Amazon has confirmed that the new Fire TV experience is now available on all current Fire TV Stick models and all Amazon Ember televisions. The new interface promises faster navigation and a new layout.

The new Fire TV OS was first shown off on the Amazon Ember Artline, Amazon's take on the lifestyle TV genre, designed to show art when not being used as a TV, with a matte display and changeable frames.

Core to the new software are the 20-30% speed gains that Amazon is promising, making for faster navigation around the user interface on your existing television. That's because there's new code powering Fire TV. I've used it on a couple of TVs now, and it's definitely faster.

The redesign shifts around some of the rows that made up the user interface previously, moving major areas to the shortcuts at the top – movies, live TV and more – while there's more space for apps – up from the six that it previously showed.

The rows below the app shortcuts are mixed and don't offer a lot of customisation, with "continue watching" some way down the page. That leaves a lot of the user interface as rows of recommendations, which may or may not be useful to you.

There's no change to the adverts either, which are now a feature of just about every TV OS.

There's a new menu too, accessed via the icon top left, which is where you'll find things like inputs. As I pointed out when I first tested this user interface, you're a couple of clicks away from inputs which isn't useful for those with connected devices.

There also isn't that much you can do to customise the layout, so while it looks cleaner, there's more that could be done to make it more personal.

Amazon hasn't listed the devices that it is available on, but has said that it's now rolling out to current Fire TV Sticks and Ember televisions. If you have a recent device that hasn't had a hardware replacement, you're probably in luck, but those with older sticks might consider buying one in the Prime Day sales if they want the new interface.

For Amazon's televisions it's also complicated: if you have one of the models that is currently on sale and has gone through the name change to be called Ember, then it will update.

I have the Mini-LED model that's now called the Ember Mini-LED and it's happily running the new interface. But I also have the older QLED model, which isn't, because it's been replaced by the Ember QLED recently.

If in doubt, head into your settings to check if there are updates, but for most people this will install in the background without you having to do anything.

Amazon has also confirmed that it's coming to Hisense Fire TV models, with plans to bring it to more brands later in this year.

I'm in the process of reviewing the Amazon Ember Artline, the new "art TV" from Amazon that's designed for flush wall mounting and offers interchangeable frames. It rivals Samsung's The Frame, putting art on your walls while doing everything else you expect from a TV.

Part and parcel of that TV is a new Fire TV interface. Having just spent a couple of weeks with the Ember QLED (on the old interface), the contrast between these two menu systems is striking.

Amazon first announced that a new interface was coming in January 2026 and it's been slowly appearing in the US, where it's been met with mixed reception.

Fortunately, the art features of the new Ember Artline are powered by the new interface, so while no other Fire TV that I've seen in the UK has it (I also have the Ember Mini-LED), the Artline has been my first foray into this new interface.

It's definitely faster

At launch Amazon claimed the new Fire TV interface was 20-30% faster. That's always going to land well with users, especially as Fire TV has been a little sluggish in the past.

My experience is that it's definitely faster and I think it looks more modern too. It looks more like Google TV now, with major content types in the new shortcuts at the top of the screen, with apps shortcuts expanded.

More app shortcuts, more menu

On the old Fire TV interface there was a limit of six app shortcuts, but now you have many more. I have 16 on my home screen now and while it's not as clean as Roku's interface, I'm glad I don't have to open the menus to access those apps - I use more than six on a regular basis and I expect that's quite common.

But it's irritating that Amazon shoehorns in its own apps: Amazon Kids, Internet, Luna, Amazon Photos, all sit on this row taking up space. Some you can uninstall, some you can't.

Other apps that don't fit on the home screen are now accessed via the menu, so that's a couple of clicks away.

Key to app access is managing that row of shortcuts - press and hold the ok button when the app is highlighted to remove it (if you don't want it), or more importantly, move the apps you want to the front of the list.

I put my frequent apps to the start, and moved Amazon's bloatware to the end, off the screen.

Inputs gets buried

For anyone with multiple devices, switching inputs is an essential function on your TV. Once upon a time every remote had an input button but that's now rare. Fire TV used to have this on its main shortcuts bar right in the middle of the home screen, but it's now buried in the menu.

