Two still-relevant and prevalent topics underpin TV shopping. Most importantly, these extravagances are tied to the event or timing, usually coinciding with a major sporting event that the family wishes to watch on the big screen (unless, of course, the current TV has actually suddenly turned off). Second, and no less important, this upgrade is intended to be future-proof for years to come. Many will be considering buying a similar big-screen TV ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 (hopefully someone gets the TV or digital broadcast rights in India). TV manufacturers know this, and that’s probably why you’ve seen a growing number of TVs featuring the relatively new Mini LED as a display technology, at an attractive price that forces you to consider the value proposition. Xiaomi, which has been on a roll with TV portfolio updates recently, now adds the flagship – Xiaomi TV S Mini LED series, 2026 edition.
Three screen sizes, on ₹Rs 51,999 for 55-inch, ₹Rs 71,999 if you prefer 65-inch or ₹Rs 99,999 for the 75-inch Canvas, which we are analyzing here. It’s important to quickly explain why Mini LED is a significant step forward for TV display technology overall – it bridges the price gap between a standard LED TV and the much more expensive OLED displays. QLED panels meanwhile performed quite well, but Mini LED has technology advantages, primarily OLED-level brightness that’s more evenly spread due to similar backlight placement, and higher contrast levels with deeper blacks (because each of these backlights can be turned on and off depending on what’s on the screen, with no leakage), that QLED or LED couldn’t match before.
The Mini LED method of thousands of individual LEDs providing backlighting, allows for really fine dimming zones (how well they work depends on the algorithms controlling these zones; the responsibility is on TV manufacturers), and so the three-dimensional benefit of better contrast, brightness uniformity and no burn-in risk like OLED. For once, this specification apparently works with the logic of more is better.
This key specification is where the Xiaomi TV S Mini LED 75 leaves no stone unturned, with 512 dimming zones across the width of this display panel. Proportionally, the 65-inch has 384 zones and the 55-inch has 308 zones. More is better, for that contrast and those deep blacks, especially for movies and TV shows. Its closest competitor in terms of price is the Vision 9, the 2026 version of the Lumio ( ₹72,999; 128 dimming zones at 65-inch) and Samsung which does not disclose these specifications for the Mini LED M2EH 4K Smart TV (2026; 75M2EHAU). ₹1,02,990).
It becomes immediately apparent that the Xiaomi TV S Mini LED is perfectly adept at handling a brightly lit living room, on a day when the summer afternoon sun is shining brightly and there is not a single speck of cloud in sight in the sky. It has a precisely designed non-reflective layer that keeps out most of the ambient reflections, leaving only really bright artificial lighting somewhere behind when you watch TV. No washed-out visuals or bad viewing angles, just because you decide to use the TV as a TV. The world seems to be healing, and that’s a good thing.
There are three main use-cases through which I evaluated the Xiaomi TV S Mini LED 75, and it delivers great results in two, and a near-miss in one. I’ll start with the latter, I’m surprised Xiaomi continued with 2GB of memory instead of 3GB for better performance headroom, but even within those specific guidelines, all streaming apps respond with a general sense of stability and urgency, while the overall responsiveness of the Google TV is nothing to complain about. It’s a matter of maintaining this level of snappiness over time, as app caches fill up and app updates make things worse.
Where the Xiaomi TV S Mini LED 75 really shines is with your typical movie or TV show playing on Netflix or Apple TV+ or JioHotstar, and I’d focus on this troika because you’ll be making full use of the pixels with varying quality of 4K streaming and HDR optimization. This continues the company’s series of Filmmaker Mode customizations, the benefits of which I detailed in X Pro QLED 75 Since the beginning of this year, and X Pro QLED Series 2025 Edition.
