The Mi TV Stick is an affordable dongle that can turn your not-so-smart TV into an Android TV at a price of less than RM150, but it can only output up to 1080p resolution. After more than a year of waiting, Xiaomi finally released the 4K version now called Xiaomi TV Stick 4K.

In terms of design, it looks the same as the current Mi TV Stick, but the dongle and remote control now carry the "Xiaomi" brand instead of "Mi". As part of its new global product naming plan, the Chinese technology company will cancel the "Mi" name for its new products starting from Xiaomi 11T.

According to the spec sheet, Mi Stick 4K runs on a quad-core Cortex-A35 chip with Mali-G31 MP2 GPU. It has 2GB of RAM, twice the size of the previous Mi Stick, but it still has 8GB of internal storage space.

Another notable upgrade is that it runs on the updated Android TV 11 out of the box, instead of the current Android TV 9.0 on the Mi Stick. In terms of connectivity, it supports 5GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0. In addition to promoting 4K output, the new stick also supports Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, as well as AV1, VP9 and H.265 video decoding. AV1 is a new royalty-free codec that can provide up to 30% higher efficiency than H.265.

It also includes a Bluetooth remote control with dedicated buttons for Netflix and Prime Video. The remote control also has a built-in microphone that allows you to use voice commands for Google Assistant. Since it runs on Android TV, you can enjoy popular streaming applications on the stick, such as Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+ Hotstar, HBO Go, etc. If you need more apps, you can download them from the Google Play store.

Devices on the same WiFi network can easily share content to the big screen because it also supports Chromecast. The stick itself is very simple because it has an HDMI connector that can be plugged directly into the TV and a microUSB port for power supply. Xiaomi also included a power adapter and an HDMI extension cable in the box.

At the time of writing, there are no official pricing and availability details yet. Xiaomi Mi TV Stick 4K will directly compete with Realme 4K TV Stick, currently priced at RM299. In the past 12.12 sales, the Realme 4K TV stick was priced at RM189.