Fire TV Stick 4K Max will act as an eARC Audio Hub between your Home Theater Equipment and Echo speakers

Much like what was just announced for the Omni and 4-Series Fire TV Smart TVs, Amazon has announced that the Fire TV Stick 4K Max will be gaining support for Alexa Home Theater groups this month. This allows audio from the Firestick to be sent wirelessly to compatible Echo devices for a better home theater audio experience than your TV’s speakers can provide. However, when the feature arrives on the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, it also comes with an extra capability that allows you to hear not only the Firestick’s audio through Echo speakers, but the audio of all of your home theater devices, like cable boxes, game systems, and Blu-ray players. Read more ›

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Your Fire TV Stick 4K Max might be switching down to 1080p without you realizing it

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is a great new device, but if you picked one up during the ongoing $34.99 sale and think the picture looks a bit soft, then you might be facing a bug that some people are experiencing. If you have a Fire TV Stick 4K Max connected to a 4K TV, take a second to check that it is actually outputting in 2160p resolution because some devices, including mine, seem to be switching down to 1080p even though they’ve been set to use the best resolution. Read more ›

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Netflix begins streaming video using AV1 codec to Fire TV devices

Netflix has announced that it will begin streaming video using the AV1 video codec to certain TV devices. The list of devices to get the newly supported video codec from Netlfix is short, but Netlfix tells The Verge that the list includes “select Amazon Fire TV devices with Fire OS 7.” The exact Fire TV models in Netflix’s trial, among those that can support the AV1 codec like the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, is unknown, but your device may be among them. Read more ›

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Amazon Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick 4K Max released in Sweden, Netherlands, and Poland

Amazon has just announced Fire TV devices for Sweden, the Netherlands, and Poland. While customers in those regions have long been able to buy the global Fire TV Stick Basic Edition, this is the first time that dedicated models have come to these three countries. The 3rd-gen Fire TV Stick and the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is available to pre-order in each country, with deliveries starting on November 17th. Read more ›

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All Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max Articles & Information

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max has been released today and there is a lot of information to unpack about the new streaming device. I’ll be rounding up all the various articles I write about the new device in this one post, with the most significant first, and keeping it stickied at the top of the site for easy perusal. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions about the Firestick 4K Max or if there is something you want me to test. Read more ›

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Fire TV Stick 4K Max fully supports External USB Storage with ease

One big unadvertised but significant difference between the Fire TV Stick 4K Max and the original Fire TV Stick 4K is how each one handles external USB storage. With the original Firestick 4K, you can connect a drive using an OTG cable and access files on that drive through 3rd-party apps, but the Fire TV operating system ignores the drive entirely. With the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, external drives are fully supported, meaning, you can mount, format, and eject the drives. Most importantly, you can also use external drives to expand the device’s internal storage and move apps to the external drive. Read more ›

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Benchmark Scores for the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max — Compared to Google Chromecast, Onn 4K, Firestick 4K, and more

The all-new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max has been released today and Amazon is calling it its most powerful streaming stick ever, going as far as to print it on the box. You should certainly expect it to be more powerful than the original Fire TV Stick 4K, since it has a stronger CPU, GPU, and more RAM. But how much more powerful is it and can it possibly even beat out the Google Chromecast dongle? I have the new Firestick 4K Max in hand and put it through my usual benchmark tests so read on to find out. Read more ›

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Dolby Atmos surround sound audio is supported in Netflix on the Fire TV Stick 4K Max

One of the shortcomings of the original Fire TV Stick 4K is that, even though the device supports Dolby Atmos surround sound audio, it is not supported within the Netflix app. This is because, for some absurd reason, Netflix has decided that only devices running Fire OS 7 will support Dolby Atmos in Netflix, even though there are plenty of apps supporting Dolby Atmos on Fire OS 6 devices. Since the original Fire TV Stick 4K runs Fire OS 6, it does not support Dolby Atmos in Netflix. Thankfully, the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max addresses that shortcoming by running Fire OS 7 and it does support Dolby Atmos playback in Netflix.

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Fire TV Stick 4K Max supports Sideloading, Downloader app, and Kodi just fine

With each new Fire TV model, the question is always asked if Amazon has done anything to deter sideloading apps. The new Fire TV Stick 4K Max is no different, but, rest assured, that it’s all business as usual. The latest Firestick does support sideloading just fine. You can use my Downloader app on it just fine and I’ve used it to install Kodi without any issues.

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Fire TV Stick 4K Max finally has the option to disable HDR entirely

High dynamic range, or HDR, video is great. Well, until it isn’t. Sometimes you just want to turn it off entirely for one reason or another, so, it has been frustrating for many people that Fire TVs have only had the option to force HDR on all the time or let the device decide when to turn it on with an adaptive option. That has finally changed with the Fire TV Stick 4K Max because it’s now the first Fire TV model to include a third “Disable HDR” option. The device is running the newest version of Fire OS that I’ve seen yet, v7.2.5.5, so there is hope that this new HDR option will trickle down to older Fire TV models with a future update.

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