There are loads of good causes to personal a devoted streaming gadget, and Amazon’s Fire TV vary covers most of these use circumstances. With costs beginning at Rs. 2,999 for the Fire TV Stick Lite and going as much as Rs. 5,999 for the succesful Fire TV Stick 4K, the vary provides simplicity, ease of use, Alexa voice assistant assist, and entry to all main streaming providers. However, lacking from India all of this time has been the corporate’s most spectacular and highly effective Fire TV product but, the Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen). It has now lastly been launched right here for Rs. 12,999.

The Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is a streaming field with not solely higher {hardware} and specs than the Fire TV Stick 4K, but in addition enhanced capabilities that embrace hands-free entry to the Alexa voice assistant. Sitting atop a desk moderately than hidden behind your tv, the Fire TV Cube guarantees to mix the strengths of an Echo good speaker and a Fire TV streaming gadget. Is this distinctive product well worth the value? Find out on this overview.

The Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) sports activities the brand new Fire TV person interface

Who is the Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) meant for?

While Amazon’s extra inexpensive Fire TV Stick merchandise are meant for core video streaming, the Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is a way more highly effective and succesful gadget. It’s able to streaming at as much as Ultra-HD decision, and helps all main HDR codecs together with Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, and HLG. There’s additionally Dolby Atmos assist, making the Fire TV Cube an acceptable supply gadget for high-end residence leisure setups.

Like all different Fire TV merchandise, the Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is a standalone streaming gadget, and contains its personal distant for controls. As the title suggests, it’s formed like a dice and is supposed to take a seat on high of a desk close to your tv, moderately than staying hidden behind it. It’s meant to be a crossover between the Fire TV vary and Echo vary of merchandise from Amazon, though the Echo performance on the gadget itself is restricted.

There are controls for quantity, muting the microphone, and invoking Alexa manually on the highest, whereas the again has all of the ports. There’s an influence enter, HDMI, a 3.5mm socket for the included infrared extender accent, and a Micro-USB port for the included Ethernet adapter. Wired Internet connectivity is one thing that is not potential on different Fire TV gadgets with out using an optionally available adapter. The speaker of the Fire TV Cube is on the backside, and a lightweight strip on the high supplies visible prompts much like the indicator lights on Echo audio system.

All you should do is join it to your current setup utilizing an HDMI cable (not included within the field), and set your TV to show from the HDMI port that the gadget (or your bigger AV setup) is linked to. Interestingly, aside from the distant, the Fire TV Cube additionally permits for hands-free entry to Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant for voice management of the gadget and different Alexa-enabled gadgets in your house. When the microphone is on, the Amazon Fire TV Cube is at all times listening for the wake phrase (“Alexa” by default).

How does the Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) work?

The Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is the corporate’s strongest streaming gadget but. It has a hexa-core processor ( 4 cores at as much as 2.2GHz and two extra cores at as much as 1.9GHz), with an built-in Mali G52-MP2 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of inner storage, and dual-band Wi-Fi. There can also be HDMI CEC with simple setup, which lets you management your tv, speaker system, or soundbar that the Fire TV Cube is linked to.

Included within the gross sales package deal is the Fire TV Cube itself, an influence adapter, an Ethernet adapter, an infrared extender, and the Alexa voice distant. If you are uncomfortable with holding the gadget’s microphone on on a regular basis for hands-free Alexa entry, the button on the distant helps you to invoke the voice assistant on demand as an alternative. You may use it to situation voice instructions extra reliably in noisy rooms.

The distant of the Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) has hotkeys for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Amazon Music

The distant will probably be acquainted for anybody who has used a Fire TV gadget earlier than, with a D-Pad for navigation, quantity and playback buttons, fast Home and Back buttons, and hotkeys for Prime Video, Netflix, and Amazon Music. There can also be a devoted button to entry the app drawer, which is beneficial on the brand new Fire TV UI since solely a handful of apps could be displayed on the house display screen. It’s powered by two AAA batteries, that are included within the field.

