The new 2nd-gen Fire TV Stick 4K and 2nd-gen Fire TV Stick 4K Max have been released and with them come impressive claims from Amazon of having “nearly 30% more power than the previous generation” for the latter and being the “most powerful Fire TV Stick ever” for the former. I’ve put them both through my usual benchmarks to see if those claims hold up and how these new Fire TV Sticks compare to previous Fire TV models and the most popular Google TV and Android TV devices. Read more ›
The new 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube has been released and it has some big shoes to fill to take over the flagship Fire TV spot from the much loved 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube. Amazon has tossed around some lofty claims of being 20% faster than the outgoing Cube and twice as fast as the very impressive Fire TV Stick 4K Max, but can the new Cube hold up to those claims? I’ve run it through a few popular benchmark utilities to gauge its raw performance and, spoiler alert, as you can probably already tell from the title of this post, the results are impressive. Here are benchmark comparison scores for the new Fire TV Cube 3 against the older Cube 2, the latest Nvidia Shield TV Pro, and many other Fire TV and Google/Android TV streaming devices. Read more ›
With the new 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube being released tomorrow, I decided this was a good time to refresh all the benchmark scores for all competing devices so that everything was on an even playing field, since scores can change over time due to software updates. While no device ever scores exactly the same as before when rerunning benchmarks, especially when years have passed between tests, the two scores are usually close enough to not make much of a difference. As I retested the streaming devices in my arsenal, it became clear that the scores that dropped the most were the ones from devices that updated from Android 9 and 10 to Android 11 and 12, like the Nvidia Shield TV and the Google Chromecast 4K. The performance hit, from software updates alone, was as much as 12% in one case. Read more ›
Google released its 2022 Chromecast with Google TV HD this morning and I picked one up to see how it stacks up against all the popular Google TV, Android TV, and Fire TV streaming sticks and boxes from Amazon, Walmart, Nvidia, Tivo, MECOOL, and more. First and foremost, here are Geekbench CPU and GFXBench GPU benchmark scores to see how much raw performance power the new Chromecast HD has compared to its big brother, the Chromecast 4K, and all the other streaming devices I could get my hands on. Read more ›
Most people keep their Fire TV on all the time, so how long it takes to power on isn’t that important. However, many people power on their Fire TV every single time they sit down to use it. The most common way to do so is to connect a Fire TV Stick to the USB port of a TV, even though you shouldn’t, because many TV USB ports lose power when the TV is turned off. Whether you power off your Fire TV every time you’re done using it or you frequently reboot it to fix an issue, a device that boots up quickly can be quite convenient. I tested how quickly every Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire TV Cube model powers on and here are the results. Read more ›
Every time a new Fire TV model is released, I run it through benchmark utilities like Geekbench and GFXBench and post the results compared to all previous Fire TV models. Those tests serve as a good way to measure the raw performance of a device, but I always preface the results by saying that it’s not a good representation of how the devices will perform in actual daily use. A better indication of real-world performance is seeing how quickly each device executes the most common task of a streaming device, which is the launching of apps. I measured how fast every Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire TV Cube model launches apps and the results were quite surprising. 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 ›
Walmart’s first Android TV streamer, the Onn UHD Streaming Device, hit shelves last week and I did a quick overview of what it has to offer. While the hardware is impressive for the price, the software has numerous issues resulting in incorrect color output and a remote that can’t control some TVs, like it’s supposed to be able to. This week I ran the little streaming box through a few benchmarks to see how it stacks up to every Fire TV, Firestick, and Fire Cube, as well as several Android TV devices, including the 2020 Chromecast, Tivo Stream 4K, and Nvidia Shield TV. Read more ›
After benchmarking every Fire TV model ever released last week and posting the results, several of you asked for a similar post comparing Android TV devices. Now that the new 2020 Chromecast with Google TV has arrived, here’s a benchmark comparison of the Chromecast, two generations of Nvidia Shield TVs, the Tivo Stream 4K, and the Mi Box (for good measure) compared to every Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire TV Cube model. Read more ›
Now that the new 2020 Amazon Fire TV Stick 3 and Fire TV Stick Lite have been released, it’s time to see how they stack up against existing Fire TV models, past and present. While computational benchmark scores are by no means going to tell you how well a device will perform at real-world everyday tasks, they’re still helpful to understand how much raw power each Fire TV, Firestick, and Fire TV Cube have to offer, should you push them to their limits. I’ve run all 10 Fire TV models that have ever been released through 4 popular benchmarks that test their CPU, GPU, Memory, and more. Here are the results. Read more ›
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