"Tiny, cheap, powerful: these sticks set new standards for budget streaming devices."
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Affordable
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Voice-based remote control
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HDR and Dolby Atmos
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Can be placed behind the TV
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Quirky interface
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Dolby Atmos support for apps inconsistent
For some people, nothing less than the best is enough. In the world of streaming devices, this means that an Apple TV 4K, a Roku Ultraor a Nvidia Shield TV. These set-top boxes cost between $ 100 and $ 200 and are equipped with the latest technology to help you get the most out of your 4K HDR television and home theater sound system.
But what if you're just looking for an affordable way to add streaming capabilities to your older TV, or what if you want a device for a second TV in your home?
Does this drive to save some money mean foregoing all of the cool features of the more expensive devices?
In the past, the answer was yes, but Amazon's $ 40 Fire TV Stick and $ 30 Fire TV Stick Lite redefined what we can expect from a budget streamer. Do they deliver the goods or should you look to more expensive equipment?
Here is our full report.
What's in the box?
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
Your first reminder that the Fire TV Stick and Stick Lite are budget devices is the plain orange box they come in. It's thin and little more than a cover to protect the components inside. As such, it is one of the most sustainable packages in the streaming world – easily recyclable and with just a few small plastic sheets to dispose of.
The stick design makes a lot of sense. It's tiny, portable, and completely disappears behind your TV.
Inside you will find everything you need: the stick, a remote control, two AAA batteries (fortunately not shrunk), a MicroUSB cable for the power supply, a USB power supply unit and an HDMI extender dongle for televisions with cramped spaces HDMI connections.
design
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
The stick design makes a lot of sense. It's tiny, portable, and completely disappears behind your TV.
For a completely wireless installation, you can try plugging the MicroUSB power cord into an available USB port on your TV. However, since Amazon includes a power adapter, I recommend using it. This way, you are guaranteed to get the best performance and faster start-up as it gets consistent performance.
Both the Fire TV Stick and Stick Lite come with Bluetooth remote controls. In this way, you can not only communicate with the sticks without line of sight, but also have advanced functions such as voice access to Alexa.
The remotes look similar, but there are a few differences. The Fire TV Stick comes with a standard voice remote that includes a power button to control the stick, as well as the TV and all other HDMI-connected devices, as well as volume buttons.
The Stick Lite remote control lacks these two functions, but it has a dedicated guide button. Pressing it will bring up the live TV guide – but only if you subscribe to a live TV streaming service like Sling TV or YouTube TV. Otherwise, it just takes you to the live screen, which you may or may not find particularly useful.
To install
Amazon Fire TV Stick Remote Control (above) and Fire TV Stick Lite Remote Control Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
Setting up both sticks is very easy. Once you plug it in and plug it into your TV, the on-screen instructions guide you through pairing the remote, accessing your WiFi, and signing in to your Amazon account.
Yes, an Amazon account is required to use a Fire TV device. So, if you don't already have an account, you might want to set up an account on another device, such as a laptop, before beginning the setup process.
You can choose from a few recommended apps to install – these vary by region – but don't worry if your favorite apps aren't among them. These are simply the apps Amazon is promoting, not the full list of apps available. After the setup is complete, you can install additional apps.
The Fire TV Stick has one extra step that the Lite doesn't: it walks you through a quick process of identifying your TV and / or soundbar or A / V receiver so that the power buttons and the Volume buttons are working properly.
There is one aspect of setting up these devices that could be improved a lot. Now whenever you download and launch apps like Netflix that require you to sign in, you'll need to use the on-screen keyboard to browse and search your credentials. It's a tedious process that Apple and Roku have made a little more bearable thanks to the ability to use your smartphone as a text entry tool. Although Amazon has the Alexa app – the de facto way to interact with a Fire TV device from a phone – there is no way to use it for text entry.
interface
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
Amazon's Fire TV interface, which is the same for all Fire TV devices, has a heavy focus on curating content for you to watch.
That curation feels more like a persistent advertisement for Amazon's Prime Video content, however. It's also very repetitive. The same movies, shows and functions are shown over and over again in each of the main categories: Home, Your Videos, Live, Movies, TV Shows and Apps.
In theory, the UI is supposed to show results from a variety of services, but I've only seen a bunch of Netflix suggestions and none from Disney +, despite being signed into both apps.
Unfortunately, the workarounds for this presentation are not very satisfactory. A search function is available, but difficult to reach and global: a search for "Formula 1" returns results from all available content sources as well as from apps. There's no way to filter these results, and you can't access a tab-specific search for movies or TV shows.
There are some major streaming services that cannot be added to the Fire TV.
If you want to jump straight into one of your installed apps, the Apps tab isn't intuitively the way to go. Instead, it requires a long press of the Home button, which reveals the four main shortcuts: Apps, Sleep, Mirroring, and Settings. Selecting apps will take you to the full list of installed apps.
Speaking of apps, there are some key streaming services that can't be added to the Fire TV – HBO Max and Peacock are the biggest omissions. There's a workaround: Virtually any Android TV app can be loaded onto these devices, but it's a multi-step process that is probably best left to those with real tech skills.
