The Chinese Xiaomi has made a name for itself with its affordable smartphones. It may be news to you, but the manufacturer also offers televisions. They are based on Android TV and seem to have an interesting feature list. The question, of course, is whether they can compete with the established brands.
Xiaomi Mi TV P1 43”
Price: 499 euros
Screen size: 43 inches (109 cm)
Connections:
– 3x HDMI (3x v2.0, ARC/eARC, ALLM)
– 2x USB
– 1x composite video + stereo cinch in
– 1x optical digital out
– 1x Headphone
– 2x antenna
– 1x Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth
Properties:
– HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision
– HDR10+, Android TV, USB/DLNA media player
– DVB-T2/C/S2, CI+ slot
Dimensions: 962 x 625 x 205 mm (incl. foot)
Weight: 7.4 kg (incl. feet)
Consumption: SDR 95 (F) / HDR 170 watts (G)
Website:
https://www.mi.com/nl
7 Score 70 
- Pros
- Good contrast for an IPS panel
- Beautiful black detail
- Good calibration
- Supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+
- Android TV
- Negatives
- Very limited HDR display
- Settings are not very user-friendly
- No VRR
A solid design, even if there is a saving on finishing
A modern TV can boast an attractive design, even in this entry-level category. You notice the small black frame at the front, but it is absolutely not disturbing. On the side and back you notice that it is an entry-level model, because the device is relatively thick with its 8.5 cm, especially for a 42-inch model. The V-shaped feet ensure a stable setup. You notice that the budget has been taken into account during the finish. This way you screw the feet directly into the plastic of the housing. We would have preferred to see a metal reinforcement there.
Connections
The Xiaomi is a 60Hz model so HDMI 2.1 connections capable of delivering 4K120 would be pointless. The three HDMI connections provide 18 Gbps bandwidth (HDMI 2.0), and support ALLM and eARC (on HDMI 2). If you browse the settings, you will find the option to switch the HDMI connection between 1.4, 2.0 and 2.1. But drop your hopes for a quick upgrade. Setting to 2.1 only activates ALLM (an HDMI 2.1 feature), but does not change the bandwidth of the connection. Set that setting to HDMI 2.1 unless you have compatibility issues. If you plan to play some games on this TV, you can count on an input lag of 12.3 ms in game mode. That is an excellent result. Keep in mind that it does not support VRR.
The TV also provides two USB connections, a composite video input with stereo cinch connection, optical digital audio output, headphone connection, ethernet, WiFi and Bliuetooth.
Android TV with all the trimmings
For the smart TV part, Xiaomi chose Android TV. That is an excellent choice, because you immediately know that you can use almost all streaming services, both international and local services. You can quickly and easily send an image from your smartphone to the TV via Chromecast.
However, we notice that the Android TV is slightly less responsive than many competitors.
The MediaTek chipset with quad core Cortex A55 CPU, 2 GB memory and a Mali-G52 GPU is sufficient, but does not provide the super-smooth navigation that you find on top models. This was also noticed, for example, when watching live TV, where the Xiaomi switches between channels rather slowly.
Xiaomi also provides another launcher called PatchWall. Although it is not yet available in Belgium and the Netherlands, for the time being it only provides a simple screen with a row of apps and below it a row of external inputs. Not super useful, but handy if you want to quickly switch to something else. The settings are less convenient, because, for example, how you make an adjustment in the image settings does not work in the same way for all sources. There, Xiaomi can still learn a lot from the established names.
There are good points for the remote. It looks a bit dull, but works fine. Aiming is not necessary, because it works via Bluetooth. The keys have a clean touch, and are spaced far enough apart to avoid mistakes.
Surprisingly good images
The Mi TV is equipped with an IPS panel. We expect a moderate contrast and good viewing angle from this. But with a measured ANSI contrast of just under 1,500:1, the Mi TV still scores quite well, very good even if you know that IPS panels often have to make do with 1,000:1. The screen has reasonable uniformity in clear images, but in dark fragments we still see some cloud formation and on the right side the backlight shines through. We switch the TV to Movie picture mode. This provides a surprisingly good result. The gray scale is neutral and provides an almost correct color temperature. Color reproduction is good, although here and there it tends to slightly too bright and intense colors. This is especially true in shades of red, orange and yellow and therefore also somewhat visible in the skin tones. It is no surprise that black looks more like dark gray (think of the IPS panel), but the TV shows a lot of black detail. We only see that he sometimes clips some white detail, but that is quickly corrected by lowering the contrast setting by one or two points. In short, the Xiaomi will put attractive images on the screen in a typical room.
But a little too weak for HDR
In the specifications we read that in addition to HDR10 and HLG, it also supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 +. That is a serious asset for a budget model, because they often struggle with a low peak brightness and limited color range. HDR10+ and certainly Dolby Vision then help to get the most out of those limited capacities. And that is exactly what we find. The peak brightness of 290 nits (both on 10% window and full screen) and the 75% P3 color range are indeed not sufficient to really enjoy HDR. Light accents are too weak, the contrast is too limited and the colors are not rich enough. In addition, the Xiaomi does not take HDR10 metadata into account, so that very clear mastered images also clip a lot of white nuance and further dilute colors. The difference with Dolby Vision content is therefore large. Yes, it still lacks that true HDR impression, but at least the images look correct.
Image processing
The device is equipped with a 60 Hz panel, and moving objects have a faint, slightly blue-tinted edge. Like all 60 Hz models, it can’t reproduce fine detail in fast-paced action scenes.
The Xiaomi cannot put down really strong image processing performance. In terms of upscaling and deinterlacing, he scores well. But running texts over the image (tickers in news broadcasts, for example) sometimes progress somewhat jerkily, or can even show slight combing. The sharpness setting is much too high. This gives a lot of detail an extra edge and it doesn’t look like much. Fortunately easy to correct, set the sharpness setting somewhere between zero and five. The noise canceling does its job, but only for random noise. The Xiaomi does not get rid of MPEG noise, visible as blocking. In short, as long as your footage has a decent quality, it’s not that bad. But with older or lower quality material, you notice that there is little that he can improve on.
Audio Performance
If you know that a lot of sub-toppers also struggle with a good audio reproduction, you understand that you should not expect miracles in the audio field from a device such as this Xiaomi. It has 2x 10 Watts of power, but it cannot score more than an acceptable result. A striking item is there, in addition to Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, it also supports DTS and DTS-HD. We find no drama that Dolby Atmos is missing.
Conclusion
For a budget model, this Xiaomi actually has quite a few good features. The image quality is fine, of course it does best in a normal living room with some ambient light. He is less comfortable in a dark home theater. Real HDR images with splashing colors and popping contrasts, that’s out of the question, but it has to be said that Dolby Vision images came out very well. Thanks to Android TV, you can enjoy a wide range of streaming options. And for gamers who don’t want 4K120, it is also suitable thanks to the low input lag. The suggested retail price seems too high to us, you can find other bargains for that price, but subtract 100 euros and the deal already sounds a lot better.
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