As with different streaming gadgets from Amazon in addition to different manufacturers, the Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) supplies the sign to your house leisure setup, and movie and sound high quality will, after all, depend upon the TV and sound system you are utilizing.

What are you able to do with the Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen)?

The core objective of the Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is to stream video content material, and the gadget does this simply as properly, if not higher, than the Fire TV Stick 4K. The Fire TV Cube runs Fire TV OS, which supplies entry to varied fashionable apps and streaming providers, together with Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, YouTube, and Apple TV, amongst others.

Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) gadgets in India include the revamped Fire TV UI, which whereas nonetheless centered on Amazon Prime Video content material, does make it a bit simpler to search out different content material and system settings. While most issues are greatest executed with the distant, Alexa voice help makes it simple to regulate many primary capabilities with voice instructions.

The buttons on the Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) are much like what you’ll see on an Echo good speaker

The Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is fast, responsive, and largely lag-free in its efficiency. Content throughout apps and providers loaded rapidly in any respect resolutions, and performed again easily. However, I did face some points with the gadget when linked to an LG 48CX tv.

I needed to continuously change the show settings on the Fire TV Cube relying on whether or not I used to be watching Ultra-HD customary dynamic vary or HDR content material, to make sure that I used to be getting the suitable decision and dynamic vary. Certain settings wouldn’t enable HDR10 or Dolby Vision content material to show correctly, whereas different settings would show in any other case Ultra-HD content material at full-HD decision, so I wanted to maintain switching relying on what I needed to observe.

Although switching these settings wasn’t too troublesome and it did not take me too lengthy to search out the suitable settings for the particular content material, this does appear to be a software program bug that not everybody will simply determine. It’s potential that such points are particular to solely sure televisions, however the expertise for me was not as clean as I had hoped.

Alexa on the Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) can’t solely present related responses to queries by way of its built-in speaker but in addition allow you to management linked good residence home equipment together with the Fire TV interface and linked tv itself. You can use it to show the TV on or off, choose particular content material, and modify the amount. I discovered this moderately helpful, particularly when watching TV whereas consuming meals, or once I rapidly wanted to pause what was taking part in and I could not discover the distant instantly.

It’s value mentioning right here that whereas there’s a built-in speaker for Alexa’s spoken responses to instructions, it might’t be used to play music or different content material. For content material, the Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) will ship its output to the audio system of your linked tv or residence theatre setup, which for me was my tv’s built-in speaker.

This means that you would be able to add hands-free Alexa capabilities to your current residence leisure setup utilizing the Amazon Fire TV Cube, together with with the ability to stream Ultra-HD excessive dynamic vary content material with assist for key video and audio codecs. Although you possibly can instantly join this gadget to a superb tv and revel in the advantages, it is best used with a full-fledged residence leisure setup that features a soundbar or residence theatre amplifier and multi-speaker system.

Verdict

The Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is probably the most highly effective gadget in its vary, and capabilities as a formidable crossover of the Fire TV and Echo product traces. Although not very totally different from the far more inexpensive Fire TV Stick 4K in its core performance, the addition of hands-free Alexa voice controls, the improved connectivity choices, and the responsive and lag-free UI efficiency make this well worth the further value for superior customers.

For everybody else, relying on the TV you propose to make use of it with, the Fire TV Stick 4K or Fire TV Stick (third Gen) may make extra sense since they’re much extra inexpensive and supply the identical primary performance. You may additionally contemplate the Apple TV 4K, however the Fire TV Cube’s hands-free voice controls give it a big edge over all different premium streaming gadgets out there in India proper now, if that is one thing that appeals to you.

Price: Rs. 12,999

Pros:

• 4K streaming, all main apps out there
• Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos assist
• Decent UI and efficiency
• Hands-free Alexa, voice controls
• Good distant

Cons:

• A bit costly
• In-built speaker cannot be used for audio content material
• Software has some bugs

Ratings (Out of 10):

Design and specs: 8
Features: 9
Value for cash: 7
Overall: 8