Xiaomi’s onslaught of affordable technology continues. The rapidly growing Chinese company has today launched its new 40-inch Mi TV 2, a smart TV running an Android-based OS that will sell for $320.
The new Mi TV 2 — which confusingly has the same name as its predecessor — is smaller at 40 inches wide and 14.5mm thin whereas last year’s model was 49 inches and 15.5mm respectively. A quad-core MStar 6A908 Cortex-A9 CPU and Mali0450 MP4 GPU are under the hood this time, alongside 1.5 GB of RAM and 8GB memory. In terms of playback, it offers H.265 10-bit hardware decoding, allowing you watch H.265, H.264, MPEG4, and REAL, as well as other mainstream video formats like RM, FLV, MOV, AVI, MKV, TS and MP4. Being a smart TV, you’ll find a MIUI customized Android operating system on board, bringing media streaming and gaming to your big screen. The current operating system is based on Android 4.4, but an update to Android 5.0 is already in the works.
The core difference here is that the new model has a 1080p display, as opposed to last year’s 4K screen. Hence the price drop. Those preferring a higher resolution can pay $670 for the original, 49-inch Mi TV 2.
Availability is still the main drawback, with no word yet on when either model will make its way outside of China. India will be the first market outside of Xiaomi’s home country that will receive the Mi TV 2, but a launch date was not announced.
