Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max

This is the cream of the 4k Stick crop. Incredibly fast, room for applications. And the reason I bought this, the Firestick doesn’t have any advertisements in their user interface, unlike roku, thankfully and mercifully.

Setup was a snap. Easier than Roku, even though I have setup tons of Roku’s, and this was my 1st Firestick configuration and setup, and the Firestick was still faster to setup. Just have your cell handy.

The speed of loading applications and the video performance is really quite remarkable. I was up until 4am, playing with it, not cursing at it. The icons for titles of TV Programs and Movies are also larger than the current (14 June 2024) Roku interface. Things work smoothly and integrate well. The Alexa features are useful.

It uses Android as the operating system, and this makes it more flexible than a Roku.

It is also easy to stream movies from a home media server over windows networking (smb). I’ve only found one or two that I used a weird audio codec for that didn’t have sound support under VLC on the Firestick 4k Max. This is a vlc issue, not a firestick issue.

I am really surprised the Firestick’s aren’t more popular.

And you can play console style games on it as well! I haven’t tried that, but look forward to giving it a spin.

I am very, very pleased with my decision to purchase this product, and I am also very pleased that Amazon designed a nice device with a good interface that integrates the streaming content into the main page, or allows you to select by service.

The Firestick 4kMax is an incredible device at a great price.

For various reasons, I decided it was time to at least try a different streaming device, and I figured a FireTV Stick would be the obvious solution.

I wanted a responsive device, and to try to ensure this, I figured I might as well go for the top model of the FireTV Stick, so I ordered the 4K Max. This device does not at all disappoint in that regard! It is very snappy while navigating through the UI and the various streaming apps I utilize, so I’m very pleased with that.

It comes with a short HDMI extender, which is a great touch because it makes using a “stick” form device such as this not interfere with being in the way of your other HDMI ports.

Make sure you use the power adapter it came with (or a USB adapter capable of outputting 2 Amps) because you will run in to problems quickly if it doesn’t detect enough amperage. I rather wish it came with a longer cable, as it is not uncommon these days for a TV to be wall mounted, but that’s just my own opinion.

Setup is very easily done and has nice guidance every step of the way. Even getting the remote to work with my TV was super easy and included in the first time setup guidance. The remote ended up only being able to control my TV’s power and volume, which is not a big deal, and I’m sure most individuals who buy this intend to use it as the main source of media to play on their TV.

Streaming from various services is an absolute blast and I’ve had no issues there.

I rather wish there were more big name options for aftermarket remotes, it seems like there are for every other major streaming device, but on the other hand I’ve never personally heard of anyone’s FireTV remote having issues.

If you have a non-smart TV or an aging smart TV that is getting laggy, the FireTV Stick will serve you well for years to come, go for it!

The FireTV Stick 4K Max also has an option for a service that allows you to play games from your PC on your TV, I am intrigued to try the trial of that at some point just to see how it is.

***For Plex users:**** This is in no way, as far as I can tell, any fault of the device itself. Certain movies will get stuck and after a while make an error pop up, and certain shows will result in the audio playing but the screen being stuck black when the auto play starts the next episode. I have tried everything, and I mean everything. Everything else has never given me this issue. I have gone so far as factory resetting the FireTV Stick, rebuilding my media libraries, cold starting every device on my network, and gone through every single setting in the Plex app. This has resulted in my second issue with the autoplay being seemingly resolved, but again I do not think it is the device itself, or anything on my network, because I have installed what is essentially a media player that can connect to network shares and everything plays with no issue that way. So, yes, it seems to be an issue with the Plex app itself. Unfortunately, it seems forums are full of Plex users experiencing such things on FireTV devices. Again I cannot fault the device or Amazon for this in any way. Unfortunately though it leaves me trying to decide if I should just continue using the player application on my FireTV Stick, which is connected to the only TV I use, and that is mostly what I use when I’m watching anything. If I do that, I have very little reason to run Plex, but I like its layout and I’ve put a lot of time and effort over the years in to getting it just the way I like it. I can hope that an upcoming update fixes things, I could buy a Plex Pass and see if this improves things, I could switch to Emby and pay their monthly charge, or I could purchase a different streaming device…..it’s a tough spot….