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So you’ve decided that you want to get a Fire TV for your TV at home, work or really anywhere. While that might sound like you’ve made your decision, and now you just need to buy one. That’s not quite the case. You see, Amazon has kind of bloated their Fire TV series, with now having four Fire TV Sticks and a Fire TV Cube. All of which offer a different experience. The good news is, we’ve used them all extensively, and can help you choose the right one for you and your needs.
In this article, we will put our hundreds of hours of experience with these Fire TV products to the test. And tell you everything that you need to know about these products. Including which ones to avoid.
Specs
First up, we need to talk specs. That’s not something you generally think about when comparing streaming devices, but it is pretty important. Luckily, Amazon does provide a nice table showcasing all five options, side-by-side. Which you can see below.
As you can see, they all use basically the same processor, except for the Cube, which has twice the cores, and has faster clock speeds too. The other thing to take a look at here is RAM and storage. The 4K models do have more RAM, with the 4K Max and Cube having the most here. And the Cube also has the most storage. 8GB of RAM is likely plenty for most people, since Fire TV apps are pretty small. But always good to have a bit more storage.
HD vs 4K
The next question you should ask yourself is, whether your TV is a 4K TV or not? And if you want to future proof your streamer. If you don’t need 4K, then a Fire TV Stick can be pretty inexpensive. But if you need 4K, that still leaves you with three options.
If you choose HD
If you are okay with HD (that’s up to 1080p resolution), then the Fire TV Stick Lite is going to be just fine for you. This model starts at $29.99, but is often times on sale for much less. We’ve seen it as cheap as $15. The major differences between the Fire TV Stick Lite and the Fire TV Stick is the audio support and the remote. The Fire TV Stick does support Dolby Atmos while the Lite model has HDMI passthrough support for Dolby encoded audio. The Lite model also has less buttons on the Fire TV Stick remote. But you can buy different voice remotes from Amazon for this one.
If you choose 4K
Now, if you do want 4K resolution from your Fire TV Stick or Cube, then that makes the next choice a bit tougher. That’s because, there’s not a lot of differences between the Fire TV Stick 4K, 4K Max and the Cube.
So the next question to ask yourself is, do you need or want WiFi 6 or WiFi 6E, or if WiFi 5 is fine? If you need WiFi 6, that does narrow it down to the Fire TV Stick 4K Max or the Fire TV Cube. While the Fire TV Cube does have WiFi 6E for even faster WiFi connectivity, as well as an Ethernet port.
Do you want Hands-free Alexa?
Now the next thing here is going to be, hands-free Alexa. Do you want to be able to control your Fire TV with Alexa, without pressing any buttons first? If so, the Fire TV model to buy is easy then. That’s the Fire TV Cube, since it is the only model that supports hands-free Alexa.
Unfortunately, since the other sticks are plugged into your TV and are “off” when the TV is off. They can’t do hands-free Alexa. So why would you want hands-free Alexa? Well it allows you to control the TV without a remote, even with the TV off. If also allows you to basically replace your Echo in the living room, or wherever you Fire TV Cube is going to be. Which is really nice to have.
The absolute best Fire TV device for 2023
We’ve talked about resolution, we’ve talked about specs, and we’ve talked about hands-free Alexa. Now, which is the best model? Well we would recommend the Fire TV Cube or the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Let’s explain why we’d recommend each model.
Fire TV Cube
The Fire TV Cube is the best of the best. It’s the very best Fire TV experience on the market right now. That’s because it has an octa-core processor inside, it has more RAM and more storage. Making it perform really well. That’s surprisingly very important for a streamer. As a lot of companies skimp on those things, to offer a cheaper streamer. But Amazon did not do that here.
Now, the Fire TV Cube is fairly expensive for a streamer. It’s $139, which puts it on the same level as the Apple TV. And that’s why we’d also recommend the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Which is about half the price.
Buy Amazon Fire TV Cube - Amazon
Fire TV Stick 4K Max
If you don’t need hands-free Alexa, then the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is the best Fire TV device. It was recently updated to a new second-generation model, which offers up a powerful 2.0GHz quad-core processor, double the storage and WiFi 6E support, for the same price. You can read my review of the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and find out for yourself how much of an upgrade it is.
The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is pretty identical to the Fire TV Stick 4K, except it’s now faster and has 16GB of storage versus the 8GB in the 4K model. It also supports WiFi 6E, which is going to give it faster wireless speeds for streaming content. It does come with the Alexa Voice Remote, which offers dedicated buttons for Amazon Alexa, volume, channels, and a few dedicated buttons for streaming services. Including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Peacock and DIRECTV.
It does come in at $59.99, which is a little less than half of what the Fire TV Cube costs. And it’s just $10 more than the regular Fire TV Stick 4K.