By buried, I mean you have to press the menu button on the remote to open the side menu, then select inputs, then the input you want. It's now three clicks away.

Why this isn't in the selection of top icons, I don't know. Up there you have search, home, movies, series, live TV and sports - and in some regions other options.

The thing that really strikes me is that there's very little flexibility here. I want inputs on that top row, but I can't customise it.

I've also mentioned that customising the apps shortcuts is limited to a few functions, and equally, I can't customise the rows that Fire TV shows.

That puts "Next up for You" at the top, which is content that's unrelated to anything that I've watched. Then we have the useful app shortcuts, then the annoying Sponsored row, then Live TV, which is useful.

Then we have two more rows - Netflix Recommends, Prime Games - before get back to something useful - Continue Watching.

Recommendations haven't got better

While the new interface is faster to use and I welcome the expanded range of shortcuts, pretty much everything else feels like it's space for rent. Sponsored rows, adverts at the top, rows of recommendations from other services.

That fact that Continue Watching is off the page makes it almost an afterthought - it's faster just to go straight to the app you want instead. That's likely what users are suggesting when talking about moving to Roku instead.

Of course there are shortcuts on the remote (which I use extensively because they're faster than navigation), as well as Alexa. In this case I've been using Alexa+, the new AI-enhanced version of Amazon's assistant.

For all the fun responses that Alexa+ will supply, it refused to return "Spider-Noir". "Old" Alexa on my oldest Fire TV, found Spider-Noir first time, serving up the trailer, so the jury is still out on whether Alexa+ is acutally helping here.

There's no reason to think that the new Fire TV will remain static: hopefully Amazon will introduce some customisation to make it more useful than it currently is, because it feels like user experience isn't at the heart of the new OS.

When Amazon announced the Ember Artline TV, it was keen to put the focus on the new matte finish and artwork that the TV would bring to people's lounges and living rooms. That's well and good, but, in some ways, the more important announcement was that when the TV arrived, it would also mark a massive branding change for Amazon.

That's right – Fire TVs aren't Fire TVs any more; or are they? Well, as it happens, now every TV that Amazon makes itself will be an Ember TV, drawing more of a clear line between 'a TV that Amazon makes that runs on Fire TV' as compared to 'the Fire TV ecosystem and software experience', if that makes sense. No more Fire TV Fire TVs, basically.

At an Amazon briefing last week, I was interested to question Emma Gilmartin, Director of Fire TV for Europe, about the change and what it means for consumers and customers. She explained that while this is a big tweak from Amazon's perspective, it's one that should result in less "confusion" for regular folks.

"I think there's a reason why we've moved away from just calling everything Fire TV – because Fire TV is, in itself, a user experience. And it's now on partner-branded TVs, on our streaming sticks, and our own-party TVs. So it becomes confusing for customers when everything is just Fire TV."

That's a rare level of honesty from a huge corporation like Amazon, albeit at a time when it can afford to say that its past branding was odd, since it's now changing the system. When I asked whether there was any anxiety internally about the swap, I got a bullish response, too, with basically no sense that there was risk to the name swap.

For my money, Ember's a pretty clean name, and the continuity of the "fire" image does make a smooth transition pretty likely. Plus, it's not like the Fire TV brand is going anywhere – it's still the umbrella under which the Ember hardware lineup will sit. In fact, Amazon has another little hardware launch to talk about, too, in the form of a new £40 Fire TV Stick HD.

Glimartin described the stick as "super, super fast", and I can attest that in person, the 30% boost in speed it's been given is impressive, especially given it's entry-level stuff. A bunch of recent Fire TV Sticks will also be getting the OS update that Amazon's rolling out, which should give them all a roughly 30% boost, too, so it's a great time to be a stick owner.

As Gilmartin put it, "the team took the opportunity to completely rewrite the code, which allows them to iterate much faster, and allowed us to scale and do different things in the future". That might mean that future updates are more frequently deployed, making for better future-proofing in the long run.

