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Most of what you can ask Alexa through Amazon’s Echo speaker, you can also ask through the Fire TV – you can even add items to a to-do list or shopping list. If you’ve not used a Fire TV before, you’ll find that it is built to favor Amazon in every way possible.In addition to content search, Alexa can provide basic information on random queries using Wikipedia as its source, can tell you what the weather is like in a given location, tell you the time, and give you the score on the latest sports game. But as one of the few 4K Ultra HD streaming content providers out there, support for this new resolution was an absolute must for Amazon. TiVo’s new box does it, the new Roku box will, and most 4K Ultra HD TVs do. 4K Ultra HDĪmazon, like nearly every other maker of streaming set-top boxes (except Apple), knows that streaming is where most people get their 4K Ultra HD content. There are three big new additions for this second-generation Fire TV: 4K Ultra HD streaming ability, Alexa voice assistant, and juiced-up hardware. Fortunately, Amazon puts any recently used apps right up top in the home section so you don’t have to do a bunch of button-clicking to get at, say, Netflix. Here you can see which apps you’ve already installed and search for new apps by category. To access anything else, you’ll need to scroll down quite a bit to the apps section. Likewise, if you buy a lot of music from Amazon, every album and track you’ve ever purchased, even if it was on CD, will be available here.
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For instance, if you choose to store your photos on Amazon’s cloud drive (unlimited storage is free for Prime members) then you get immediate access to all your images. While Roku’s homescreen is built around showing off multiple apps as “channels,” the Amazon Fire TV is built around what you can get out of Amazon.Īmazon’s search feature doesn’t poll every video streaming app installed on it the way Roku and TiVo boxes do.The main menu options on the right of the screen all lead you down different Amazon paths - Prime Video, Movies, TV, Music, Photos, Watchlist, Genre, etc. The Fire TV platform is built to favor Amazon in every way possible. You can’t skip it, but we wouldn’t recommend it even if you could: You may learn your new Fire TV has capabilities you weren’t aware of. Once the setup process is over, be prepared to sit through Amazon’s animated tutorial video. Sadly, there’s no optical audio output for an independent audio connection, so if you want to run your Fire TV through your home theater system and get the best audio quality, you’ll need to use your receiver as an HDMI switcher. For 4K Ultra HD streaming, we highly recommend connecting a hard Ethernet line, but an 802.11ac router will also do the trick. Once powered up, the Fire TV’s setup wizard will guide you through the process.

Sadly, Amazon ditched the optical digital audio jack for this generation, which means those who want to connect the Fire TV to an A/V receiver will be forced to use their receiver as an HDMI switcher. Simply connect an HDMI cable and the power supply. If you see yourself playing games on the Fire TV (and this new version provides more incentive for gaming than before) you can spend another $40 for the gaming edition, which is bundled with a console-style game controller, two games, and a 32 GB microSD card. The standard $100 Fire TV package comes with the set-top box, a voice-recognition remote, and a power supply.
