Fire Tv Cube Review Play Music No Video
At its best, Amazon's Fire Tv Cube feels like the future.
With this $120 streaming box, which has built-in microphones for Amazon's Alexa vocalism assistant, you tin can launch videos, melody to alive Boob tube channels, play music, and command your TV's volume without e'er touching a remote control. Of course, a regular remote is still included, but proverb "Alexa, tune to ESPN" is often faster and easier than thumbing effectually with on-screen menus.
Fifty-fifty and so, the second-generation Fire TV Cube's futuristic appeal is marred by some present-day limitations, including second-rate search capabilities, apps that don't fully support voice commands, and Alexa's occasional tendency to wake up when she'southward not supposed to. Besides, if you're uneasy nigh putting an Amazon listening device in your living room, you probably won't intendance virtually the magical voice-control moments it enables.
The new Fire TV Cube does accept another perks beyond vocalization command, including faster functioning than any Fire Boob tube device to date, but it's also much pricier than the $fifty Burn Boob tube 4K, which is sufficiently fast already and supports all the same 4K HDR and surround sound formats. The Fire TV Cube is just worth the extra money if you've bought into Amazon's vision of a voice-controlled living room.
Alexa's ups and downs
Like the original Burn Tv set Cube from mid-2018, the new version is a plastic streaming TV box that measures about three.four inches in each dimension and has an assortment of far-field microphones congenital in. When you say "Alexa," a light strip on the front of the box turns blue, signaling that information technology's listening for a voice command.
Jared Newman / IDG The Fire Goggle box Cube habitation screen nudges you to try some vocalism commands.
From there, Alexa tin can launch apps, interruption videos, and control TV functions such equally volume and power through the Cube'southward built-in IR emitters. You can also utilise the Cube like an Amazon Echo speaker to play music, hear the weather forecast, check sports scores, expect upwardly Television listings, and so on. The Fire TV Cube can control smart domicile devices through Alexa besides, and it tin bear witness live feeds from supported security cameras.
With certain streaming apps, Alexa goes even further. Yous tin load specific movies and shows past proper name in apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, and Hulu, and you can launch live Boob tube channels through PlayStation Vue, Hulu with Live TV, and Philo. With an Amazon Fire TV Recast DVR, Alexa tin fifty-fifty tune to over-the-air channels and play your recordings.
Jared Newman / IDG The Burn down Tv Cube puts answers to Alexa questions on the large screen. (In the case of sports scores, it even asks if you want to watch highlights later on.)
Using Alexa with these integrated apps is fantastic, especially for quick live-TV channel changes and book adjustments. And if your Television is hooked upwardly to a decent soundbar or A/5 system, the Burn TV Cube becomes a great way to play music. You lot tin even make the Burn Tv set Cube office of a multi-room audio group in the Alexa app, then your Tv plays music in sync with other Alexa devices around the house.
Still, not all apps offering full Alexa integration, and then you can't e'er launch content directly, or fast forward and rewind by voice. Amazon doesn't publish a complete list of apps that fully support Alexa either, so you'll demand to perform some frustrating trial-and-error tests to find what works.
Jared Newman / IDG Navigating with Alexa phonation control assigns a number to each row, and then yous can say "Alexa, select eight."
This was a problem with the original Burn down TV Cube equally well, merely Amazon now offers a workaround: By saying things like "Alexa, go left" or "Alexa, select," you lot can simulate the remote control and navigate through apps that don't support vox commands natively. Bated from being a decent fallback for when other voice commands neglect, this could be a game-irresolute feature for users with motor impairments.
A note most privacy
The main caveat with the Fire Telly Cube is that it requires y'all to put always-listening microphones in your living room. To be clear, Amazon does not collect a record of everything you say—like other Alexa devices, the Cube uses an offline process to listen specifically for "Alexa," and only sends audio to Amazon's servers when it hears that wake word—simply the concept tin can nevertheless be unnerving.
Information technology doesn't assistance that Alexa'due south default settings allow humans to review voice recordings for accuracy and store those recordings in perpetuity. Amazon puts the brunt on users to alter those settings, and offers no option to automobile-delete recordings immediately. And considering the Fire Boob tube Cube occasionally mishears "Alexa" among groundwork chatter, it tin sometimes record audio when it shouldn't. While you can ever disable Alexa by pressing a push button on elevation of the Fire TV Cube, doing then on a permanent basis undercuts the main reason for having this device in the first place.
Jared Newman / IDG Press the microphone-off button, and it'll turn ruby-red to bear witness that Alexa's non listening.
Bringing speedy dorsum
Alexa aside, the Burn down Television Cube does take the advantage of being an extremely speedy streaming box past Amazon's standards. With a 6-core processor, it's the fastest device Amazon has released since the second-generation Fire TV box, which came out in 2015.
