Review #51: Amazon Fire TV (Gen 3 – 4K HDR) ★★★★☆

Normally, whenever I get a new device, the instinct is to analyse it in depth. Unfortunately, certain constraints prevent me from doing so with the Fire TV 4K, primary of them being that I have no 4K display devices at present. However, a lot of thought had gone in to purchasing this device for a 1080p non-HDR TV, even though it is not officially available in India. So, I would like to share these thoughts along with the experience of setting it up so as to get the most out of it. Thus, this article will straddle the line between a tutorial and a review, but I have decided to classify it as the latter since this article, while being instructional, is still appraising the product.

00 – The Backstory

I have previously recounted my experience with the 2nd generation Fire TV Stick and was disappointed enough to return it within hours. Since then, I managed to meet my streaming needs using Chromecast and the Smart TV apps. However, I watched in dismay as support was dropped for most of the Smart TV apps over time. At the same time, my DTH service subscription ended recently and I thought it was prime (pun intended) time to go cordless, though I presume the proverbial cord is shorter for DTH compared to Cable.

01 – The Requirements

One has to keep an eye on the future when purchasing a device and even though the present situation doesn’t demand it, it is good to have a 4K HDR capable device as long as the premium isn’t too high, since upgrades are always around the corner. Hence, I decided against settling for a device that is technically limited to 1080p. At the same time, most modern streamers offer additional features that make it worthwhile to use them on 1080p sets.

02 – The Losing Contenders

Even with the Fire TV Stick out of the picture, there was still a lot to choose from, though hardly any of the products are officially available in India.

1. Nvidia Shield TV:

This is the ultimate Android TV Box, enough said. However, to justify the purchase, one must decide whether the TV box also needs to be a gaming one. I, for one, want to leave the gaming specifically to my PC and as for the living room, I have the option of using Steam Link with my tablet. Undeniably, the Shield also boasts top-notch specs as a media streamer, but the price goes along with it. While it may cost as much as the Apple TV 4K in US, importing the Shield to India comes at a heftier price tag of ₹18000 ($275) which invariably makes the device unjustifiable.

2. Apple TV 4K (6th Gen):

The new Apple TV is the closest competition to the Shield and is one of the few devices officially available in India at a price of ₹15900 ($240). It ticks almost all the boxes like the Shield, though it presently doesn’t have Dolby Atmos and YouTube 4K support. However, while I prefer iOS on my phone for its security and privacy, being a tinkerer at heart, I wouldn’t jump in to the closed ecosystem of tvOS, especially at this price.

3. Mi TV Box 3:

This is the smaller brother to the Shield in terms of containing all the features one should expect from the Android TV platform, including Chromecast and can be purchased for $65 (excluding import duties). However, with the one-year anniversary of the hair-tearing Nougat Beta being celebrated recently, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Mi has abandoned the device altogether, probably in favour of its PatchWall interface. Things would have been fine if even the outdated Marshmallow system worked properly but even that is not the case as the device seems to struggle with app crashes and DRM. In short, the quality control isn’t great and support is non-existent.

4. Mecool M8S Pro L:

If you are going real cheap, then there is no better option than picking up one of the myriad Android boxes from Chinese manufacturers. Apart from being built flimsily, most of them, as this chart illustrates, lack the necessary DRM keys and HDCP support to playback at Full HD resolution. This Mecool box stands out in terms of having Widevine Level 1 support, though it is still lacking in the audio department. This allows YouTube playback at 4K and Netflix at 1080p. Amazon Prime Video device support is much more tightly controlled and hence it is unlikely to work seamlessly. However, most of these Chinese boxes have poor quality control and are not particularly well supported on the software front, leading to issues such as missing DRM keys and app crashes. Hence, I wouldn’t recommend going for it unless one has a desperate need to save money.

03 – The Choice

Selecting the Gen 3 Fire TV (4K) wasn’t easy as it isn’t yet officially sold in India and I had to import it from the US. This inflated the price to a little over $100 compared to its MSRP of $70. However, as all devices, apart from the Chinese ones are subjected to the same taxes, the price is inflated for all mainstream devices. The damage to my wallet was ₹6990 which actually compares very well with the price of the 2nd Gen Fire Stick sold locally (₹3999 for $39.99), a conversion rate of ₹100 for every USD. The only regret is the lack of warranty and the discounts applicable to AFTVs sold locally.

