc-high@l5.1-4096x2160-12p-aac-2ch.mp4
GraysPeak8HDR_Dolby AC3.mp4 - severe frame drops, no sound
LG 4K Paris_AAC.mp4 — occasional frame drops
LG 4K Story-of-Earth_AAC.mp4
LG_Chess_HDR.mp4 — no video
Philips_UHD_supershopdemo_1.mp4 - severe frame drops
samsung-note-3-3840x2160-high@l5.1-AAC-2ch-2.mp4
4K HD.Club Changhong-Furano-100mbps.mp4
Sony_4K_HDR_Camp.mp4 — won’t play
Molly - Holy Molly (2016) 4K UHD_60 fps.mkv - intermittent loss of sound
Ducks.Take.Off.1080p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv
Ducks.Take.Off.2160p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv (243 Mbps) — severe stuttering
4K HD.Club TCL-super_car-Part-1-HEVC.mp4
Colours Of Culture Bali (6K.3240p.x264).mkv — attempts to play audio.

As you’ve probably gathered, “it’s all bad.” I tested playback using MX Player and tried various decoding settings, but the results were about the same. The files were played from a flash drive connected via a USB card reader.

The problem was solved very simply: I just launched the player built into ES File Explorer, and the results looked like this:
1024x768_h265_AC3.mkv
2560x1600_AAC .mp4 - minor frame drops
3840x2160_AAC .mp4 - minor frame drops
4096x2160_AAC .mp4 - minor frame drops
gopro-hero-3-be-avc-high@l5.1-4096x2160-12p-aac-2ch.mp4
GraysPeak8HDR_Dolby AC3.mp4
LG 4K Paris_AAC.mp4
LG 4K Story-of-Earth_AAC.mp4
LG_Chess_HDR.mp4
Philips_UHD_supershopdemo_1.mp4
samsung-note-3-3840x2160-high@l5.1-AAC-2ch-2.mp4
4K HD.Club Changhong-Furano-100mbps.mp4
Sony_4K_HDR_Camp.mp4 — no video, audio works
Molly - Holy Molly (2016) 4K UHD_60 fps.mkv
Ducks.Take.Off.1080p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv
Ducks.Take.Off.2160p.QHD.CRF25.x264-CtrlHD.mkv (243 Mbps) — stuttering
4K HD.Club TCL-super_car-Part-1-HEVC.mp4
Colours Of Culture Bali (6K.3240p.x264).mkv — no video, audio works

Playback was done using the ES media player from the same flash drive. Almost everything worked normally, and AC3 audio was available too.


Not long ago, I was asked to test one of the TV boxes with 4K 60 fps files, so I decided to test this TV box with them as well.
Files tested:
4k hdr demo 60fps wildlife video for 4k oled tv 1920x1080
4k hdr demo 60fps wildlife video for 4k oled tv 2560x1440
4k hdr demo 60fps wildlife video for 4k oled tv 3840x2160
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 1920x1080
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 2560x1440
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 3840x2160
Peru 8K HDR 60FPS 7680x4320

Only the last one failed to play; the player simply froze. When it froze, the processor started heating up rapidly, and the temperature reached 94–95 degrees, although under normal use it was around 65–70 at most.


Full HD output also worked without any problems; everything was displayed correctly.


And here are the results of the performance tests in a comparison table.


And now for the conclusions.
Let's start with the good. I personally liked the TV box's design and build quality. I have to admit that everything is implemented pretty well, including the cooling. Sure, temperatures are still relatively high, but 65–70 degrees under normal use in such a compact case, without any modifications or ventilation, is quite good.
A Bluetooth remote with a microphone. I can't comment on the microphone; to me, it's more of a gimmick. But I was very pleased that the remote isn't infrared. It works perfectly.
The 5 GHz Wi-Fi also works well, but you shouldn't take it too far from the router; I think the next room is about as far as you can go.
CEC is present and works. AFR is a little more complicated: the refresh rate can be switched, and you can select 24/25 Hz, but the player wouldn't do it automatically. The issue may be with the player itself, though.

And of course, the bad news. I hope nobody thought I'd write only good things about Xiaomi? First, USB: there aren't many ports—there's just one :( And on top of that, there's no memory card slot, no wired network connection, and only 8 GB of flash memory, so don't expect to have everything you need.
I wasn't too keen on the launcher either. It's quite awkward to use, although it looks pretty good.
Video format support is a mixed bag. With MX Player, the stuttering is terrible; with the basic media player included in ES File Explorer, everything works much better. You can compare the test results for both players above.
In any case, before and after buying it, read this thread carefully. Fortunately, it's only about 1,300 pages long.




That's all from me. As usual, I'll be glad to answer questions, as far as I can.