Testing the Me TV Stick: A Hands-On Review

I recently had the opportunity to test the Me TV Stick, a budget-friendly streaming device that promises to deliver high-quality video streaming and gaming experiences. After spending some time with the device, I'm excited to share my findings with you.

Firstly, I wanted to test the Plex app on the Me TV Stick to see if it would work as expected. Unfortunately, I encountered an error while trying to play videos from Plex, which suggests that there may be some issues with compatibility or software updates. However, this issue is not unique to the Me TV Stick, as I was able to successfully use the Plex app on my Shield TV and PC without any problems.

On a more positive note, the Me TV Stick is capable of playing 1080p videos, including 1080p60, with ease. This suggests that it has a decent processor and sufficient RAM to handle demanding video streams. In fact, I was able to play YouTube videos at 1080p without any issues, which is impressive considering the device's budget-friendly price.

One area where the Me TV Stick falls short is in its ability to run 3D games from Google Play. I tried running a few popular titles, including Real Racing 3 and Crossy Road, but unfortunately, they crashed or failed to launch on the device. This suggests that the Me TV Stick may not be suitable for more demanding gaming applications.

However, if you're looking for a streaming device for casual video watching or playing lower-end games, the Me TV Stick should still be a good option. I was able to use it to stream and play some classic NES and SNES games using RetroArch, which is an excellent emulator app. The device's performance was smooth, with minimal lag or frame dips.

For those interested in trying out more modern consoles, I attempted to run some PlayStation 1 games using RetroArch as well. While the Me TV Stick was able to run a few PS1 titles at full speed, including Bloody Roar 2, it struggled with more demanding games like Metal Gear Solid.

In terms of emulation, the Me TV Stick supports a range of classic consoles, including NES, SNES, PC Engine, and Dreamcast. However, it's worth noting that not all games will run smoothly on this device, especially those that require high-end hardware to emulate.

For those looking for budget-friendly options, I recommend considering either the Amazon Fire Stick 4K or the Xiaomi Me TV Stick. The Amazon Fire Stick 4K is a solid option if you have a 4K TV with built-in smart features, while the Xiaomi Me TV Stick is a better choice if you have a lower-end 1080p TV without smart features.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the Me TV Stick may not be the best value for money compared to some of its competitors. The NVIDIA Shield, for example, offers an Android TV experience with more powerful hardware and a wider range of gaming capabilities. However, if budget is a concern, the Me TV Stick remains a solid option for those who want a reliable streaming device without breaking the bank.

