Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsNo VUDU support, 4k support is flaky and usually doesn't work, too much advertising
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2020
This is now a glorified paperweight in my home. If you use VUDU or if you want to watch 4k get a different device. The only reason I bought this was because it is the only commercial device I could find that claims to support 4k, HDR with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos that isn't made by Apple. Presumably it does both. In my experience it wouldn't reliably do 4K let alone HDR or Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos. (Yes, I have equipment which does all of those. and I have wired ethernet to my router so no wi-fi problems) I think of the 4K support on the device as a political promise. It sure didn't live up to the hype. Now that I rambled a bit I'll get down to details.
No support for VUDU playback.
At least not without hacking around and downloading hacked versions of the VUDU app. Which I did NOT do. I find it amazing that in all of the myriad reviews I read on review sites not a single one mentioned this glaring gap is streaming support. If you bought a digital movie or TV show (or the odd hundred as I did) at Walmart in the last 7 years and watch them on VUDU, you won't be watching them on this Fire TV device. Simply put if you use VUDU don't buy this.
For those who are about to say use Movies Anywhere instead. I tried. I can watch about 80% of my movies on Movies Anywhere on the Fire TV. None of the TV shows are available because no TV shows are currently supported with MA. Several major studios have not signed on with MA so not all movies are available. I might have watched one of my UHD movies on MA but the problems with 4K support prevented doing more than that.
4K Support (LOL)
I can watch Movies anywhere only in HD but not in 4k, because if the FIRE TV display settings are set to AUTO it reports to Movies Anywhere that it is NOT a 4k enabled device. So MA tells me I own UHD copies but I can only play them in HD. If I set the Fire TV Display settings to 2160p, forcing the device to 4k, then it may or may not report that setting correctly to MA or other applications. Worse for no reason I could discern the Fire TV would change the display setting from 2160p(4k) to 1080p(hd) so it will once again report that is is NOT a 4k enabled device. I thought maybe it was because I watched a HD show or movie, but, no it also does that switch to 1080p when I try to watch Amazon Prime 4K content. But wait there is a work around. It works about 10% of the time to get 4K I do the following: Change the display setting to 2160; then physically unplug the power; plug the power back in; check the display setting again and if I am really lucky it will stay in 4K long enough for the device to watch part of something in 4K. Note that it internally changes the Display settings to 1080p, not 'Auto', Not the '2160p' I set them to, but '1080p' which locks the device to HD for all future viewing. No explanation it just ignores and overrides the display settings I set.
I do only have a 20MB internet connection and the Fire TV once or twice warned me I need a 25MB connection for 4K. Which is rather funny because I routinely watch 4k HDR content from my LG TV apps and from my ROKU box. I even watch those same Amazon Prime 4K shows that failed on the Fire Cube TV in 4K from my Roku. Does the Fire TV handle 4K so poorly that it requires more bandwidth? I couldn't say it never stayed in 4K long enough to check bandwidth use from my router. But when I watch 4K from my TV or Roku my router reports they usually only use about 10-14MB/s. Seems odd that FireTV requires 25MB/s for 4K. What I do know is that the Fire TV refuses to play 4K content in 4K let alone Dolby Vision or HDR. Worse, once I encountered a notice of not having sufficient bandwidth (25MB/s) Now the Fire TV refuses to play any 4K content even when I have no other internet load on my connection. That suggests it remembered that a problem was encountered on the internet and now refuses to actually try for higher bandwidth. Think about it, my connection had a burst of load and now the FireTV NEVER again tries for higher bandwidth. I understand having to fall back to a lower resolution when the network is loaded. I have seen that happen on my Roku and my TV. But I expect a device to step back up to higher resolutions when bandwidth is available. Maybe the Auto setting would do that, but then Auto doesn't work right when reporting to apps what type of display is available, as I saw with MA. Throughout this adventure I could switch from the Fire TV to my Roku and watch the same content in 4K over the same internet connection without issue. So how about HDR, Dolby vision and Dolby Atmos support well since 4K won't work reliably neither do they.
The interface:
The on screen interface is new and flashy, which is the same as saying it is full of advertising and cluttered.
I usually prefer using the remote, particularly when I am scrolling around looking for something interesting to watch. I found the interface less than helpful most times. The advertising is annoying. I stream video to get away from advertising not to have my device dump more of it front and center. I prefer to the know the source where I am streaming things from because I know which work well and which don't. I also know what services I have subscriptions for and want to scan them for content. The Fire TV interface hides provider and cost information and has no way I could find to disable display of shows from services I did not have subscriptions for. There is no way to know upfront if a show will require some form of payment until you have chosen to play the program. Which means wasting time only to find out I can't watch a program as part of my existing subscriptions. Simply, put the interface is designed to advertise and sell first and play videos second. Amazon obviously loves that, I don't.
I'm not much of a fan of voice control and it usually worked most of the time. It was OK at opening Netflix, not so good at opening a specific show in Netflix. Had a few times it routed me to Amazon's versions to buy them rather than watching the ones available from a subscription. Personally, I find that having amazon listen to all conversations in the room all the time more than a little creepy. Disabling Alexa really messes with its ability to connect with other devices and do use HDMI/CEC so if you don't want Alexa spying on you don't get this device. I don't use Alexa for other devices so having it control my toaster or order things from Amazon was of no use to me. I did not set up any music streaming as I stopped using this once the flaws in 4K support where apparent.
The only sort of positive I have to say is that the HDMI CEC logic when alexa is enabled was better than most devices. Which isn't saying a whole lot. .
In the end the Fire Cube TV was a disappointment. I was excited to get it. It arrived with great specs lots of glowing reviews. Then I started to get worried when I encountered the Apple style, overly pretty and precise packaging. It's obviously someone wanted the packaging to convey quality. I set it up and it seemed to work fine. Then I tried to get it to do 4K. Turns out for me it is just a turd in pretty packaging. I wish they had spent more time on making it work with 4K and less on packaging and having it show advertising. Time to head to Ebay and see if I can foist this cube onto someone who will think it is wonderful.
