Reviews on Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Generation)

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• Reviews on Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Generation)

Amazon Fire TV Cube (2019) Deals Amazon has long been a leader in the battle for streaming video players. Now, the new Amazon Fire TV Cube puts the tech giant in the lead. The Fire TV Cube is faster, supports the most premium AV formats including Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and has YouTube. While that last point may seem trivial, remember that for years a dispute between Amazon and Google prevented the world's largest video and streaming service from appearing as a native app on Amazon streaming devices. For a long time, this was a huge blow to the device family in 2017. Perhaps that's why Amazon went to great lengths to make sure this issue was resolved this time around. While it's worth mentioning that the Fire TV Cube is an older model at this point with no update in a few years, it could be heavily discounted at the upcoming Amazon Prime Day 2021 event. discounts are higher than normal.

• Amazon Fire TV Cube (2019) at Amazon for € 99

What about Amazon Prime Day 2021?
Amazon Prime Day is coming soon, June 21-22 with tons of discounts on the retailer's many products and devices. The massive sale event will be a great place to find discounts on Amazon Fire TV devices, as well as many other technologies. So if you are planning to buy a Fire TV stick, you have to wait until then. The Amazon Fire TV Cube goes above and beyond in performance and flexibility to control both your home theater and smart home with your voice. The Fire TV Cube not only supports 4K HDR, but also supports one of the best versions of the format. And not only is Alexa built in, but it's a visual version of the Assistant, which can display the lyrics to your favorite songs and tell you who's on screen during a movie. When it works, it looks downright futuristic; when it's not, it's a bummer, but there's always the remote to help fill in the skill gaps in Alexa. While Alexa doesn't always work as advertised, it's still the best player Amazon has created to date and would be a welcome addition to any home.

Launch date and price

The new Amazon Fire TV Cube is available for $119.99 ($109, around AU$160), released in October 2019. The older model retails for around $99 in the US, but we expect this to be fade out when stocks last. out. To put that price in comparison to other streaming boxes, the Roku Ultra would set you back $99 while the Apple TV 4K currently retails for around $179 (£179). If you want to save some money, you can always pick up the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Remote, which is just $49,99 (£49,99, around AU$70). It doesn't always sound like the Amazon Fire TV Cube, but it still offers 4K HDR streaming with an advanced remote. Both options are excellent.

Integrated

While Amazon has made a number of improvements to the Amazon Fire TV Cube's internal hardware and software, not much has changed regarding the outer casing: it's still an unassuming black cube with an LED bar on top. It's not as modest as other streaming video players that hide behind the TV, but it does give your entertainment center a slightly futuristic vibe. At the top of the Cube are four control buttons for muting, volume up and down, and calling Alexa, although the latter is a bit unnecessary. Of course, just having the ability to shout voice commands through a small box-like player without a remote in hand is the Amazon Fire TV Cube's unique selling point, and with its eight far-field microphones, the Fire TV Cube is incredibly good at picking up what it drops, as good or maybe even better than the Amazon Echo Show or Amazon Echo are up to scratch. Flip the Fire TV Cube over to the back and you'll find an HDMI port, microUSB, IR extender, and power jack. There's not much to say about the microUSB or power jack, both of which work as advertised, but there is something to be said for how the Fire TV Cube handles HDMI.

(Image credit: TechRadar) The good thing is that the Fire TV Cube comes with HDMI CEC, this feature that allows you to control your devices via HDMI and IR commands. This allows you to increase the TV's volume with the Amazon Fire TV Cube remote control and use Alexa to turn any number of devices in your entertainment center on and off. The bad news is that the Amazon Fire TV Cube doesn't come with an HDMI cable... which seems a bit cheap for a device that costs over $100. Hell, it's not that long, but even the $35 Roku Express it comes with an HDMI cable, so losing it here feels like a huge misstep. The only problem with the HDMI CEC and IR control feature is that you'll have to be very careful when integrating the Fire TV Cube into your home theater setup; you can't get too close to your speakers for fear they won't. Don't overwhelm the built-in module. microphones, but you still need to be in line of sight to your soundbar, AVR, and TV, as you'll need to control them via a multi-directional IR emitter and HDMI CEC. While it may seem like an exhausting process, it can be done relatively quickly, and once you're done, you'll have an expert control center for your home entertainment setup. Alexa, thanks to her technological wizardry, can change the input on your TV, turn the volume on your soundbar up or down, and change the channel on your cable box using just voice commands, and while the result isn't revolutionary, it helps make the Fire TV Cube a complete package and we found ourselves enjoying it, even when Alexa, smart as she was, let us down.