Weekends and late evening entertainment on weekdays will be the most active use case for this TV, and especially with the screen size, and you’ll know exactly why Xiaomi got it exactly right with 512 dimming zones. As expected, contrast is top notch and creates a visually gorgeous difference between the brighter and darker parts of the frame. Not only does it create beautiful visuals, but there’s nothing that can match a QLED panel (although I do like QLED as a versatile, cost-effective display technology for TVs).
The other big use case in India would be watching sports. Play cricket, football and Formula 1 with Xiaomi TV S Mini LED 75 on TataPlay HD+ set top box with both stream and linear broadcast (for resolution, bitrate and overall quality variations), and there are good observations to discuss. First of all, in games, the screen backlight default setting of 100 is too high, and reducing it to half (or even less, depending on the room lighting) is the way to go. Secondly, it takes some effort to get the picture just right for sports viewing (too bright or too dim is no good at all), but it’s worth the time you spend locking it down.
Here’s another win. Compared to Xiaomi’s 2025 TVs, one obvious positive change in picture processing is that there’s slightly more crispness and detail even at sharpness levels set to zero or one. It may also be less aggressive noise cancellation at work, which leaves the option up to you in the display settings. I’ve also noticed improvements in fine detail reproduction, but there’s still work to be done. For example, view the faces of the batsman, wicketkeeper, and often the slip cordon fielders from the bowler’s camera view in a cricket match. Many TVs in recent years, including my notes on the X Pro QLED Series 2025 Edition, have struggled to get this right – the result is a pixelated mess rather than realistic facial features.
The Xiaomi TV S Mini LED 75 also outperforms the X Pro QLED 75, at the same picture and sharpness levels and with the same source. But as I said, there is still more work to be done. The accuracy and realism of skin color has taken a step back, and the higher you take the Backlight slider, the more obvious and unrealistic Caucasian-esque tone becomes to Sanju Samson’s skin color in the IPL match. Interestingly, this is more pronounced with sports streaming and live TV than with movie and TV show content.
It’s important to appreciate the little things done well. With support for Dolby Audio, the 34-watt built-in speaker system is more substantial than many expensive TVs. I should note that the Xiaomi sound tuning out of the box is much more neutral than the QLED that came out earlier this year, with a good level of detailing for spoken engagements. But chances are, you’ll still want to have a sound bar to really enjoy movies.
Support for the Apple AirPlay 2 standard with Google Cast gives iPhone users, as well as those with Android phones, an easy way to replicate their phone’s content to a bigger screen.
Perhaps the Xiaomi TV S Mini LED, especially in this top-of-the-line 75-inch incarnation, could have made a stronger case for a table-top stand design refresh. Right now, at least at first glance, there’s nothing to distinguish it from the lower-priced LED range. The only positive thing I can take away from this is the double option of closer stand installation (for tables that are not as wide as the TV).
For some reason, I often remember the Mi LED Smart TV 4, which was Xiaomi’s first LED TV in India (in 2018 – the 4.9 mm ultra-thin contours still represent extreme TV architecture) with a longing for something similar to return at least on future flagship TVs. That said, a design accomplishment is not easy to replicate, especially with more elaborate display backlighting technology (at least until it matures and, as is often the case with technology, miniaturizes).
It’s good to see Mini LED become a popular smart TV display technology alongside QLED, which has been around for some time. This is where the user has the options, the priority to work, and the budget to work with. The sensitivity of the Mini LED means that it needs to be well optimized to make the experience work as it should. If this optimization is done incorrectly or lazily by TV makers (this is a technicality’s advance warning), and the promise of pitch black vanishes faster than the fog breaks through the sunlight.
In the case of the Xiaomi TV S Mini LED 75 (and I believe this is the case for the other two screen sizes as well), there seems to be a definite attempt to get things right. And this is even more visible when you spend some time undoing the out-of-the-box picture as well as audio settings and making things more aligned with your viewing preferences. In my book, Xiaomi’s first Mini LED Tech TV in India is definitely off to a strong start. On facilities. With performance. And as a value proposition.
