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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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.
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.
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.
The new Fire TV Stick 4K Max is, in my opinion, the most exciting new Fire TV device since the release of the 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube two years ago. While it certainly could be better (*cough* 8GB storage sucks *couch*), it seems to check a lot of the right boxes that you’d want in an upgrade to the original 4K Firestick. When the Fire TV Stick 4K was released in 2018, it was pretty groundbreaking since it was the first device at its price point to support all of the major video and audio standards, like 4K@60fps, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and Dolby Atmos. The new Fire TV Stick 4K Max seems to carry on that strength and adds several new improvements. Here’s a detailed comparison table between the specifications of the original Fire TV Stick 4K versus the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, as well as why each improvement matters. Read more ›
Amazon has just announced the all-new Fire TV Stick 4K Max as the successor to the much loved and top-selling Fire TV Stick 4K. This new streaming stick slots into Amazon’s Fire TV lineup as the most powerful Firestick ever released, thanks to a faster CPU and faster GPU, which Amazon says is 40% more powerful than the existing Fire TV Stick 4K. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max also steps up its connectivity as the first-ever Fire TV to feature 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6. Read more ›
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