This 2nd-Gen Google TV Stick brings a faster CPU and AV1 decoding

There are plenty of ways you can turn your old LCD or plasma TV into a smart one, and one of the easiest and most economical options is to buy a TV streamer stick or set-top box with internet connectivity. If you’re also looking to add Android’s diversity to your TV, a Google TV device makes the most sense. A new one is now on the horizon, and it comes from one of the most popular Android phone makers.

Xiaomi’s second-generation TV Stick HD has been listed on its global website, suggesting a wide release in regions, including Western Europe and the UK. It arrives nearly five years after the first generation was released, and follows the Xiaomi TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen), which came out last year.

Like the 4K variant, the Xiaomi TV Stick HD (2nd Gen) runs on the Google TV platform, allowing you to download a plethora of apps from the Play Store. It is also Netflix-certified, like the first generation, meaning you wouldn’t need to resort to stopgap solutions like sideloading an APK to run Netflix’s mobile or tablet version, as you might with certain Android TV devices.

The Stick’s video output is capped at 1080p, and it supports HDR10+ for better contrast in HDR content through apps such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV. For lossless audio, the TV Stick HD (2nd Gen) gets DTS, DTS:X, and Dolby Audio support. While the 4K model also supports Dolby Vision, that’s missing here. Xiaomi also brings AV1 decoding, allowing for faster video streaming. Notably, AV1 decoding is a prerequisite for any device made after March 2021 to be licensed for Google TV.

Like a Fire TV Stick, Xiaomi’s TV Stick HD features an HDMI Type-A connector and can be mounted directly to the TV or through the HDMI extender included in the box. It draws power from a microUSB port via a cable that plugs into your TV’s USB Type-A port. It’s a bit disheartening to see Xiaomi not upgrading to a USB-C port here.

For other connectivity features, the Xiaomi TV Stick HD (2nd Gen) supports dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0.

In terms of hardware, it packs a quad-core CPU with ARM’s archaic Cortex-A55 cores, an upgrade over the Cortex-A53 cluster in the previous model. Xiaomi says this improves CPU performance by 38%. The RAM and storage, however, remain unchanged at 1GB and 8GB, respectively. The RAM specifically could be a bottleneck, especially as the Android version is likely to have been upgraded from Android 9 on the first-gen model. Xiaomi, sadly, does not specify the exact version.

Finally, while the TV Stick HD’s listing on the global website signals wider availability, we don’t yet see the exact price mentioned. The 4K variant retails for 60 euros (~$69) in Germany — and also unofficially available in the US for $70 via Amazon, while the first-gen HD model is currently on sale for 44 euros (~$51). We can expect the new variant’s price to float around the latter’s.

However, if you’re agnostic to the platform and only want instant smart features for your TV on a budget, the Amazon Fire TV 4K may be a much more economical option.