A used 1st-gen Fire TV Cube is $39.99 in “very good” condition on Woot, with free shipping for Amazon Prime members. These units are tested and verified by Amazon, so you shouldn’t have any issues because they’re used. While the 1st-gen Fire TV Cube does support 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos, it’s a bit underpowered for things other than basic streaming and will feel a bit more sluggish than something like the Fire TV Stick 4K. That said, at this low of a price, it might be worth getting for the accessories alone.
This deal includes with the latest Alexa Voice Remote that comes with power and volume buttons, which costs $29.99 on its own. It also comes with an Ethernet adapter, which runs $14.99 on its own, that is compatible with the Fire TV 3 and all Fire TV Sticks except the 1st-gen Stick. Streaming capabilities aside, the IR blasters, mics, and speaker in the 1st-gen Fire TV Cube do a much better job at controlling your home theater by voice than the Fire TV Blaster does, which normally runs $34.99 but is on sale for $19.99 right now.
Before the 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube was released, I actually used a Fire TV Stick 4K as my main device and kept my older 1st-gen Fire TV Cube connected just so that I could retain the ability to control everything by voice. At $39.99, this Fire TV Cube deal might be worth it as an add-on to your existing Fire TV Stick 4K to add Ethernet and hands-free capabilities, without needing to spend the $79.99 to $119.99 needed for a 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube.
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Might be worth for the accessories but having all the Fire TVs ever released I’d have to say this is the worst of them all performance wise. The 1st gen stick might be slower but it was released in 2014 so it’s expected to be slow, but this, released in 2018, awful stuff.
Totally agree. I got root on mine and totally bricked it trying to force an an upgrade. Ugly and annoying with the light. Not surprising Amazon has a stockpile of turns on these….
This or a 4k stick for Plex? I like the idea of hands free Alexa
For a primary device or device you use often, I’d still go with the Fire TV Stick 4K over the 1st-gen Cube. The 1st-gen Cube, at this price, is a good buy if you want to try out the hands-free capabilities on a second TV or alongside a Fire TV Stick 4K, without spending enough for the 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube.
Just to give heads up, be careful when you buy these items from Woot, I bought 3 Fire TV 2nd generation a couple of moths ago, they all came registered to the previous owner with Fire OS 5.2.6.3 I have tried everything from resetting to factory settings and they cannot be updated to the latest OS 5.2.7.4 so now I have 3 Fire TV 2nd generation with a kind of old OS that you can’t properly use with some of the apps because they require the updates, if you know something that can make these get updated it will be greatly appreciated.
It could be that those devices were rooted at some point and someone blocked updates by modifying a system file. A factory reset wouldn’t revert that kind of change. Sorry, but it’s pretty hard to help you without actually having the devices themselves. If you’re so inclined, my advice is to try to root them so that you can flash a new system image that resets any changes.
Thanks for the reply Elias, do you have any advice where I can go to find these tutorials i know there was info to this but it was awhile ago before you left, now due to time passed it’s hard to find any info and files require to do this, anyway thank you again.
Your best bet is the XDA forums at https://forum.xda-developers.com/c/amazon-fire-tv.3078/
Sorry that I can’t be more specific than that because I’m, unfortunately, out of the loop when it comes to the latest rooting methods.
Yup woot is so bad at getting things right. Ordered a 8 inch 32 gb fire tablet tried to register it kept telling me my password is incorrect. Contacted Amazon who told me the device is registered as stolen.
Ordered a set of queen sheets from them last month recieved a california king
Isn’t the 1st gen cube more powerful than the 4k stick?
Are you saying that the 4k stick will stream better than the Cube?
A device being “more powerful” and a device that “streams better” are two very different things. Just because a device has more raw performance power, that doesn’t mean it’s going to play a streaming video any better.
That said, the Fire TV Stick 4K is more powerful than the 1st-gen Fire TV Cube. You’ll mostly see that difference in how quickly apps, menus, and interfaces load. You could argue that the Fire TV Stick 4K “streams better” because its interface responds a bit snappier, due to the better performance. You could also say it streams better because it supports Dolby Vision, while the 1st-gen Cube does not. Putting those things aside though, they’re both going to do a pretty equal job at playing back the majority of streaming video.
Woot has them on sale again now for the same price.
Another couple differences between the Fire Stick 4K and the 1st Gen. Cube, are, AFAIK:
–the Cube comes with 16 GB ROM standard, meaning no more trying to squeeze too many apps onto the very limited available space on the 4K.
–the 1st Gen also seems to come with a MicroSD card slot, like the Fire TV Box 2nd gen, making it even easier to add extra file store for non-app stuff.
Sorry, I think I meant to say the 1st Gen Fire TV Cube, in addition to having 16 GB of standard ROM, also has a MicroUSB port that allows you to attach an external USB drive, for added misc file storage… While the standard on-device 16 GB of ROM for apps is double that of the Fire TV Stick 4K, which still seems stuck with an older OS that prevents you moving apps onto any external storage you might add to the 8 GB stick.