When Amazon first showed off its redesigned Fire TV OS at CES, we were impressed. It’s faster, better organized, and feels similar to Google’s top-notch TV interface. The update is now finally rolling out to the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, making it an even better buy now that it’s on sale for $29.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target — $5 shy of its best price to date. If you want something cheaper and don’t mind waiting for the update to arrive, the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select is also on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, for $19.99 ($20 off), which is $2 more than its all-time low price.
The new Fire TV OS update makes navigating content even easier, adding tabs across the top for search, home, movies, TV shows, sports, news, and live content that pull recommendations from all of your subscriptions. Your apps now live on their own row, and you can pin up to 20 favorites instead of just six. You also get support for Alexa Plus, letting you search for specific types of content with your voice, jump to particular scenes, control compatible smart home devices, check sports scores, and more. The update also improves the remote, with a long press of the Home button opening a panel so you can quickly adjust audio or check on devices like Ring cameras.
The Fire TV Stick 4K Plus is also a good streaming device on the hardware front. The middle child in the Fire TV stick lineup, it offers half the storage of the $40 Fire TV Stick 4K, but otherwise shares support for HDR10 Plus, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos. You also get an Alexa Voice Remote included, for quick access to apps and voice controls. For most people, it offers a good balance between features and price.
We’d recommend the Fire TV Stick 4K Plus overall, but if you just want a cheap and basic 4K streaming stick — maybe one for a second or third TV — the standard Fire TV Stick 4K is hard to ignore at $20. The redesigned Fire TV OS has yet to roll out to the stick, and it has half the RAM so it’s slower. It also lacks Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support, but it still supports HDR10, HDR10 Plus, and Alexa Plus while including an Alexa Voice Remote. You also get access to all the major streaming services, while Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can stream select games from the cloud as they can on Amazon’s other sticks.
Read the full article here
