Saffas gobble up TV boxes and sticks faster than they can be pumped out. Fortunately, Xiaomi — maker of some of South Africa’s favourite boxes and sticks — has another one on the way. That’d be the Xiaomi TV Stick HD (2nd Gen), not to be confused with the TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen) that the company unveiled less than a year ago.
Like the R750 Mi TV Stick, its second-gen brother still conforms to a small stick shape that’ll easily fit into the back of the TV. It ships with what looks like the same controller Xiaomi has championed for years, arriving with Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and… some other button we can’t make out. We’re not complaining, though.
Xiaomi’s sticking around
This one won’t entice users with a 4K TV sat in your lounge. You’ll want the 4K model for that. The TV Stick HD (2nd Gen) caps out at 1080p 60fps, ultimately lowering its price. The folks getting by with an HD (or FHD) TV are the ones most likely looking for a smarter upgrade, which Xiaomi offers with the Google TV OS in charge.
What, then, are you spending your doubloons on? The biggest upgrades here are attributed to the chipset — now a quad-core Cortex-A55. That, and the Mali-G31 MP2, bring it closer to the brand’s more technically powerful boxes. Xiaomi reckons that’ll translate to a 38% performance bump over the first-gen HD Stick. Its RAM and storage, however, remain untouched. That 1GB and 8GB, respectively, which is more than a little rough in 2026.
Read More: Xiaomi TV Box S (3rd-gen) review – Better, but only just
The Stick also supports HDR10+ now — though it requires your TV to do the same if you’re planning on taking advantage of it. For audio, DTS: X and Dolby Audio are supported, meaning your TV must as well. Wi-Fi 5 is a bit of a bummer, as is the Stick’s reliance on a micro-USB port for power. What is this? 2015?
The company has yet to announce pricing or an official launch in South Africa. Considering the success of the brand’s TV efforts in the past, it’d be foolish not to unleash the TV Stick HD (2nd Gen) onto South Africa. Judging by the price of its older sibling, we expect it’ll land somewhere in the R950-R1,050 ballpark.
