Xiaomi Mi Box 3 International Edition and Plex

Hi all

I am looking at purchasing a Xiaomi Mi Box 3 to replace the Smart (but slooooooow) capability of either a Samsung or Sony TV. I have seen a heap of deals over the past months and the general reception of these Mi boxes appears to be very good. However I have also seen the odd bit of negativity around them being a capable Plex client.

Does anybody have some real world experience on using the international version of the Mi Box 3 as a Plex client as this is what I am primarily looking to use it for? (The added functionality of some basic gaming plus Google Play access is appealing though).

I see a lot of talk about running Kodi on the box. If I did that then I presume I could install the Plex addon to Kodi and still be able to have the same functionality. I have a Plex Pass so there are no issues in that regard. Again does anybody have any real world experience with Kodi and the Plex addon? Using Kodi could be a bonus to take advantage of some of the other plugins and streaming that Kodi can offer (already have a VPN in place).

I do not have a 4K TV and am unlikely to get one any time soon. Most of my TV comes from binaries and so is in the H.264 format but would like to look at H.265 due to the smaller file size. Again, anybody got any experience with this on one of these boxes.

Lastly, if I was to use this with the Samsung TV then it would be in the lounge and so passthrough to my amp (set up for 5.1) would be required. Previous posts show some issues with this but has this been addressed?

I have searched a fair bit but the majority have been older posts so it could be some of what I have read to date has been addressed by firmware updates which is why I am asking the community that knows.

Happy to get any feedback around these queries and anything else I may not have thought of.

Cheers