Amazon Fire TV Product Review: Introduce 4K And Alexa Into Your Living Room

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To truly rule our existence, digital assistants can’t be relegated to our phones; they need to inhabit our viewing lives, too. Apple added Siri to Apple TV for that reason. And now Amazon—never one to let Apple outshine them—has brought its digital assistant Alexa to the $100 Fire TV.

Previously only available with Amazon’s Echo wireless speaker, Alexa turns your voice commands into actions, no typing needed: It play videos from Amazon Prime Video and music from Amazon Prime Music, checks the weather and even controls smart home devices such as networked lights.

In addition to Alexa, the new Fire TV can play 4K video—quadruple the resolution of HD—and Amazon even has shows available in 4K for you to watch, including Transparent and Bosch. Like the Roku 4 (read Decider’s review) and NVIDIA Shield (read Decider’s review), the Fire TV handles the huge 4K files without issue, displaying gorgeous detail, color and depth. In the quest for owning your living room, Amazon won’t be left behind.

WHAT’S BEST

The new Fire TV adds a few new features and retains many of the best things from the original.

  • 4K for less: To get 4K on the Roku, you need to buy a $130 Roku 4; NVIDIA’s Shield costs $200. The $149 Apple TV doesn’t even bother with 4K. That makes the Fire TV a relative bargain for getting 4K video—assuming you have a TV or monitor that can produce that many pixels.
  • Prime content: For $99 dollars a year, Amazon Prime remains a great deal for streaming video and listening to music, and the Fire TV puts all that streaming goodness front and center. It’s less easy for accessing Netflix, HBO Go/Now, and other services, but you can get to them with a few clicks.
  • Slim shape: While Apple TV and Roku 4 bulked up with their latest versions, the Fire TV kept its trim form, so it takes up little space and is easy to find a place for.

WHAT’S WORST

  • Lame games: Amazon wants you to believe the Fire TV is also a game system, similar to Android TV. You can even buy a $140 version that comes with a controller and two games. But the games available through the store are limited—Crossy Road is about as exciting as it gets—and the remote lacks motion control making game play rather clunky.
  • Limited search: The Fire TV only searches Amazon services for videos, where as Roku and Apple will search many of the popular apps and help you quickly launch the show or movie.

WHO SHOULD BUY ONE?

Coming out of Amazon’s shop, the Fire TV takes a very Amazonian view of the world—just as the Apple TV is focused on Apple’s ecosystem. If you have a Prime membership and Prime Instant Video is your main source of streaming, the Fire TV will work well for you. It’s fast and easy to use. Prime membership also gets you access to one of the largest 4K streaming libraries around at no additional cost; you need to upgrade to Netflix’s most expensive plan to get 4K there.

But if you couldn’t care less about 4K and don’t want Alexa as your personal assistant, the $40 Fire TV Stick is a much better deal. If you want a better blend of streaming services, the Roku line features integrated searches that do a great job of finding your show or movie regardless of which channel it’s available on.

[Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Amazon Fire TV Gaming Edition are all available on Amazon.com]

Michael Gowan impatiently waits for somebody—anybody!—to stream the complete Moonlighting series. You can follow him on Twitter @zebgowan.