This review is more of a guide for cablecutters, which we have found fire TV a great way to accomplish this. There's plenty of reviews explaining how to use the fire, so this is more for people like us who don't want to pay full cable prices but are ok with paying for access to apps to still watch all our cable shows, at a significant savings to cable, and are used to using a dvr (we used tivo) and don't want to watch commercials. We've had this box for a couple weeks now, and while it has taken some getting used to, since you have to access your shows through individual apps instead of them all being on one big list, we have found it worthwhile to make the switch.
Keep in mind you have to be able to plug an hdmi cord into your tv. We actually had to buy a new tv to be able to use this box but tvs are so cheap nowadays that it was still cheaper to buy a new one than to keep up with our cable bill. The savings in just the first several of months covered the cost of the tv. The interface on the fire tv is really easy to use and navigate through all the apps you wish to use and everything is kept nice and organized. We got the box instead of the stick because we wanted to have a more reliable, faster wired connection to our internet. At first I was sad to read on other reviews that the voice control doesn't work on any of the apps, but honestly I've never even used it once since getting it and once you sign into everything, there's not much need of typing to find your shows on other apps so I really don't miss it at all. If you just want this to watch prime tv included in your amazon subscription then you can stop here, the rest is about what apps we use (and pay for) to watch our shows. I will list what apps we have found useful and what we found we could do without.
I did the math before purchasing this, and even after paying the monthly subscriptions for ALL the apps we'd need to watch our favorite shows, we'd still be saving around $1000 per year! And now after using this for a couple weeks, it will be even more of a savings than I thought because we don't need to pay for Sling tv. The channels we'd mostly watch from sling have their own apps (A&E and History) where you can watch their shows for free with little to no commercials at all. On the Sling tv app you are forced to watch commercials, it has no fast forwarding or recording. We tried watching one show and there was 12 commercials in one of 4 or 5 commercial breaks. After using tivo for so many years, we couldn't handle it. So now, here are the apps we DO pay for and find useful:
1. Playstation vue. (note: you do *not* need a playstation to sign up for this. I do not own one. I made my account from my computer on their website) This one is by far the most expensive monthly fee, but for us it is totally worth it for the amount of channels, content and recording capability. has a lot of our favorite channels. AMC, discovery, fox, tlc, spike, fx, nbc, bravo, the food network, just to name a few! This is by far our most used app, and you cannot get it on other devices, like a roku, which is one of the reasons why we went with the fireTV. And it was certainly the right decision for us. Once you get it set up and add your "favorite" shows, it will act as it's own dvr and records and saves your shows for 30 days after they air. Most channels you can fast forward through commercials, except for a few. Like abc, and fox. If you want to watch such channels without commercials you can do as we did and also subscribe to:
2. Hulu. Commercial free plan is great, though some shows will still have 1 commercial at the beginning and the end, but I find that acceptable. Lots of cable show selections as well as some original shows. You can get a 30 day free trial, which can also include your 30 day trial of:
3. Showtime. As stated, we signed up to this through hulu so you access it through the hulu app.
4. HBO Now. Watch your favorite hbo shows at the same time as they would air on cable.
5 & 6 History and A&E apps, both free, both work great and allow us to not have to pay for Sling. I'm sure there are other channels that have such free app offerings, but these are the ones we have personally used and found to work very well.
And of course you have access to all that amazon has to offer, and netflix if you choose to subscribe to that too! We've had no trouble with any of the listed apps or the amazon box itself, setup was easy and once you choose all the apps you want to install/subscribe to, keeping up with your favorite shows is quite easy too. Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a lower-cost cable option!
Update: I have been informed that playstation vue is now available on roku as well. I haven't personally used it on any device besides the fire TV though so I can't speak as to how the interface and ease of using the app compares on different devices, but it's definitely still our favorite TV recording & viewing app on the fireTV. Good news for roku owners though!