I've always been curious about which of Amazon's sticks sells the best, since there are plenty to pick from, and while Gilmartin wouldn't be drawn on any actual figures, she confirmed that from Amazon's point of view, there's no real drive to consolidate its lineup into fewer options.

"We also have this debate about how many sticks – but for some people, a jump of £10 or £15 is a lot, so for some people the Stick HD is perfect, [while] some people want to get the best, with the best Wi-Fi and connectivity". Crucially, as she puts it, "people are buying all of the sticks", so there's no single one that's likely to get chopped any time soon.

Regardless, the big Ember branding change is probably enough upheaval for one financial quarter at least, and Amazon will doubtless have multiple eyes on its analytics the moment it makes the swap. We'll be fascinated to see how it lands, too.

When Amazon announced the Ember Artline, its first foray into the extremely on-trend world of art TVs, it fairly obviously looked like it was pushing the boat out. After all, while it's been making Fire TVs for a while now, most of them haven't had a specific USP other than generally good value to offer.

Now, though, it's brought the Ember Artline out in the UK and EU, a little while after it arrived in the US, and the TV's arrival also ushers in a bit of a new branding era. All of its actual TVs are no longer Fire TVs – they're Ember TVs, with the Fire TV OS pre-loaded on them. That should make things a little simpler for people to understand, and being able to write "Ember Artline" without worrying about the "Fire TV" bit certainly is a small relief.

The Artline makes no secret of its aim, and basically takes one of Amazon's existing top-range QLED displays and then sticks a non-reflective matte coating on the screen, as well as a thinner body and cleverly recessed mounting system to allow you to get it really flat against a wall.

That sets it up to fulfil its primary purpose – looking like a matte painting when you're not using it as a TV. Whether you pick up the 55-inch version for £950 or the 65-inch one for £1,200, you'll get two extras in the package when you order it. The first is that low-profile mounting kit, which is nice to see, and the other is your choice of magnetic "frame" for the TV.

These are super simple to install, too, since they literally just click magnetically onto each edge of the TV to make it look like it has a perfectly-fitting frame. There are a couple of wood-like finishes, then a bunch of colours to choose from, and that should make matching it to your room of choice fairly doable.

Having seen the TVs in person a couple of times now, I've been impressed by their design, especially those magnetic frames. It'll remain to be seen how they stack up to other TVs in the same price bracket, though, with the comparison to OLED sets being particularly interesting. The fact that Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are both present and correct, though, is a great sign.

The TVs are available to order from today in the UK, so you can get your hands on them immediately if you like the cut of their jib. For those simply looking for a new Fire TV stick, though, Amazon has smaller news on that front, too.

It has a new version of its entry-level Fire TV Stick HD – and for £40 you'll get a great 1080p experience that should be around 30% faster than the last-generation stick in terms of operating speeds. It's also slimmer to more easily fit behind your TV without making it hard to arrange your HDMI ports, which is always nice.

Perhaps the biggest upgrade is the addition of passthrough power through a USB cable, though, letting you get power from your TV instead of needing to plug another wall socket in.

Cloud gaming has come on leaps and bounds over the last year, not least thanks to Nvidia and its GeForce Now service. Not only is it capable of running games at the very highest picture quality on RTX 5080 GPUs but the latency has been reduced so much it feels almost like you're playing locally.

That's vital and something I've savoured myself regularly recently – playing the latest games, like Doom: The Dark Ages in 4K on my MacBook with all graphics settings turned up to the max.

And soon Fire TV Stick owners will be able to as well. Nvidia is launching a native GeForce Now app for Amazon's streaming devices "early this year" that will give you access to the best cloud gaming service around, bar none.

Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon's own Luna service are already available on Fire TV devices, but the addition of GeForce Now takes their gaming capabilities to another level. You will need to pay a subscription to get the best quality, but if you do, it's like playing on the most expensive gaming rig you can muster.

What's more, one of the GeForce Now tiers is actually free. It gives you access to 2,000 games you own across multiple PC gaming stores, such as Steam and Epic Games Store, in up to 1080p and 60fps for an hour of play per session, and you don't have to pay a penny.