Hence, I had to justify my choice much more than any person purchasing the device locally would have to. Luckily, the Gen 3 AFTV measures up really well on most streaming parameters. It supports everything under the sun apart from Dolby Vision HDR, though it has lost support for some legacy formats (H.263, VP8, MPEG-4). For even a non-HDR 1080p TV, the improvements are immediately appreciable as depicted in the following table covering select parameters. At a Full HD level, the highlight is support for 10-bit, 60 FPS HEVC videos.

04 – The Unpacking

The packaging of the Gen 3 Fire TV is identical to that of the Fire TV Stick, which is to say that it is minimal while the use of space is optimal. It manages to pack in (pun intended) its unique unboxing experience. The contents include the Fire TV itself along with the remote, batteries and the charger/cable.

05 -The Setup (with an Indian Amazon Prime account)

It was a bit of a gamble importing this device as I had nothing to go on in terms of support for an Amazon India Prime account. The official help page only lists support for the Gen 2 Fire TV Stick but then one has to assume that they would only list the devices sold officially within a country. Plugging the device and letting it hang off the HDMI port was a bit unsettling to say the least and the HDMI extender that I had from the Chromecast wasn’t simply long enough, but at least I managed to rest the Fire TV on the HDMI cable plugged below it to provide some support.

The first issue came up on powering up the device. The US flat-pin charger wasn’t much of an issue in terms of plugging in to my Belkin surge protector without any adapters, but for some reason the Fire TV detected it as being powered from the USB port and hence displayed an insufficient power supply prompt. The charger supports up to 240V input and produces 5.2V/1.8A output, so it was weird to say the least. Switching it with a phone charger worked fine and later, I was able to switch back to the supplied charger without any issues. The only difference I found between the two was that the Fire TV charger operated at 5.3V compared to 5.1V for the Mi phone charger, though the current draw for both was around 0.45A when booting up.

I selected English (India) as the language for the device and on connecting the device with the Wi-Fi network, it downloaded the latest update for the device which happened to be Fire TV OS 6.2.1.2 (NS6212/927). Thereafter, on logging in with the Indian Prime account, I wasn’t presented with the introductory video highlighting the 4K HDR features or with the Alexa setup. Instead, I was directly ushered to the app selection prompts featuring the Indian Fire TV apps. Additionally, there was a further minor update available exclusively for the remote, which I guess was meant to sync it with the lack of Alexa support.

So, there you have it. Despite not being officially sold in all the countries with Prime accounts, the Gen 3 Fire TV certainly supports them to the extent of the earlier generation devices. I assume that the lack of 4K content and the associated connectivity required is the reason for Amazon holding back on releasing this device in India, but it does not in any way restrict one from using it to access the existing 1080p library as well as local 4K files.

06 – The 5 GHz Wi-Fi conundrum

When setting up the device, I had selected the 5 GHz Wi-Fi network and the device was able to connect to it to download the initial update. However, after that it could no longer detect my 5 GHz network and instead I had to switch to 2.4 GHz. Initially, I got the impression that there must have been an issue with the update, but after playing around with the router settings, I realized that the device is extremely picky about the Control Channel which has to 36. It supports the AC Wireless mode and 80 MHz Channel Bandwidth just fine.

While the 2×2 MIMO support should ensure better network speed than the 100 Mbps limit using the Ethernet adapter, the 5 GHz reception on the device is quite weak, granting for the fact that my TV is at a distance of over 25 feet and next to a wall. While the 2.4 GHz signal is always at the ‘Very Good’ level, the 5 GHz signal constantly toggles between ‘Fair’ and ‘Good’. So, it would be a good decision to set up the TV within the line of sight of the router and a bad one to purchase the 10/100 Ethernet adapter, if you are on an AC network.

07 – The Starter Kit

Part of the allure of an Android device is the ability to sideload apps. On the Gen 2 Fire TV Stick, the Apps2Fire app was an easy way to do so. However, it doesn’t seem to work with the Gen 3 AFTV on Fire OS 6.2.1.2 and hence sideloading now has to be done on the device itself. Thankfully, it is not difficult to do so.

The key to doing so is to have the following apps installed on the device:

1. Downloader: