India’s most selling smartphone brand Xiaomi launched its first television, the Mi TV 4, in India on 14th February,2018. Claimed as the thinnest television in the world, with a width of just 4.9mm.
Along with the launch of the much awaited Redmi Note 5 and Note 5 Pro, the Chinese company finally brought its massively popular and much-requested television to the Indian market. The newly launched Mi TV 4 will take on the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG in an all-new segment in the country.
The price of Mi TV 4 makes it a superior product for a wider audience than its competition, which always has been the USP of Xiaomi. In fact, the price of the Xiaomi Mi TV 4 will also stir up low-end TV manufacturers like TCL, VU or Kodak a few reasons to be concerned as it is one of the cheapest 55-inch 4K TVs available in India. For flagship brands 55-inch 4K Ultra HD TVs from premium brands like Samsung, Sony or LG, the prices start around Rs. 80,000/- and easily cross beyond the 1 lakh mark.
The Mi TV 4 has a frameless display as it has a custom Samsung 4K SVA (Superior Vertical Alignment) panel with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and a 6000:1 contrast ratio.
The Mi TV 4 is powered by a 1.8GHz quad-core Amlogic T968 Cortex A53 chipset coupled with Mali-T830 MP2 GPU. It sports 2GB DDR4 RAM and 8GB flash storage. It has rich connectivity options like dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 4.0LE along with two 8W speakers which support Dolby audio and DTS standards.
The 55-inch Mi TV 4 comes with 2 HDMI 2.0 ports, 1 HDMI (ARC) port, 1 USB 2.0 port, 1 USB 3.0 port and 1 Ethernet port along with the standard AV, analogue and audio out ports. These are some basic functions that are available in TVs from other brands as well.
The Mi TV is powered Xiaomi’s own PatchWall UI which is based on Android OS with an integrated AI system that helps to predict content based on usage patterns. The OS has been specially tailored for the Indian market. The remote will comes in the box has all the basic functionalities, but does not support voice commands (as of now). Xiaomi has confirmed that a voice-enabled remote will be introduced in the country later.
To enjoy the Mi TV 4 to the fullest, you need access to high-quality 4K content. Xiaomi has tied up with media streaming platforms like ALT Balaji, Hungama Play, Voot and Hotstar for the purpose. Xiaomi’s Smart TV comes with these apps built-in. In India, quality 4K content is pretty rare but is slowly growing.
Although the Mi TV 4 supports 4K, it will not support two major streaming platforms, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, as of now. Currently, Xiaomi has partnered with a total of 12 content partners to offer around 500,000 hours of Indic-rich content spread across 15 Indian languages, but these platforms lack 4K content.
Whether Xiaomi will be able to revolutionise the Indian TV sector remains to be seen. As of now, the Mi TV 4 sits comfortably in the big divide in the Indian TV market between premium brands like Sony, LG and Panasonic which offer high-quality products and affordable brands like TCL, Micromax, VU and Kodak which are not so great in quality.
What do you think of the Mi TV 4? Will you prefer it over some well-known premium brands? Let us know your thoughts.
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