GeForce Now paid tiers pricing

Alternatively, for £9.99 / $9.99 / €10.99 per month, the Performance tier gives you an extended library of more than 4,000 games, six-hour sessions, and up to 1440p 60fps gaming. And finally, for £19.99 / $19.99 / €21.99 per month, Ultimate ups the servers to RTX 5080 quality, and adds eight-hour sessions and up to 4K and 240fps gaming.

It's also worth noting that if you have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and link it with your account, you can also play a large selection of the Game Pass titles through GeForce Now too – at higher quality than on Xbox Cloud Gaming, if you subscribe to Nvidia's Ultimate tier.

The new GeForce Now app for Fire TV will roll out to the Fire TV Stick 4K Plus (2nd Gen) and Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Gen) first, with other devices to follow after. It will be available in all countries where the supported streaming devices and GeForce Now are offered.

Shortly before Amazon announced a new addition to its Fire TV Stick lineup, it was rumoured that the tech giant was about to ditch its long used and well tested Android-based software, Fire OS.

I therefore wrote a piece about how concerned I was about the move. Even though existing Fire TV devices wouldn't be affected, what would that mean for future streamers and televisions? After all, asking rival streaming services to build apps for a new, dedicated platform could prove tricky.

Just ask Huawei how things initially went when its Google Play Store ban was enforced.

It turned out the rumour was correct. During its October hardware event, Amazon announced its own new system, Vega OS, which is being used in the all-new Fire TV Stick Select. And app support is indeed said to be thin on the ground.

It's claimed that the likes of Netflix and Disney+ have not created native Vega OS apps, and the Select will therefore not have them installed on launch.

But it's also said that they will be available on the device despite that, and the solution is actually quite ingenious.

Will the Amazon Fire TV Stick Select support Netflix and Disney+

According to Lowpass, Amazon's new, inexpensive streaming stick will offer all of the same streaming services as current and former models – the ones that run on Fire OS.

That's because, instead of hosting them locally – ie. installed on the device – they will be streamed over the cloud. That includes the menus and all.

Currently, when you start Netflix on a Smart TV, for example, the app will load on your television, with all the metadata, artwork and details being populated from the internet but shown by the locally stored software. It's only when you click on something to watch that the show starts to stream.

Where the Fire TV Stick Select version will work differently is that the streaming starts as soon as you open the app. Every part of the process is hosted on AWS (Amazon Web Services) servers elsewhere.

It's much like playing a cloud game through Xbox Cloud Gaming or Nvidia's GeForce Now – except latency is less important when it comes to watching video or interacting with a fairly basic menu. You aren't relying on split second actions.

The end user is unlikely to even notice the difference between opening Netflix natively or streaming the entire experience over the cloud. In many ways, this could and maybe should end up being the new normal.

Why will app streaming be better than local downloads?

In the case of the Fire TV Select, the main benefit of hosting unsupported apps in the cloud is obvious – software that wouldn't normally work on the platform can still be used. However, the implications of the technology goes further than that.

For starters, you can run fairly complicated software on a simple, inexpensive device. As long as its CPU is capable of receiving and playing 4K HDR (Dolby Vision) video and up to Dolby Atmos sound, it can handle any streamed app. It's the server at the other end doing the grunt work.

Game streaming is a perfect example – you can play Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K and at 120 frames per second, with full ray tracing and other high performance graphical settings on a 10 year old MacBook through GeForce Now (with the right subscription). Nvidia hosts the very best hardware its end, which runs the game, while the MacBook only needs to decode the video feed and send control codes in the other direction.

Another benefit is that your Fire TV streamer or television could have a much longer lifespan. There have been reports of older Smart TVs losing the likes of Netflix and, ironically, Amazon Prime Video because their processing isn't up to today's standards. But with cloud streaming front and back, apps can be updated at source – the demands to play the video stream remains the same.

In all honesty, I still need to test the Amazon Fire TV Stick Select myself to see just how well it handles the process. But just the concept already has me intrigued.