If you have any questions or comments about my experience with the Me TV Stick, please feel free to share them in the comments section below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today we're going to be taking a quick look at the xiaomi me tv stick now this is a new offering from xiaomi it does run true android tv but it's a pretty low end android device and this actually only supports 1080p there's no 4k here with the me tv stick so before we even get started here i do want to mention that this is not an upgrade from the me tv box and this is definitely not an upgrade from the amazon fire stick 4k and the price on this isn't really much lower than the xiaomi me box s4k this comes in anywhere from 35 dollars all the way up to 50 depending on where you get it online and the xiaomi mi box s4k can be had for around fifty dollars brand new and personally that's the one i would recommend over this if you're looking to spend around fifty dollars if you wanna go any higher i would highly recommend the nvidia shield android tv whether you pick up the cheaper tube version or the pro version so with the me tv stick we get our micro usb cable this is micro usb it's not usb type c we don't need much power here we also get our voice remote has a netflix and an amazon button and it looks like i actually received the european model and i ordered this from u.s amazon kind of odd there we also get our warranty information and user manuals here and finally the me tv stick itself and this thing is super tiny one of the smallest android devices that i've ever seen so the me tv stick does have the google assistant built in which is a big plus for a lot of people personally i'm not into the voice searching or anything like that so i usually never use it but it's good to know that the tv stick has it so the unit itself is pretty plain jane there is one led on here so we know if it's powered up or not we also have our hdmi out and a single micro usb there's no extra usb ports on here to add external storage or anything like that but i'm pretty sure you could if you use an otg adapter like we do with the amazon fire sticks as for specs we're pretty low in here the cpu is a quad core cortex a53 cpu it is an amlogic chip but i'm not exactly sure which one it is it's running at 1.2 gigahertz with a mali 450 gpu which leads me to believe this is using the s905 one gigabyte of ram eight gigabytes of internal storage bluetooth 4.0 wi-fi 802.11 abgn and ac so we can pick up that 2.4 gigahertz network and 5 gigahertz and the operating system running on this stick is android tv 9.0 it's true android tv this is not a skinned version of regular old android to make it look like that so here it is we have a real android tv interface it's based on android 9. and like i mentioned i'm not exactly sure what cpu is being used in here but if i go into ida 64 it is an amlogic device name is aquaman as you can see here one gig of ram and if we go to the cpu section it's listed as a quad core cortex a53 cpu at 1.2 gigahertz and the gpu is that mali 450 so i'm really thinking that this is the s905 with a little bit of an under clock just to keep it cooler in this tiny form factor this does have bluetooth built in so what i wanted to do was just connect the controller i just went with the xbox one s controller it pairs up just fine you can navigate the interface with it you can play games and emulators we do have access to the android tv version of google play and you will notice there's a lot of apps missing from something like this versus your phone you're not going to be able to download minecraft and apps like that directly on the android tv but you could always sideload them if you really wanted to play that game on here but keep in mind performance in 3d games is going to be great because this was not really marketed as a gaming device this is more of a media consumption device if you want to watch hulu netflix amazon prime disney plus it's all on the google play store for you we'll get right in here to netflix and this is the tv version of netflix so we do have hd content but this only does 1080p so that's what you're going to be limited to if you want to use the voice remote to search you can do that but i'm just going to go ahead and type in earth here one of my favorite things to watch is planet earth doesn't load up as fast as my shield but this is a much cheaper device like savannas on land these long i'll go ahead and fast forward this a little bit does take a second to buffer but it's here it's working and it does 1080p playback really well yet they are home to a quarter of all marine species i also went through and tested prime video hulu and disney plus they work just as well as netflix and we get 1080p video out of them but i did have an issue with plex i've signed out just to see if that was the issue but it takes a long time to load up and my live tv just isn't working i'm not sure if it's an issue on plex's end or not but i've been trying to do this all day as making this video and i just can't get them to load up to me it really seems like the plex app itself is really stressing this little thing out and i'll try to get over here to live tv if we can get it to load up i do want to mention that i did go back and test this on my shield tv just to make sure everything was working with the plex app and i have none of these issues over there or on pc and i get an error here trying to play pretty much anything from plex we do have the hd version of youtube so we can do 1080p videos here 1080p60 and this thing handles it just fine as long as you're connected to a good network you really shouldn't have any issue with video streaming at 1080p so we're set at 1080 our viewpoint is 1080 we have zero drop frames working really nicely here with youtube i also wanted to go through and test a few native android games from google play i personally haven't had much luck with this this is the second game that i tried it's a 3d game i mean the 2d games are going to work fine if you want to do crossy road you'll have no issues with it but if you want to play a game like real racing 3 on a low end device like this it's just not going to work out and the way it's set up right now it just keeps crashing on me so yeah i have run into some issues here with plex and 3d games but if you want to pick something like this up for just strictly 1080p video streaming it'll work out just fine but there's another thing that i know a lot of you might want to see and that's emulation this will not run gamecube this will not run psp it's not even going to run dreamcast at full speed but if you do want to add some nes snes pc engine neo geo they're going to work fine here even playstation 1 does a pretty good job on this device i'm using retro arch here with that xbox one s controller connected over bluetooth and we'll get right into some super nintendo gameplay it's not bad here with the lower end stuff and i know super nintendo isn't the hardest to emulate but as you can see it is running at full speed i do have the fps listed in the top right hand corner and we're at sixty next up we have some playstation one with one of the harder ones to emulate which is bloody roar 2. i'm still using retro arch with the pc sx rearm core fps is up in the top right hand corner we're running this game at full speed also and the final thing i wanted to test here was some n64 this is diddy kong racing and i'm using a standalone app called moopin 64 plus fz i'm actually pretty impressed with the performance here it's definitely not perfect i am noticing some frame dips every once in a while but overall i mean it's handling itself pretty well with this game this isn't the hardest one to run but just note that some n64 games will be playable on this stick so obviously one of the first devices that's going to come to mind when you check out the me tv stick is the amazon fire stick or the amazon fire stick 4k and while i'm a big fan of both of those i personally use the amazon fire stick 4k on one of my tvs in the house i hate the interface and i'd much rather run android tv and when it comes to buying a new tv most of the time you're already going to have some kind of smart feature built in be it a vizio tv roku or even these walmart on tvs i believe have android or roku you can make a choice right there so basically when it comes down to it if you have a 4k tv that doesn't already have smart features built in my personal choice would be the amazon fire stick 4k if you have a 1080p tv with no smart features built in i would go with the xiaomi me tv stick and those are my two budget picks right there but if you do have a little more money to spend and you want the best android tv experience go with the nvidia shield it's just kind of expensive right now but that's pretty much it for this video i really appreciate you watching we've been waiting for this thing for a while now i think it leaked out like three or four months ago i've been keeping an eye on it they're available on banggood ebay and if you're in the us you can pick one up on amazon but they have hiked the price up a little bit you can get them much cheaper on the other sides if you have any questions let me know in the comments below if you have any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching youhey what's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today we're going to be taking a quick look at the xiaomi me tv stick now this is a new offering from xiaomi it does run true android tv but it's a pretty low end android device and this actually only supports 1080p there's no 4k here with the me tv stick so before we even get started here i do want to mention that this is not an upgrade from the me tv box and this is definitely not an upgrade from the amazon fire stick 4k and the price on this isn't really much lower than the xiaomi me box s4k this comes in anywhere from 35 dollars all the way up to 50 depending on where you get it online and the xiaomi mi box s4k can be had for around fifty dollars brand new and personally that's the one i would recommend over this if you're looking to spend around fifty dollars if you wanna go any higher i would highly recommend the nvidia shield android tv whether you pick up the cheaper tube version or the pro version so with the me tv stick we get our micro usb cable this is micro usb it's not usb type c we don't need much power here we also get our voice remote has a netflix and an amazon button and it looks like i actually received the european model and i ordered this from u.s amazon kind of odd there we also get our warranty information and user manuals here and finally the me tv stick itself and this thing is super tiny one of the smallest android devices that i've ever seen so the me tv stick does have the google assistant built in which is a big plus for a lot of people personally i'm not into the voice searching or anything like that so i usually never use it but it's good to know that the tv stick has it so the unit itself is pretty plain jane there is one led on here so we know if it's powered up or not we also have our hdmi out and a single micro usb there's no extra usb ports on here to add external storage or anything like that but i'm pretty sure you could if you use an otg adapter like we do with the amazon fire sticks as for specs we're pretty low in here the cpu is a quad core cortex a53 cpu it is an amlogic chip but i'm not exactly sure which one it is it's running at 1.2 gigahertz with a mali 450 gpu which leads me to believe this is using the s905 one gigabyte of ram eight gigabytes of internal storage bluetooth 4.0 wi-fi 802.11 abgn and ac so we can pick up that 2.4 gigahertz network and 5 gigahertz and the operating system running on this stick is android tv 9.0 it's true android tv this is not a skinned version of regular old android to make it look like that so here it is we have a real android tv interface it's based on android 9. and like i mentioned i'm not exactly sure what cpu is being used in here but if i go into ida 64 it is an amlogic device name is aquaman as you can see here one gig of ram and if we go to the cpu section it's listed as a quad core cortex a53 cpu at 1.2 gigahertz and the gpu is that mali 450 so i'm really thinking that this is the s905 with a little bit of an under clock just to keep