Should YOU Buy the NEW Fire TV Cube?

this is the new Fire TV Cube third generation that saw a few new updates this year but should you buy it over a Fire TV 4K Max it costs half as much we're going to go through what these updates are and make sure to stay the end I'll give you my recommendations um I will say it's an interesting device before we start this is not a full review I've only had this for a bit so I'm sharing some of my initial experiences also I did buy this if you'd like to check it out I'll put links down in the description if you're not familiar with the Fire TV Cube it is basically a Fire TV stick and an echo combination that gives you hands-free control to make requests and to control your devices so we'll go more into that in a moment I do want to point out that since the original Fire TV Cube came out there's now the option to pair and Echo and a Fire TV stick so you have very similar hands-free control the thing is you could get both of these on sale for about half the cost of a of irtbq the Fire TV cube is 139 that's 20 higher than the previous generation and that price places it between Apple's new 129 Apple TV and 149 Apple TV 139 for this I feel like is a little high the Fire TV Cube was a nice alternative to an Apple TV when there was a 60 difference but when they're priced that close to Apple TV I'm not sure there's a new look to the Fire TV Cube instead of the shiny easily scratch fingerprint covering uh with the speaker on the bottom you now have a mesh around the front and you have a speaker in the front so that's going to give you better sound out of it you also have no logos around it it's a much better look you can see on the back that we have some additional ports that we'll go through in a minute the Fire TV Cube also saw an updated remote unfortunately it's not the new Pro remote that adds some additional buttons that you can program up to do things like trigger routines in order to get that you have to pay 35 dollars extra to get that separately this is just the standard remote and you'll see there's additional keys from the second generation Fire TV Cube here's the Fire TV 4K Max and you can see the additional buttons now if you've never owned a Fire TV device they are really easy to set up whether it's a fire TV stick or the Fire TV Cube if you buy it from Amazon it'll already be linked to your Amazon account if you buy it from a store you just lock in with your account this is the Fire TV home screen scroll through and you'll see different apps you've used in different Prime content along with some sponsored content from here you could find live free TV stuff that you've bookmarked your stuff then you download your apps with the Fire TV cubes you're gonna find all the major streaming services available now the Fire TV Cube supports all the major formats you have 4K Ultra HD Dolby vision for sound you have Dolby Atmos uh Adobe Digital it's you have everything you need out of this and what I found is picture quality looks great I have no complaints about it I think when it comes down to say something like this or the Apple TV a lot of it's going to come down to the interface and preferences you have more so than I think the video quality because they all look good now something new this year is the addition of an HDMI import and what that allows you to do is to actually run a gaming console a Blu-ray player or a cable box right through your Fire TV Cube that way if you have something else you want to control and use on the TV you don't have to switch inputs on your TV instead you can do all that just Through the Fire TV Cube you can pick your input and this is where you would switch over to something like the Xbox that I have hooked up to it right now if you hit the home button it takes you out of that back to the home screen now something to think about I personally would not use this for my consoles and the reason why these are both HDMI 2.1 ports but they only support 60 frames per second the latest gaming consoles and the Apple TVs support higher frame rates my Xboxes will go up to 120 frames per second so I'd actually be limiting them what I would do instead is plug my devices into the TV and then using the audio return Channel coming out of the TV you plug that Into the Fire TV Cube and with that you're able to pass through the sound from your television Into the Fire TV Cube and then off to paired Echoes the thing is you have to actually use your remote to switch over to the Fire TV input but using that method instead I could plug in three different things and have the sound come back to the fire TV Cube I did make a video on how to pair Echoes to a Fire TV stick or in this case A Fire TV Cube I'll put that down below now if you haven't already make sure to hit the the Subscribe button and click the Bell so you're notified of the next video I will be doing a video on the new Apple TV soon and then I will make something on a little head to head between the two one of the updates to the new Fire TV cube is the new processor that is twice as fast as the Fire TV 4K Max in testing that it didn't feel twice as fast for General navigation and loading apps and actually with the software updated on the Fire TV Cube second generation they really didn't feel faster navigating around so for General navigation and making requests I didn't really notice much of a difference so I wouldn't necessarily run out to upgrade for that now if you are playing games using Amazon Luna or some of the other apps you might notice a difference there another update we're seeing this year is the addition of a USB a port that can be used for cameras or external storage so you could hook up a web camera launch a Zoom app and do a meeting right over your your TV if you do store a lot of amps you could put additional storage also on the back here we have the IR extender this time around there is no extender cable so if you wanted to put this somewhere where the infrared couldn't control your TV you used to be able to extend it that is one of the nice things about the Fire TV Cube that it offers over the Fire TV sticks is there's an infrared emitter so you can control receivers and televisions in ways that you can't with the Fire TV stick so with my other Fire TV Cube I would actually use it to switch inputs over to my Apple TV I would ask to switch to Apple TV input or Xbox input and it could do that so for more control over receivers and TVs it could be a good option for that the new Fire TV cube is also updated with Wi-Fi 6E support and what that means is there's a new bandwidth that is six gigahertz not a lot of devices are using that so far so that additional bandwidth is kind of opened up more and we're seeing more and more devices add 6E Support also on the back is a ethernet port so if you'd like to hardwire it instead I'm a big fan of hardwiring these devices when you can so you pull that streaming traffic off of your Wi-Fi I thought this was a pretty cool update Amazon has added hearing aid support so you can set it up so the sound from the Fire TV Cube goes to your hearing aids which is pretty cool I thought now one of the biggest differences with the Fire TV Cube over a Fire TV stick is that hands-free Alexa control you have the microphones on it you have the speaker to respond back to you if the TV is turned off if the TV is turned on you're going to see responses put onto the TV and you're going to hear the sound coming out of your television speakers now the hands every controls are great you will actually see within the Fire TV interface and with apps like Hulu that you will get suggestions on command so you can take advantage of that hands-free control some great uses are just opening up apps so that you don't have to navigate to the app you want to do a search for shows based on actors genre any of that to call up music and have it play through your TV or your sound system you can do requests like ask for the weather and you're going to see it pop up on the bottom of your TV so many of the things you would do on the echo you can do on this now and I love that you could put the Fire TV sticks and the Fire TV Cube into groups so that you could play audio throughout the house and have this be part of that now my thoughts and recommendations on this device originally When The Fire TV Cube came out it provided something different in the sense that you had that hands-free Alexa control and if you added up the price of a DOT and the price of a A Fire TV stick it was practically the same now we have a price increase and that feature isn't unique to this anymore you now have the option that you can take this echo or this echo or one of your other Echoes and pair it with the Fire TV stick and in doing so potentially save yourself some money that opens up the hands-free control so personally I would go with the Fire TV 4K Max especially as we approach the holidays you know you get this for forty dollars you get a echo dot for thirty dollars you're saving at that point 60 bucks 70 bucks so think about that if you only have a single device you want to connect up it's nice not to have to use the TV remote and be able to do everything through your Fire TV Cube but if you're not gonna take advantage of these new features and the updates you know again I say go with something like the Fire TV 4K Max from a navigating streaming standpoint I didn't notice any processing different references now which streaming device are you using let us know in the comment section next make sure to check out this video over here so you can see why I think Apple TV is the best streaming device even with this app check it out I'll see you over there thanks for watching bye

Channel: Craig's Tech Talk

Views: 85,693

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Id: WwSmMpz522U

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 06 2022