A highlight, especially for cable cutters, is the Live tab. If you subscribe to YouTube TV, Sling TV, Philo, or Hulu + Live TV, you can use the Live tab to get content recommendations from these services and see the available channels on the guide screen.
performance
The Fire TV Stick and Stick Lite are identical from a hardware point of view. So you should rightly expect a similar, if not identical, level of performance, but I haven't found it to be.
The normal Fire TV Stick is significantly faster. Not so much in terms of response time – each model responded very quickly to keystrokes – but how quickly each new screen is filled with content.
For example, if you switch from the home screen to the live screen and then back again, the Fire TV Stick quickly populates the new page with thumbnails. The Stick Lite is slower and often takes twice as long to complete the same task.
It's not a deal-breaker – we're only talking about a few seconds here or there – but if you're impatient, the regular Fire TV Stick is probably a better choice.
The only notable lag time was when I started a new stream. However, this has occurred with almost every streaming device I have used. This is mostly related to the streaming service and / or your internet connection, not the hardware.
The conversation with Alexa was quick on both sticks, and reaction times were usually one to two seconds.
Both come with 8 GB of onboard storage, which should be enough for a serious collection of installed apps. There is a catch, however: you only get access to just over 5GB of that storage.
My 20 apps installed have used half that amount, which suggests that as a power user, you may have some tough decisions to make.
Audio and video quality
The audio quality is very good on both devices that support the two main streaming audio formats: Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus. Dolby Atmos fans should be careful: Despite the fact that both Fire TV Sticks support Dolby Atmos over passthrough over HDMI, streaming app support for Atmos has been a hit and miss. It worked on both devices when Atmos titles were streamed on Amazon Prime Video (as expected), but Netflix only delivered Atmos to the Fire TV Stick and Disney + didn't deliver Atmos to both devices.
Possibly this problem is specific to my particular setup. I reached out to both Disney + and Amazon about this issue, but neither company was able to reproduce it.
Offering HDR without the higher price tag of a 4K device is a game changer.
For most people, the big advantage of these affordable streamers is that they can stream in HDR. In general, only streamers that support 4K resolution will offer HDR – this applies to both Apple TV and Roku devices.
As great as 4K is, HDR makes a much bigger difference in terms of perceived image quality because of its improved brightness, color, and contrast. Also, why would you want to stream 4K video with more bandwidth (potentially reaching your data cap faster) to take advantage of HDR?
The Fire TV Stick and Stick Lite are now the first streamers to bring you HDR without asking the higher price (and bandwidth) of a 4K device, and it's a game changer.
Granted, HDR10, HDR10 +, and HLG (the three HDR flavors these devices support) aren't quite as spectacular as Dolby Vision, but it's still a huge step up from what you'd get from devices in this price range a year ago could.
I tried HDR footage from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney + and it all looked great. David Attenborough's Netflix film A Life On Our Planet is rich in color and detail.
If you're a fan of Plex and want to use these sticks to stream HDR content from your Plex media server, keep in mind that Plex will transcode that resolution to 1080p to stay in sync with it when your HDR footage is in 4K is the video capabilities of the Fire TV Stick. However, if you do this it will remove the HDR metadata, leaving you with just the old SDR.
Casting and screen mirroring
Casting (using your smartphone, tablet, or PC to send streaming content to a streaming device) and screen mirroring (the ability to see everything on your smartphone's screen in real time on a TV) are handled by both the Fire TV Stick and the Fire TV Stick supports Stick Lite with restrictions.
The casting on the sticks is determined app by app. For example, Netflix allows you to broadcast to the Fire TV Stick but not the Fire TV Stick Lite. YouTube supports casting on both devices, but you need to install the YouTube app first. Disney + does not support broadcasting to any device other than Nvidia Shield TV or Shield TV Pro (2019).
Given that the sticks contain native apps for virtually all popular streaming services, this shouldn't be a deal breaker. However, if casting is really important to you, make sure your favorite service supports it on the Fire TV Stick / Lite.
Screen mirroring mode is available on both sticks, but only works with Android smartphones and tablets.
Finally, iPhone users who want to take advantage of this feature will need an AirPlay 2 compatible device such as select 4K Roku players, Apple TV, or several smart TV models from LG, Samsung and Sony.
Our opinion
Though the user interface is heavily geared towards Amazon's Prime Video service, the Fire TV Stick and Stick Lite are the only devices to offer voice-based remote control and 1080p / HDR support for just $ 30. If your budget is tight but you want great picture quality from your streaming video services, these Fire TV sticks are hard to beat.
Is there a better alternative?
No at these prices. The $ 30 Roku Express has a better interface and user experience, and supports more streaming services. However, it cannot perform HDR functions, has no voice-based remote control and cannot be tucked behind your TV.
To get significantly more than what the Fire TV Stick Lite does for $ 30, you'll need to spend $ 50 on a Roku Streaming Stick +, Google Chromecast with Google TV, or Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K.
How long will they last?
Amazon has updated its Fire TV devices very well over the years, and I don't expect this to change. That should keep these two Fire TV Sticks going for many years to come.
Should you buy it?
Yes. As long as you don't mind Amazon's tendency to use the Fire TV surface as a billboard for their own content and its (currently) lack of support for HBO Max and Peacock, these Amazon streaming devices will set a new benchmark for functionality in a sub – $ 50 device.
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