as TVs get bigger and better so must our
content can Amazon stoke those flames
I'm our first enema TechnoBuffalo and
this is the Amazon fire TV with 4k those
of you who have seen my videos know that
I'm a chromecast enthusiast the fire TV
has some pretty big shoes to fill in my
living room then so let's start with the
flagship feature of the fire TV 4k video
the options for finding 4k video are
still pretty slim unfortunately so for
now if you're looking for feature-length
films on the fire TV your only option is
going to be Amazon Prime video according
to Netflix they only support 4k on the
TiVo bolt for now but amazon said that
it does work on the fire TV but we
weren't able to get it working on the
one that we had here in the office in
fact we weren't able to get any 4k
content working on that fire TV on any
of the 4k displays that we have here in
the office in order to output 4k video
your 4k display and anything that you're
running your video through like a sound
bar have to all be hdcp 2.2 compatible
most modern 4k displays do support at
least one HDMI port with hdcp 2.2
compatibility so that part should be too
difficult to task the fire TV was
connected to a 50/50 fiber connection on
a 5 gigahertz wireless network
unfortunately even after confirming that
our TV that we were testing with does
indeed support 2.2 on all three of its
HDMI ports we were still totally unable
to get any Amazon video to playback in
4k in fact every single video that I
played on Amazon video had a hard time
even keeping up with 1080p after leaving
hitch great movie playing for 20 minutes
or so it still hadn't even managed to
make it up to 720p which is seriously
seriously disappointing we worked with
Amazon to try and get it working but
they continuously deemed our network to
be the issue despite not having any
issues whatsoever with any other device
here in the office even if our network
here were too congested with devices how
much of an echo chamber does this thing
really need to work after five days of
attempts we gave up try the Amazon video
app on the network enable TV that we
were testing on and it worked like a
charm
gorgeous 4k content on a 4k display is
just great unfortunately the fire TV
just is the device that's gonna get it
for you Amazon did say that they haven't
this issue with any other customers but
really ought to be all you need to know
about the fire TV it just it doesn't do
what it says on the Box 4k content
doesn't work unless you're under
pristine network conditions with that
big knock against it out of the way
let's talk about the UI and the rest of
the experience the UI itself is fine
it's relatively inoffensive and it's
easy enough to navigate but the
selection of apps is pretty subpar
there's some games Crossy road candy
crush that normal stuff the YouTube app
is the same web app they're gonna find
on network enabled TVs and for example
on the ps4 if you have one of those
Alexa works ok she definitely does the
things that she says she can do but
she's not terribly helpful and she has a
pretty hard time understanding more
complex commands she'll just say I don't
know what you want me to do with this
the mic itself isn't great either you
really have to speak deliberately on
some words to ensure that you're heard
correctly on top of that the search
function only searches a few services
with an obvious strong emphasis on
Amazon video across the board the fire
TV experience is definitely quite a few
rungs down from for example the new
Apple TV which only comes in at 40
dollars more the hardware isn't really
all that much better I had more than one
fries that require a full-on reboot of
the device so if you have a full TV
cabinet you know exactly how big of a
pain that is the remote is less than
responsive too it works but it
frequently needs multiple clicks to get
it to register and the input lag does
make playing timing based games like
Crossy Road pretty tough on paper the
new fire TV seems like a great device at
a reasonable price but in practice it's
little more than unimpressive
I really can't in good conscience
recommend the fire TV to anyone even
those of you who are already knee-deep
in Amazon's ecosystem the flagship
feature here is 4k video and we were
unable to get it working even once and
this is our first rodeo guys this is a
resounding don't buy that's it guys
that's what I think about the Amazon
fire TV with 4k without 4k gotta be real
with you guys was not a fun experience I
have I haven't worked with a product
that's frustrating me quite that much in
quite some time so resounding don't buy
let me know what you guys think let me
know if you have where the old fire TV
is if you've had any of these issues
with those as
well and let me know in the comments if
there's any other streaming devices that
you want me to take a quick look at of
course you can hit that like button if
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and as always thank you guys for
watching be kind to one another and I'll
see you in the next video
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