The main purpose of that extra oomph is to take sure voice commands offline, and then you tin navigate through the Fire TV's menus faster. Only as a side benefit, it too improves app loading times. In my tests, Playstation Vue loaded in ix seconds on the Burn down Telly Cube, versus 16 seconds on the Fire Idiot box Stick 4K. The Cube also loaded Sling Television 3 seconds faster and Pluto TV 6 seconds faster, and it seemed to load Netflix instantly, versus a 15-second load fourth dimension on the Burn down TV Stick 4K.
The Burn down Tv Cube as well has 2GB of RAM, upwardly from 1.5GB on the Fire Television receiver Stick. In practice, this ways yous can switch between four or five recent apps without needing to reload them from scratch, versus ii or three recent apps on the Burn down Boob tube Stick 4K.
Beyond improving raw operation, though, the Fire Boob tube Cube's extra power doesn't interpret to additional not-Alexa features, which is kind of a shame. At that place'southward still no fast app-switching menu like you lot get on the Apple Television receiver 4K or Nvidia Shield Tv, and I've yet to meet any apps that offer split-screen viewing, akin to PlayStation Vue's multi-view manner on Apple Goggle box and PlayStation four.
On the plus side, the Burn down TV Cube supports 4K HDR video in HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG formats, just like the Burn down Tv Stick 4K. That'south a broader range of HDR support than any other platform, and it supports Dolby Atmos in apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video besides.
Still a Fire Boob tube at heart
When you're non using Alexa to become around, the Fire TV Cube behaves just like Amazon's other streamers. The top of the home screen lists contempo apps and content, followed by a customizable row for your favorite apps. Beyond that lies a sprawl of content recommendation rows, mostly from Amazon's Prime Video and IMDb TV services, just with a sprinkling of other video sources throughout.
Jared Newman / IDG Recommendations abound on the Fire TV Cube dwelling screen.
As before, I still believe this layout is also disorganized and overwhelming. There's no way to hide or rearrange the home screens' recommendation rows, even though some are redundant (every bit with separate rows for "IMDb TV Free Movies and TV" and "IMDB Tv set Free Movies and Tv – Most Popular") or irrelevant (as with a row of apps for cable Goggle box networks that I don't scout or pay for). And because several of these rows are sponsored or tied to Amazon'south a la menu rental store, the home screen tin often feel like one big upsell. I also tin can't effigy out why Netflix doesn't show a recommendations row on the Fire TV Cube, even though it'south available on other Fire Tv devices.
And yet, all that home screen content does brand finding things to scout easier. Instead of jumping in and out of apps, or defaulting to Netflix, you can scroll around the Fire Tv's menus until something strikes your fancy. Amazon also offers a handy "Live" menu that shows you lot what'south on across several streaming services, including PlayStation Vue, Philo, and Pluto TV. The Burn down Television interface is then close to greatness. Amazon just needs to trust its users more and give them some control.
Jared Newman / IDG The Burn Goggle box Cube'southward "Live" section lets you quickly jump into live programming in your apps.
Amazon's search capabilities could yet be improve as well. While the Burn down Television is great at tracking downwardly specific movies or shows and telling you where to scout them, it continues to be clueless with genre searches. Looking for "classic Japanese films," for instance, returned The Last Countdown (with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen) and The Godfather among its summit results, while "70s sci-fi movies" yielded precisely zero movies from the 70s. Apple Tv set and Google'south Android TV dont' have this problem.
Jared Newman / IDG Ah, who could forget that Japanese classic, The Godfather?
Why practise the Cube?
The Fire Goggle box Cube isn't the just Amazon streamer that supports easily-complimentary voice control. With whatsoever other Fire TV device, you can pair an external Alexa speaker such equally an Amazon Echo, and use many of the aforementioned phonation commands.
Still, the Burn TV Cube benefits from existence optimized for TV control. When you say "Alexa," it lowers the Idiot box volume to listen for voice commands, and information technology tin switch inputs or plow off the TV using its born IR emitters. Its domicile screen and menu items are also indexed numerically, and so you can navigate past proverb things similar "Alexa, select two," and it's the just Fire Television set device that can simulate remote-command push presses.
The original Fire TV Cube was as well compromised in other areas, with sluggish performance, limited HDR format support, and a remote that lacked TV volume and power buttons. The second-generation model fixes all those flaws while further refining Alexa's capabilities. In other words, it really delivers the entertainment center of the future that the original version only hinted at.
You just have to exist comfortable letting Amazon and its always-listening microphones run the bear witness.
Source: https://www.techhive.com/article/584092/amazon-fire-tv-cube-2019-review.html