11/22/2023 0 Comments Amazon fire cubeSo when you look at the prices - $120, or even $60, for the Fire TV Cube, and $150 for the standard Apple TV - it's a bit of a head-scratcher why the Apple TV costs $30 more. They both work great for downloading apps, watching movies and shows, and browsing for new things to watch. What I realized by the end of testing it out is that the core features of both products work mostly the same all that really changes is the interface. I don't have cable, a soundbar, a gaming console, a smart security camera, or smart light bulbs, so I wasn't able to take advantage of some of that extra functionality - I primarily used the Fire TV Cube to play movies and TV. That being said, I used the two devices in much the same way. The Fire TV Cube also does a lot more than play movies and TV - it can switch inputs or tune into live TV, and it can control your entire home entertainment set-up and smart-home devices. The Fire TV Cube works as a standalone Echo device, while an Apple TV doesn't do anything when your TV is turned off. It's not exactly fair to compare the Fire TV Cube and the Apple TV side by side. Over the last few weeks, I've tried hard to go completely hands-free, but nine times out of 10, I opted for the convenience of the remote over asking Alexa. It's simply not easier to ask Alexa to "scroll right" rather than do it yourself, and it's not easier to ask Alexa to select a movie out of a lineup than it is to press the button yourself. I have plenty of other complaints about the voice experience, and they all relate to the fact that no one needs to control their TV with their voice. And if it's not easy to figure out on the first try, or the 20th try. I'm sure there was a way to phrase my query to get Alexa to do what I wanted, but it wasn't intuitive. No matter how I asked, Alexa would bring up seemingly every option except the one I wanted, including starting the show from the beginning, watching the film version, watching the sequel to the film, and watching a documentary about the series. My biggest frustration was asking it to pick up where I left off in a show. Getting the device to do anything I wanted was harder than it needed to be. And that's not the case with the Fire TV Cube. I use and enjoy smart assistants, and I truly believe they can be important tools for your home.īut the only way to get people to adopt smart assistants is to make them quicker and more convenient to use than typing your query into your phone, or pressing a button on a remote. Look, I'm all for the wave of the future. The Amazon Fire TV Cube has Alexa built-in, so you can get watching in an instant, rather than navigating a maze of menus and apps. But Amazon should be able to detect when customers have paid a premium for the Fire TV Cube and pull it back.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. Ads are inevitable on $40 streaming sticks that’s how they’re so affordable in the first place. It cheapens the whole user experience and feels unwarranted on a $140 product. The latter shouldn’t come as a surprise on the company’s own hardware, but the dial really needs to be turned down on the rest. When you’re perusing through the carousels of content on the homescreen, Amazon’s own selections still get the lion’s share of promotion. And ads are now taking up room in the live channel guide, which is frustrating some Fire TV owners. At the top of the homescreen over the last few days, there’s been a banner ad for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, which doesn’t even seem relevant to the platform outside of Twitch streams. When the Cube is left idle and goes into screensaver mode, you’ll see promoted movies and TV shows, sure, but there are also ads for Lexus cars. Advertising across Fire TV OS remains way more in your face than I’d like.
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