Short of Samsung, there’s no other company that gets as bad a rap for copying Apple as Xiaomi. The Chinese gadget maker, though, has just beaten Apple to market in at least one category. Although a proper Apple HDTV has been rumored by the likes of Gene Munster for ages, Xiaomi has beaten Cupertino to the punch with a beautiful — and affordable! — Android smart TV.

Xiaomi calls its new smart TV the Mi TV 2, and it boasts a 40-inch full-HD display running at a 1080p resolution. The LED display panel itself isn’t bad, having been provided by Sharp, and provides a contrast ratio of around 5,000: 1, meaning dark blacks, bright whites, and vibrant colors all around. The frame is super slim, too, at just 14.5mm at its thinnest, available in colors such as sky blue, neon green, yellow, and red.

But what separates the Xiaomi Mi TV 2 is what’s inside: a Cortex A9 quad-core SoC clocked at 1.4GHz, coupled with 1.5GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. It also runs Xiaomi’s custom-skinned version of Android Lollipop. All told? You can not only run apps on this TV, you could potentially record programs, even game on it. The Mi TV 2 can also, quite naturally, play back pretty much every video format under the sun: H.264, H.265, REAL, RM, MOV, MKV, FLV, AVI, MP4, and TS are also supported by the Mi TV 2.

Honestly, it looks just beautiful. But perhaps the most beautiful thing about the Xiaomi Mi TV 2 is its price: it’s selling for 2,000 CNY in China, which is around $320. Of course, no Xiaomi product has made its way to the States just yet, so we probably won’t get this one either, but fingers crossed that it’s only a matter of time.

Via: Redmond Pie