Prime Day kicked off yesterday with a slew of great deals, but new deals are still trickling in on the second day of Amazon’s big sales event. Among them is the TCL Alto 8+ Fire TV Edition Soundbar for $119.99. Unlike most of the Fire TV Edition television deals, which have nearly all been new all-time low prices, this TCL soundbar price is $10 above the lowest that it has been in the past. at 40% off of the regular price of $199.99, it’s still a pretty good price if you’re looking to add 4K streaming capabilities and significantly better sound to your TV with a single device. In this soundbar is essentially a Fire TV Stick 4K with all the same capabilities, such as support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, and 2160p video at 60fps.
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does this have a optical input? can I add it as just a soundbar and not use the fire tv functionality? I have all my hdmi devices into a switch and optical out from tv into soundbar.
Yes, it has optical audio in (and comes with an optical cable) so it can be used as a “dumb” soundbar if you don’t want to use the Fire TV aspect. The HDMI “out” port can also work as an HDMI ARC “in” port to receive audio from your TV over HDMI.
Elias, I’ve been thinking about getting something like this but…
“Essentially a Fire TV stick 4K inside” Is there a guarantee that a device manufactured by a third party will receive the EXACT same future updates as a Fire TV stick manufactured directly for Amazon?
What agreements are in place and can we look up the track record for third-party device updates?
Thx!
There are no guarantees for updates to Fire TV Edition devices, just as there are no guarantees for updates to Fire TVs/Sticks/Cubes. Amazon isn’t obligated to update anything. That said, Amazon handles the updates to all Fire TV devices, including Fire TV Edition devices, not the 3rd-party manufacturer. It isn’t like Google and Android, where Google puts out an update and then it’s up to the TV manufacturer to decide which devices get the update. Amazon controls and pushes out all Fire TV and Fire TV Edition updates. During my time at Amazon, we treated all devices equally regarding software updates. Whether it was a device made by Amazon or a Fire TV Edition device made by a different manufacturer, they all got updated. As for track record, Amazon is still updating every 3rd-party device, including the very first Fire TV Edition televisions from 2017.
Seems like someone should make a sound bar with the cube inside, since the cube already has a speaker.