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Editors' Note: This is the well-nigh recent version of the Amazon Fire Television receiver Stick 4K Max. Read our original review from October 7, 2021 below.

Wi-Fi vi is capable of higher speeds and better performance than the Wi-Fi 5 nosotros're used to, especially in crowded network environments, and Amazon'southward Fire Tv Stick 4K Max is the first media streamer under $100 we've seen to back up the standard (the $180 Apple tree TV 4K likewise uses it). The $54.99 Burn down Television set Stick 4K Max is just like the $49.99 Fire Television receiver Stick 4K, but with a Wi-Fi half dozen radio and a slightly faster processor. For just $5 more, it certainly seems similar a skilful deal, merely 4K video can simply exist improved past bandwidth to a certain extent, and Wi-Fi 5 already exceeds that. And then unless you have a Wi-Fi vi router, an incredibly fast internet connectedness, and optimal wireless weather condition, the standard Burn Idiot box Stick 4K will arrange you just fine and remains our Editors' Choice winner.

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The Same Stick

Physically, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is identical to the Fire TV Stick 4K. Information technology's a plain, rectangular blackness stick measuring three.9 by 1.two by 0.6 inches (LWD), with an HDMI plug sticking out of 1 cease. The side of the stick holds a micro USB port, only like the Fire TV Stick 4K. A newer USB-C port would have been squeamish as it's easier to plug in, but since it's merely used for ability, information technology's understandable why Amazon didn't bother to even change the stick'south plastic casing to arrange a different port. At that place are no other connections on the device, and no indicator lights or controls.

While it doesn't experience whatever different, the Fire Television Stick 4K Max has some small upgrades over the Fire Telly Stick 4K on the inside. A Wi-Fi 6 radio (801.11a/b/g/northward/air conditioning/ax) is the most obvious addition, but it's a fleck more than powerful as well. It features a ane.8GHz CPU and a 750MHz GPU compared with the Fire Television receiver Stick 4K'due south 1.7GHz CPU and 650MHz GPU, and has half a gigabyte more memory, for a total of 2GB. For comparing, the $119.99 Fire Television Cube, which offers hands-gratuitous Alexa voice control, has dual CPU cores (2.2GHz and ane.9GHz) and a 800MHz GPU.

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(Photograph: Will Greenwald)

The stick is intended to be powered with the included USB-to-micro USB cable and wall adapter; Amazon doesn't recommend trying to run it off of your TV'southward USB ports, which might be underpowered. Aside from the power cablevision and adapter, the stick includes a short HDMI extender, in example the ports on your TV are too tightly packed.

The included remote is standard Burn Tv fare, a flat black wand with a prominent round navigation pad virtually the summit. Power and Alexa buttons sit in a higher place the pad, along with a pinhole microphone. Menu, playback, and TV volume controls can exist constitute below it, with defended service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix further down. The remote can direct control your Television set's sound over HDMI-CEC.

Fire Goggle box Functionality

As a Burn Tv device, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is loaded with apps and features, built around a friendly merely visually dumbo tile-based interface. All of the major video streaming services are here, including Amazon Prime Video (of grade), Apple TV, Disney+, HBOMax, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Twitch, and YouTube. If yous use your Boob tube's sound or any speakers connected to it, most big music streaming services are also available, including Amazon Music, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube Music. There are also thousands of boosted, smaller apps and services spanning many different interests and regions. Some games are available equally well, and you can pair a Bluetooth controller with the stick. If y'all actually desire to play games on the device, though, y'all should consider getting an Amazon Luna Controller and the Amazon Luna game streaming service for much better options than the overwhelming number of simpler, adapted-from-mobile games in the Fire Television receiver store.

(Photo: Volition Greenwald)

The dwelling house screen'south content recommendations are predictably Amazon-centric, with an occasional row of suggestions from HBO Max and other services thrown in as you coil down. Fortunately, content searches aggregate multiple services outside of Amazon, and so you can probably find whatever movie or TV show you want to watch if y'all ask Alexa for it. And if an app is on the Recent Apps bar on the home screen, content suggestions will announced below it if you lot move the cursor over its icon. The Live carte on the habitation screen and the program guide accessible through it shows gratis live streaming channels with movies and Television receiver shows, along with news and sports feeds. You tin also add live Tv services such as Hulu, Sling Tv set, and YouTube TV to the guide, and customize your listings with your favorite channels.

Similar all Fire Television devices, the Fire Goggle box Stick 4K Max lets you lot use the Amazon Alexa vocalisation banana. Just printing and agree the blue Alexa push on the remote and talk into it, and Alexa will answer your question or fulfill your command. Alexa can provide information like atmospheric condition reports and sports scores, search for content, and control uniform smart home devices. Information technology can even pull up live feeds of Alexa-compatible security cameras and video doorbells, which illustrates a small edge the Fire TV Stick 4K Max has over the Burn Television receiver Stick 4K: live picture-in-picture viewing. Y'all can bring up a live feed of a networked camera without interrupting what you lot're watching. It'due south a very minor do good, as you tin still check your cameras with other Fire Boob tube devices without motion picture-in-picture.

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

For screen mirroring, Fire Goggle box is the weakest smart TV platform available. Y'all tin mirror your mobile device or Windows PC screen with Miracast or WiDi, but that'south it. There'southward no Google Cast like on Android Tv set and Google Goggle box, and no Apple AirPlay like on Apple TV and Roku. This means iOS devices can't mirror to the Fire stick at all, and newer Android devices will probably require a third-party Miracast app to piece of work.

