Amazon Fire TV Stick review (2020): just get a 4K model

Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick is a $ 39.99 streaming dongle aimed at people who haven’t yet upgraded to a 4K TV – and don’t intend to do that anytime soon. It peaks with 1080p video resolution, but supports modern tricks like HDR surround sound and Dolby Atmos. It’s a strange area when rival products like Chromecast with Google TV go all-in in 4K for not much more money.

Even Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K, which works perfectly with older TVs, costs just $ 10 more, for $ 49.99. Therefore, the Fire TV Stick (and the cheapest Fire TV Stick Lite) are really recommended only if you are sure that your HDTV is not going anywhere for years to come.

If that’s the case, you will definitely have a more powerful streamer than before. Amazon says the new Fire TV Stick is 50 percent faster than the previous version – but it looks identical on the outside. It’s still a matte black stick that plugs into one of your TV’s HDMI ports. You plug a Micro USB cable into it to supply power, throw a few batteries into the Alexa Voice remote, and you’re ready to go. This is the same complete remote that comes with Amazon’s most expensive streaming devices, so in addition to the playback and navigation controls, you get a few extra buttons (on / off and volume) to control your TV with it. The Fire TV Stick Lite remote control does not include these.

The improved performance is noticeable. The old Fire TV Stick from Amazon could sometimes crash or slow down when rolling or opening apps, but I rarely found anything like this new model. In terms of speed, it looks like premium 4K Fire TV products. Voice searches with the Alexa remote were just as fast, whether I was looking for a particular program or asking about the weather.

Expect mixed results when it comes to HDR and Dolby Atmos support. In my tests, Prime Video and Disney Plus did a good job of making the most of the Fire TV Stick’s video and audio specifications and regularly delivered HDR and Atmos, but you’ll find that not all services will support those with 1080p streaming. Both HDR10 and HDR10 + are compatible with Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite, but Dolby Vision does not. Video frame rates of up to 60fps are now supported, compared to the previous hardware’s 30fps ceiling. This is a good update for sports and watching video game streams on Twitch.

The selection of applications from Amazon is excellent, although there is a notable omission: the Peacock service from NBCUniversal has not yet been made available on the platform. Everything else, including Apple TV Plus, HBO Max and other apps, can be easily downloaded. When you set up the Fire TV Stick, Amazon suggests a number of streaming apps to install immediately, although the list does not include all popular favorites. (Everything can be easily downloaded after the fact.) Setting up the remote control with the TV’s volume and power controls is also very easy.

The new Fire TV experience

Perhaps more interesting than the new hardware is the revised software experience that debuted on the Fire TV stick before arriving on the company’s other devices. In addition to cleaning and simplifying the main menu navigation – there are now only four tabs to choose from, plus your favorite apps – it also features multiuser profiles. You can create up to six profiles and you can designate them as child profiles that are limited to age-appropriate streaming content. Each user gets their own personalized viewing history, recommendations, watch list and live TV preferences. As for the applications, you can choose which six applications appear in the main menu and easily reach the others with one click.

The Library tab is where you will find your purchases, rentals and watch list. Home is essentially the same as before, giving great preference to all things Prime Video (and IMDb TV, which Amazon also owns). The order of the lines will be dynamically adjusted based on your viewing habit, but not to the point of making things confusing: your “next” apps and recent apps are close to the top. With the new Find tab, you can delve into areas dedicated to movies, TV, genres or other categories, such as “free”, which highlights ad-supported streaming channels. (This section is also where the app store is located.) The last tab is for live TV, which integrates with services like Hulu, Sling TV and YouTube TV to show a traditional channel guide on the screen, where you can quickly access live programming.

But the main frustration of the new Fire TV software remains the same as before: there is an abundance of sponsored content. With a few clicks on the home tab, I saw a full-width ad banner for Honda trucks and SUVs. And as you progress through the content carousels, it’s clear that many of them are sponsored. These are some of the ones I saw when going down the Home tab:

• Pluto TV – Free Movies & TV Shows – Sponsored
• Sponsored: Prime Video Cinema
• Sponsored: This week on Fire TV
• Sponsored: apps and games

This spon-con is intertwined with genuinely useful lines like “movies we think you’ll like” and “top-notch TV shows”, so it’s not notorious or enough to ruin the overall experience. You can also argue that Amazon is just being more transparent and obvious with its sponsored sections, compared to competitors who can mix them with general algorithm recommendations. But it still leaves you with the feeling that there are many properties advertising for sale during the Fire TV experience.

The new Find tab does a better job than the Home tab by aggregating TV shows and movies from your various subscriptions – not unlike what Google tries to accomplish with its Google TV software. Amazon was one of the first to push the idea of ​​prioritizing content rather than a more app-centric layout (like what’s on a Roku or Apple TV), but in some ways Google has moved on. On Fire TV, it’s never clear which service you’ll watch content on until you click on a title. Google does a better job of making it clear what’s coming from where directly in the main menu. But, for Amazon credit, there are useful filters for things like “free for me” and “rent or buy” to help you narrow your selection.

When you’re browsing, this new Fire TV experience looks very familiar. Amazon may have changed the home screen, but overall, this is not a drastic makeover. I like how on the title page of any show or film, it is very quick and convenient to go through other things where the cast appeared. And you get the “more ways to watch” practices to see where else you can broadcast something, with existing subscriptions and ad-supported services with preference over paid options.

But some areas of the interface still need refinement. For example, I received a notification that said “some content is provided by Verizon” with a disclaimer that the company can collect display data – with no indication as to which application the notification is actually intended for. I assume it was for one of the live news services, but there was no confirmation that it was.

The new Fire TV experience will hit other products in March. It is definitely an improvement over what existed before, and the profile options will be useful for parents and people with shared spaces. It’s available on the Fire TV Stick first, but I don’t think that’s reason enough to get the $ 40 player from Amazon.

I’m sure Amazon has all the data in the world to show that this product makes sense, but buying a 1080p streaming device in 2021 seems unwise. This looks like something that Amazon should be giving Prime subscribers as a freebie. You would be much better off in terms of future security by spending extra – not really extra, actually – for the Fire TV Stick 4K if you constantly stream from Prime Video and put the Alexa features on the remote to use. If you don’t like the Amazon ecosystem, something like the new Chromecast or a Roku streamer would be a more sensible purchase. The latest Fire TV Stick is faster than before and comes with more elegant software, but it is not yet made for a 4K streaming world.

Photograph by Chris Welch / The Verge