it cooler in this tiny form factor this does have bluetooth built in so what i wanted to do was just connect the controller i just went with the xbox one s controller it pairs up just fine you can navigate the interface with it you can play games and emulators we do have access to the android tv version of google play and you will notice there's a lot of apps missing from something like this versus your phone you're not going to be able to download minecraft and apps like that directly on the android tv but you could always sideload them if you really wanted to play that game on here but keep in mind performance in 3d games is going to be great because this was not really marketed as a gaming device this is more of a media consumption device if you want to watch hulu netflix amazon prime disney plus it's all on the google play store for you we'll get right in here to netflix and this is the tv version of netflix so we do have hd content but this only does 1080p so that's what you're going to be limited to if you want to use the voice remote to search you can do that but i'm just going to go ahead and type in earth here one of my favorite things to watch is planet earth doesn't load up as fast as my shield but this is a much cheaper device like savannas on land these long i'll go ahead and fast forward this a little bit does take a second to buffer but it's here it's working and it does 1080p playback really well yet they are home to a quarter of all marine species i also went through and tested prime video hulu and disney plus they work just as well as netflix and we get 1080p video out of them but i did have an issue with plex i've signed out just to see if that was the issue but it takes a long time to load up and my live tv just isn't working i'm not sure if it's an issue on plex's end or not but i've been trying to do this all day as making this video and i just can't get them to load up to me it really seems like the plex app itself is really stressing this little thing out and i'll try to get over here to live tv if we can get it to load up i do want to mention that i did go back and test this on my shield tv just to make sure everything was working with the plex app and i have none of these issues over there or on pc and i get an error here trying to play pretty much anything from plex we do have the hd version of youtube so we can do 1080p videos here 1080p60 and this thing handles it just fine as long as you're connected to a good network you really shouldn't have any issue with video streaming at 1080p so we're set at 1080 our viewpoint is 1080 we have zero drop frames working really nicely here with youtube i also wanted to go through and test a few native android games from google play i personally haven't had much luck with this this is the second game that i tried it's a 3d game i mean the 2d games are going to work fine if you want to do crossy road you'll have no issues with it but if you want to play a game like real racing 3 on a low end device like this it's just not going to work out and the way it's set up right now it just keeps crashing on me so yeah i have run into some issues here with plex and 3d games but if you want to pick something like this up for just strictly 1080p video streaming it'll work out just fine but there's another thing that i know a lot of you might want to see and that's emulation this will not run gamecube this will not run psp it's not even going to run dreamcast at full speed but if you do want to add some nes snes pc engine neo geo they're going to work fine here even playstation 1 does a pretty good job on this device i'm using retro arch here with that xbox one s controller connected over bluetooth and we'll get right into some super nintendo gameplay it's not bad here with the lower end stuff and i know super nintendo isn't the hardest to emulate but as you can see it is running at full speed i do have the fps listed in the top right hand corner and we're at sixty next up we have some playstation one with one of the harder ones to emulate which is bloody roar 2. i'm still using retro arch with the pc sx rearm core fps is up in the top right hand corner we're running this game at full speed also and the final thing i wanted to test here was some n64 this is diddy kong racing and i'm using a standalone app called moopin 64 plus fz i'm actually pretty impressed with the performance here it's definitely not perfect i am noticing some frame dips every once in a while but overall i mean it's handling itself pretty well with this game this isn't the hardest one to run but just note that some n64 games will be playable on this stick so obviously one of the first devices that's going to come to mind when you check out the me tv stick is the amazon fire stick or the amazon fire stick 4k and while i'm a big fan of both of those i personally use the amazon fire stick 4k on one of my tvs in the house i hate the interface and i'd much rather run android tv and when it comes to buying a new tv most of the time you're already going to have some kind of smart feature built in be it a vizio tv roku or even these walmart on tvs i believe have android or roku you can make a choice right there so basically when it comes down to it if you have a 4k tv that doesn't already have smart features built in my personal choice would be the amazon fire stick 4k if you have a 1080p tv with no smart features built in i would go with the xiaomi me tv stick and those are my two budget picks right there but if you do have a little more money to spend and you want the best android tv experience go with the nvidia shield it's just kind of expensive right now but that's pretty much it for this video i really appreciate you watching we've been waiting for this thing for a while now i think it leaked out like three or four months ago i've been keeping an eye on it they're available on banggood ebay and if you're in the us you can pick one up on amazon but they have hiked the price up a little bit you can get them much cheaper on the other sides if you have any questions let me know in the comments below if you have any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching you\n"