(Image credit: Amazon)

Amazon Fire TV Cube content

If you don't mind being inundated with Amazon content, the Amazon Fire TV Cube is great: the home screen has row after row of suggested content, from Amazon Prime shows and movies to recommended shows and movies you can rent from Amazon. Yes, there's now a featured row at the top of the home screen, your apps in the second row, and sponsored content in the third row, but the vast majority of the home screen below the first three rows is dominated by Amazon own content. Of course, you could argue that the Fire TV Cube's focus on Amazon content makes sense, given that most people who would buy one probably already have an Amazon Prime membership, but that doesn't change the situation. . superior content than its competitor, similar to Apple TV. Fortunately, there are a number of award-winning shows and movies on the Amazon service that are worth watching (check out our list of the best Amazon Prime shows for recommendations!). Like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Fleabag that justify all the attention Amazon is directing at them. And while the Amazon Fire TV Cube heavily promotes Amazon's own streaming service, it's still possible to get a host of other streaming apps, including Netflix, HBO, Starz, Hulu, PlayStation Vue, and Crackle, as well as smaller services like The CW, NFL Network. , AMC and more, with new services added regularly.

(Image credit: Amazon) Speaking of regularly added services, the big new addition to the Amazon Fire TV lineup is YouTube, which recently returned after more than a year's absence. Rediscovering YouTube means having access to the service's ever-growing library of shows, plus more viral videos, streams, and vlogs than you can possibly get your hands on. One page to the right of the home screen is the new live section that shows you what's playing right now on Amazon Prime or a suitable cable alternative like Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, or YouTube TV. Here you will find content like the PGA Masters or Thursday Night Football in the US, making the player more valuable to cord-cutters and wireless. Another cool feature of the cord cutters is the addition of free IMDB TV content to the home screen in the United States. You won't always find the best or newest content here, but it's free with ads, so we can't complain too much. In terms of streaming audio, the Amazon Fire TV Cube is compatible with Spotify, but you'll probably end up using most of Amazon Music or Amazon Music Unlimited. The former has a few million songs and is available with all Amazon Prime subscriptions, while the latter will set you back a few bucks more per month but instead features tens of millions of songs from more obscure artists. Interestingly, the Amazon Fire TV Cube also supports Casting... but we couldn't get down to business until we posted our review. This is something we will continue to test in the coming weeks and months. Lastly, it should be noted that the Amazon Fire TV Cube also has the ability to play light games. The games generally look similar to what you'd find in the App Store or Google Play Store (which makes sense since Fire TV OS is a variant of Android), but Amazon's offerings are smaller in number and quality. Lower than you'd like to find it, say, on the Apple TV 4K or Nvidia Shield, both of which offer high-quality (but still ephemeral) gaming.

(Image credit: Dolby)

Performance

The Fire TV Cube has always been solid when it comes to performance, but the latest version features a number of updates that make it even faster. For example, the original Fire TV Cube used a 53GHz Quad Core ARM Cortex-A1.5 processor, Mali-3 MP450 GPU, and Amlogic S905Z SoC to produce stunning visuals and fast load times throughout system operation, but this has been upgraded to an ultra-powerful 6-core processor that can play Dolby Vision and 4K Ultra HD content at up to 60 fps. Going from a show on Netflix to the home screen and a movie on Amazon only takes a few seconds, with virtually no pop-ups along the way. In fact, thanks to the 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna and with connections faster than 15 Mbps, videos probably won't even need buffering; they will simply start playing as soon as you select them. The result is beautiful content, especially 4K HDR TV shows and movies...