Today I went to various gadget stores after my chores to look around.
To my surprise I saw a lot of iterations of the Mi Box. White ones, Black ones, ones with add'l Micro SD port, some with additional Micro USB port and one even with a air mouse remote for gaming.
I took pictures of these variations in models and googled them all.
It's a good thing too because NONE of them have english firmware and like some of XiaoMi's products are region locked to the Chinese market so the firmware is in chinese, no playstore, no netflix etc.
Do NOT be fooled. From my readings you can NOT use any other XiaoMi Mi box internationally except for Model # MDZ-16-AB. Always ensure you are getting this particular international model of the Mi Box to avoid a lot of pain and wasted money.
A lot have tried re-flashing (or rather bricking their box) however all are just half-baked attempts to squeeze some functionality. You have to realize the Mi Box 3 is only 1 of 2 (the other is the Nvidia Shield) that is recognized as a real Android TV certified device (
www.android.com/tv). So in the future when other services become available here (like Hulu or even Amazon Prime), the international version "should" work automatically.