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Cablecutter app guide
This review is more of a guide for cablecutters, which we have found fire TV a great way to accomplish this. There's plenty of reviews explaining how to use the fire, so this is more for people like us who don't want to pay full cable prices but are ok with paying for access to apps to still watch all our cable shows, at a significant savings to cable, and are used to using a dvr (we used tivo) and don't want to watch commercials. We've had this box for a couple weeks now, and while it has taken some getting used to, since you have to access your shows through individual apps instead of them all being on one big list, we have found it worthwhile to make the switch.Keep in mind you have to be able to plug an hdmi cord into your tv. We actually had to buy a new tv to be able to use this box but tvs are so cheap nowadays that it was still cheaper to buy a new one than to keep up with our cable bill. The savings in just the first several of months covered the cost of the tv. The interface on the fire tv is really easy to use and navigate through all the apps you wish to use and everything is kept nice and organized. We got the box instead of the stick because we wanted to have a more reliable, faster wired connection to our internet. At first I was sad to read on other reviews that the voice control doesn't work on any of the apps, but honestly I've never even used it once since getting it and once you sign into everything, there's not much need of typing to find your shows on other apps so I really don't miss it at all. If you just want this to watch prime tv included in your amazon subscription then you can stop here, the rest is about what apps we use (and pay for) to watch our shows. I will list what apps we have found useful and what we found we could do without.I did the math before purchasing this, and even after paying the monthly subscriptions for ALL the apps we'd need to watch our favorite shows, we'd still be saving around $1000 per year! And now after using this for a couple weeks, it will be even more of a savings than I thought because we don't need to pay for Sling tv. The channels we'd mostly watch from sling have their own apps (A&E and History) where you can watch their shows for free with little to no commercials at all. On the Sling tv app you are forced to watch commercials, it has no fast forwarding or recording. We tried watching one show and there was 12 commercials in one of 4 or 5 commercial breaks. After using tivo for so many years, we couldn't handle it. So now, here are the apps we DO pay for and find useful:1. Playstation vue. (note: you do *not* need a playstation to sign up for this. I do not own one. I made my account from my computer on their website) This one is by far the most expensive monthly fee, but for us it is totally worth it for the amount of channels, content and recording capability. has a lot of our favorite channels. AMC, discovery, fox, tlc, spike, fx, nbc, bravo, the food network, just to name a few! This is by far our most used app, and you cannot get it on other devices, like a roku, which is one of the reasons why we went with the fireTV. And it was certainly the right decision for us. Once you get it set up and add your "favorite" shows, it will act as it's own dvr and records and saves your shows for 30 days after they air. Most channels you can fast forward through commercials, except for a few. Like abc, and fox. If you want to watch such channels without commercials you can do as we did and also subscribe to:2. Hulu. Commercial free plan is great, though some shows will still have 1 commercial at the beginning and the end, but I find that acceptable. Lots of cable show selections as well as some original shows. You can get a 30 day free trial, which can also include your 30 day trial of:3. Showtime. As stated, we signed up to this through hulu so you access it through the hulu app.4. HBO Now. Watch your favorite hbo shows at the same time as they would air on cable.5 & 6 History and A&E apps, both free, both work great and allow us to not have to pay for Sling. I'm sure there are other channels that have such free app offerings, but these are the ones we have personally used and found to work very well.And of course you have access to all that amazon has to offer, and netflix if you choose to subscribe to that too! We've had no trouble with any of the listed apps or the amazon box itself, setup was easy and once you choose all the apps you want to install/subscribe to, keeping up with your favorite shows is quite easy too. Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a lower-cost cable option!Update: I have been informed that playstation vue is now available on roku as well. I haven't personally used it on any device besides the fire TV though so I can't speak as to how the interface and ease of using the app compares on different devices, but it's definitely still our favorite TV recording & viewing app on the fireTV. Good news for roku owners though!
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Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2016
This review is more of a guide for cablecutters, which we have found fire TV a great way to accomplish this. There's plenty of reviews explaining how to use the fire, so this is more for people like us who don't want to pay full cable prices but are ok with paying for access to apps to still watch all our cable shows, at a significant savings to cable, and are used to using a dvr (we used tivo) and don't want to watch commercials. We've had this box for a couple weeks now, and while it has taken some getting used to, since you have to access your shows through individual apps instead of them all being on one big list, we have found it worthwhile to make the switch.
Keep in mind you have to be able to plug an hdmi cord into your tv. We actually had to buy a new tv to be able to use this box but tvs are so cheap nowadays that it was still cheaper to buy a new one than to keep up with our cable bill. The savings in just the first several of months covered the cost of the tv. The interface on the fire tv is really easy to use and navigate through all the apps you wish to use and everything is kept nice and organized. We got the box instead of the stick because we wanted to have a more reliable, faster wired connection to our internet. At first I was sad to read on other reviews that the voice control doesn't work on any of the apps, but honestly I've never even used it once since getting it and once you sign into everything, there's not much need of typing to find your shows on other apps so I really don't miss it at all. If you just want this to watch prime tv included in your amazon subscription then you can stop here, the rest is about what apps we use (and pay for) to watch our shows. I will list what apps we have found useful and what we found we could do without.
I did the math before purchasing this, and even after paying the monthly subscriptions for ALL the apps we'd need to watch our favorite shows, we'd still be saving around $1000 per year! And now after using this for a couple weeks, it will be even more of a savings than I thought because we don't need to pay for Sling tv. The channels we'd mostly watch from sling have their own apps (A&E and History) where you can watch their shows for free with little to no commercials at all. On the Sling tv app you are forced to watch commercials, it has no fast forwarding or recording. We tried watching one show and there was 12 commercials in one of 4 or 5 commercial breaks. After using tivo for so many years, we couldn't handle it. So now, here are the apps we DO pay for and find useful:
1. Playstation vue. (note: you do *not* need a playstation to sign up for this. I do not own one. I made my account from my computer on their website) This one is by far the most expensive monthly fee, but for us it is totally worth it for the amount of channels, content and recording capability. has a lot of our favorite channels. AMC, discovery, fox, tlc, spike, fx, nbc, bravo, the food network, just to name a few! This is by far our most used app, and you cannot get it on other devices, like a roku, which is one of the reasons why we went with the fireTV. And it was certainly the right decision for us. Once you get it set up and add your "favorite" shows, it will act as it's own dvr and records and saves your shows for 30 days after they air. Most channels you can fast forward through commercials, except for a few. Like abc, and fox. If you want to watch such channels without commercials you can do as we did and also subscribe to:
2. Hulu. Commercial free plan is great, though some shows will still have 1 commercial at the beginning and the end, but I find that acceptable. Lots of cable show selections as well as some original shows. You can get a 30 day free trial, which can also include your 30 day trial of:
3. Showtime. As stated, we signed up to this through hulu so you access it through the hulu app.
4. HBO Now. Watch your favorite hbo shows at the same time as they would air on cable.
5 & 6 History and A&E apps, both free, both work great and allow us to not have to pay for Sling. I'm sure there are other channels that have such free app offerings, but these are the ones we have personally used and found to work very well.
And of course you have access to all that amazon has to offer, and netflix if you choose to subscribe to that too! We've had no trouble with any of the listed apps or the amazon box itself, setup was easy and once you choose all the apps you want to install/subscribe to, keeping up with your favorite shows is quite easy too. Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a lower-cost cable option!
Update: I have been informed that playstation vue is now available on roku as well. I haven't personally used it on any device besides the fire TV though so I can't speak as to how the interface and ease of using the app compares on different devices, but it's definitely still our favorite TV recording & viewing app on the fireTV. Good news for roku owners though!
Keep in mind you have to be able to plug an hdmi cord into your tv. We actually had to buy a new tv to be able to use this box but tvs are so cheap nowadays that it was still cheaper to buy a new one than to keep up with our cable bill. The savings in just the first several of months covered the cost of the tv. The interface on the fire tv is really easy to use and navigate through all the apps you wish to use and everything is kept nice and organized. We got the box instead of the stick because we wanted to have a more reliable, faster wired connection to our internet. At first I was sad to read on other reviews that the voice control doesn't work on any of the apps, but honestly I've never even used it once since getting it and once you sign into everything, there's not much need of typing to find your shows on other apps so I really don't miss it at all. If you just want this to watch prime tv included in your amazon subscription then you can stop here, the rest is about what apps we use (and pay for) to watch our shows. I will list what apps we have found useful and what we found we could do without.
I did the math before purchasing this, and even after paying the monthly subscriptions for ALL the apps we'd need to watch our favorite shows, we'd still be saving around $1000 per year! And now after using this for a couple weeks, it will be even more of a savings than I thought because we don't need to pay for Sling tv. The channels we'd mostly watch from sling have their own apps (A&E and History) where you can watch their shows for free with little to no commercials at all. On the Sling tv app you are forced to watch commercials, it has no fast forwarding or recording. We tried watching one show and there was 12 commercials in one of 4 or 5 commercial breaks. After using tivo for so many years, we couldn't handle it. So now, here are the apps we DO pay for and find useful:
1. Playstation vue. (note: you do *not* need a playstation to sign up for this. I do not own one. I made my account from my computer on their website) This one is by far the most expensive monthly fee, but for us it is totally worth it for the amount of channels, content and recording capability. has a lot of our favorite channels. AMC, discovery, fox, tlc, spike, fx, nbc, bravo, the food network, just to name a few! This is by far our most used app, and you cannot get it on other devices, like a roku, which is one of the reasons why we went with the fireTV. And it was certainly the right decision for us. Once you get it set up and add your "favorite" shows, it will act as it's own dvr and records and saves your shows for 30 days after they air. Most channels you can fast forward through commercials, except for a few. Like abc, and fox. If you want to watch such channels without commercials you can do as we did and also subscribe to:
2. Hulu. Commercial free plan is great, though some shows will still have 1 commercial at the beginning and the end, but I find that acceptable. Lots of cable show selections as well as some original shows. You can get a 30 day free trial, which can also include your 30 day trial of:
3. Showtime. As stated, we signed up to this through hulu so you access it through the hulu app.
4. HBO Now. Watch your favorite hbo shows at the same time as they would air on cable.
5 & 6 History and A&E apps, both free, both work great and allow us to not have to pay for Sling. I'm sure there are other channels that have such free app offerings, but these are the ones we have personally used and found to work very well.
And of course you have access to all that amazon has to offer, and netflix if you choose to subscribe to that too! We've had no trouble with any of the listed apps or the amazon box itself, setup was easy and once you choose all the apps you want to install/subscribe to, keeping up with your favorite shows is quite easy too. Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a lower-cost cable option!
Update: I have been informed that playstation vue is now available on roku as well. I haven't personally used it on any device besides the fire TV though so I can't speak as to how the interface and ease of using the app compares on different devices, but it's definitely still our favorite TV recording & viewing app on the fireTV. Good news for roku owners though!
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Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2017
