Still, since most available 4K content is either 24 or 30 frames per second, that lack of support might not be an issue for you. That's a bit strange considering that Amazon Prime is one of the only services currently offering HDR programs. This means the Fire TV won't be able to support high dynamic range (HDR) content or 60-frames-per-second video. One thing to note about Amazon's 4K support: The Fire TV comes with an HDMI 1.4 output, not the HDMI 2.0 connections we see on almost all new 4K TVs and 4K-ready streaming players. The new Amazon Fire TV also supports up to 7.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. Based on this initial assessment, the picture quality was consistent with that of 4K content streamed directly to a UHD smart TV. We connected the Amazon Fire TV to one of the 4K TVs in our labs. We imagine this is due to Fire TV's ASAP feature, which preloads content it thinks you're likely to watch. Netflix didn't load as quickly or as smoothly, for example, but that held true for the earlier version of the player, too. However, if you weren't comparing the two models head-to-head, you probably wouldn't see the difference, except perhaps when you used voice search or played games.Īmazon content seemed to benefit the most from the power boost. When we loaded apps or streamed content, the improvements were marginal. The newer model seemed a bit more fleet-footed when fast-forwarding and rewinding. Amazon seems to have most of the major content-services bases covered-Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go, Showtime Anytime, Sling TV-but it still lacks any Viacom networks (CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, etc.) and Google Play.Īlthough Amazon claims the new Fire TV is 75 percent faster than its predecessor, we're not sure you'll notice it, since the original Fire TV was among the better performers in our streaming media player Ratings.įor a few tests, we connected both the new model and the older version to the same TV, and in almost all respects, the newer version was a touch quicker. The good news is that there's a Prime Video tab, so you can quickly find programs and movies included in your Prime subscriptions.Īmazon continues to favor its own content over that from other services, which is a bit off-putting. Unfortunately, you can't reorder the screen or pin favorite content or apps to the subscreens. An animation walks you through the basics of using the remote and navigating the menus.Īlthough it's not hard to navigate through the options on the left-hand sidebar of the main menu, there are so many of them-13 in all-it makes the interface more complicated than necessary.
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