Wi-Fi 6: Does Information technology Ameliorate Anything?

The Amazon Fire Idiot box Stick 4K Max can stream 4K video with support for loftier dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10 and Dolby Vision. It as well supports Dolby Atmos for sound. These capabilities are identical to those of the Burn Idiot box Stick 4K and the Burn down Boob tube Cube.

The faster CPU and GPU and increased RAM of the Burn down TV Stick 4K Max are nice upgrades on paper, simply their effects aren't readily apparent in real-world usage. Menus are quick to navigate and content loads speedily, but this all applies to the regular Fire TV Stick 4K besides. I didn't detect a difference in performance between the two devices.

Of grade, Wi-Fi speed is more of import for streaming media than processing ability, and this is where the Fire TV Stick 4K Max has an reward...again, on paper. Information technology supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), which tin can potentially get more iii times faster than Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac). It also uses Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Admission (OFDMA) modulation, which lets upward to 30 devices share a single channel, improving performance in congested networks. Information technology'due south a better Wi-Fi standard across the board.

Everything included with the Burn Tv Stick 4K Max

In that location's a big caveat to Wi-Fi 6, though. To accept advantage of information technology, you need a Wi-Fi half-dozen router like the TP-Link Archer AX50 or Amazon's own Eero 6 Pro mesh Wi-Fi system. If you got your router more than a yr ago, or if you lot're using one supplied by your cyberspace company, you probably don't have Wi-Fi 6.

Y'all also demand an internet connection fast enough to make Wi-Fi vi worthwhile. Consumer-level cobweb connections generally top off at gigabit speeds, and even then subscribers won't regularly see their speeds attain gigabit rates. Wi-Fi 5 has a maximum speed (with a 5GHz connection) of nearly 3.5Gbps with four simultaneous information streams (twice that for eight, the current maximum on the standard). That's more than enough to handle your gigabit fiber connection. Wi-Fi 6 can achieve upward to 10Gbps under the aforementioned atmospheric condition. On one hand, that'southward almost 3 times faster. On the other hand, both are far faster than gigabit to brainstorm with.

Wi-Fi environments are usually far less than ideal, with multiple networks crowding the same area and factors like distance and architecture affecting signal force. Wi-Fi half-dozen can theoretically amend functioning with network congestion, so it's something to consider if you lot're surrounded by other heavy Wi-Fi users. Withal, I've maintained consequent connections and fast speeds over Wi-Fi five both in my apartment building in Brooklyn and in PC Labs in Manhattan.

If the Fire TV Stick 4K Max was a computer or a mobile device, we could run extensive tests on Wi-Fi operation in both Wi-Fi five and Wi-Fi 6. However, options with a media streamer are much more limited. Because of this, nosotros tin can actually simply run speed tests with the stick, and fifty-fifty then, it brings united states back around to the limitations of internet connection speeds and interference from building architecture.

(Photograph: Will Greenwald)

My home network is Wi-Fi v on a gigabit Fios connectedness, and I used it to exam the Burn Television set Stick 4K Max. Using Ookla'due south Speedtest.net(Opens in a new window) folio through Amazon'south Silk browser on the stick, I measured a speed of about 250Mbps. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com'south parent company.) For comparison, I recorded a download speed of effectually 410Mbps on my laptop, which is nigh fifteen feet farther away from the router. The deviation in speed between the 2 devices tin can be due to whatsoever number of factors, including but the physical size of my laptop assuasive a larger antenna, or that it's positioned slightly more than line-of-sight with the router than the Burn down TV Stick is. Regardless, both devices run into a drib from the 1Gbps maximum of my internet connection, and are far lower than the top speeds of Wi-Fi 5.

Location aside, while the deviation between those speeds is certainly of import if I'm downloading big files, it's effectively irrelevant for streaming media. If you want to watch 4K video in HDR, every major streaming service that supports it recommends connection speeds of effectually 25 to 50Mbps.

This performance follows what nosotros've seen with the Apple TV 4K, the only other media hub that has Wi-Fi 6. Basically, we merely don't notice whatsoever difference, and Wi-Fi 5 already offers the best possible streaming quality to brainstorm with.

An First-class Streamer, But You Won't Discover the Upgrades

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is the fastest Fire Boob tube device in terms of potential Wi-Fi speeds. But unless you have a Wi-Fi 6 router, it's nearly identical to the Fire Television Stick 4K, and even and then yous'd need a fast plenty cyberspace connexion and optimal Wi-Fi conditions to take advantage of any potential operation gains. (And even then at that place isn't actually any content that benefits from the college speeds you might get.) It's still an splendid media streamer, but we say save your $five and stick with the Burn down TV Stick 4K unless you already take a Wi-Fi half dozen router, or consider a $49.99 Chromecast With Google TV if you want a more Google-oriented media streamer with Google Assistant and Google Bandage. And if you're just looking to breathe new life into an old Television, Amazon still offers the 1080p-only Fire Tv Stick for $39.99 and the Fire Telly Stick Lite (which the same equally the Burn TV Stick, but its remote lacks TV controls) for $29.99.

Amazon Fire Goggle box Stick 4K Max

The Lesser Line

The Amazon Fire Television set Stick 4K Max is an excellent media streamer that adds Wi-Fi 6 compatibility for simply $5 more than the standard model, but you probably won't see a difference outside of very specific use cases.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/amazon-fire-tv-stick-4k-max

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