If it works as well as I suspect, it might be that rival streaming services and other app developers need never make dedicated Vega OS versions, and considering a Fire TV device is by its very nature, persistently connected to the internet, it seems almost a no-brainer that this could be the future for streaming devices full stop.

It might even drive their prices down.

Amazon has confirmed that Prime Big Deal Days 2025 will take place across 7 - 8 October.

The new major sales event will start at a 00:01 on 7 October and run through until the end of play, 23:59, the following day. You'll be able to find all the biggest deals on the main Amazon Prime Big Deal Days hubs in the UK and in the US.

As with previous years, there will be massive discounts on home, tech, toys and many other products – up to 40% off in many cases – and this time Amazon's Rufus AI shopping assistant can help with personalised suggestions.

There's also another new feature this year, with "New Deal Drop" offers appearing throughout the event. And just keep checking back on T3, as we'll be bringing you our own favourite deals up to and through Prime Big Deal Days.

Certainly, there will be thousands of them on Amazon over the two days, and the event enables the retailer to get ahead of the game prior to Black Friday.

Unlike Black Friday though, you will need to be an Amazon Prime member to take advantage of the Prime Big Deal Days sales. However, all new subscribers get a month's free trial first, you can sign up soon before the deals start and cancel afterwards.

Of course, you might not want to consider all the additional benefits Prime membership offers - such as free same or next-day delivery, Prime Gaming, Amazon Music Prime and much more. If you do stick around, it'll cost you £8.99 / $14.99 / €8.99 per month or £95 / $139 / €89.90 per year, which is reasonable considering it also includes Prime Video streaming.

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days: the sales and the products

As for the sales themselves, like Prime Day, we expect the new sales period to be a great time to grab an Amazon device, such as a Fire TV Stick, or Echo speaker. You should also find some amazing TV deals.

This summer, LG OLED TVs were available with massive discounts. There was also a great deal on a Philips Ambilight set, so we could see some big price drops on smart TVs.

And, there are plenty of Lightning Deals to be had too – short-term offers that tend to give you major discounts on products from all manner of categories, including whisky, mattresses, video games, Blu-rays, vinyl records, clothes, and much more. They tend to sell out fast and are time limited, so you'll need to be quick off the mark.

To help you spot the best amongst the 100s of products on offer, don't forget that T3 will be here to guide you to unmissable bargains. Just check out our in-depth guide on Amazon Prime Big Deals Day to find out more and join us during the days themselves to keep up to date. It could save you a bundle.

Amazon Fire TV is everywhere, powering some of the best streaming devices, as well as being the interface of choice for some TVs – from Amazon's own models to Panasonic's flagship televisions. However, there's the hint of a change that could lessen the experience.

Currently, when you land on the Fire TV home screen, you're greeted with a navigation menu across the centre of the page including your inputs, live TV and thumbnails to the streaming services you use the most.

When you scroll across to one of those apps, content appears on the screen below, giving thumbnails to continue watching from those services. It's a friendly implementation of direct access to content within apps – while some services just give you an icon and expect you to click through to see the actual content.

Doing the rounds online are tales of a different version of the home screen appearing on some Fire TV devices. According to AFTVnews, some users are seeing that navigation bar with no streaming services – it's just the navigation elements to the left, with the rest of the bar being blank.

That leaves the rival streaming services (or rather app icons) further down the page and slightly less accessible. In reality, it's only a few clicks away, but it means that services like Netflix and Disney+ have less prominence.

Amazon's thinking here might be that users will be more likely to click on other content offered up for discovery, and that leans towards Prime Video. This layout was reportedly tested in 2024 and its return suggests that Amazon might be having another go at it.

How do people find new content?

The Fire TV layout has evolved over the last few years, with the top section not only promoting Amazon shows, but also housing advertising. This auto plays with audio, taking over most of the screen if you give it the chance.

Thankfully, there's the option to stop auto play audio and video in the menu. Just head to Settings > Preferences > Featured Content and you can turn it off, but not remove it.

More recently, a second advertising bar has appeared on my Fire TV, showing straight-up shopping suggestions. Together, that means that more than 50% of the screen real estate is an advert.

However, both the increase in advertising and the idea of reducing the prominence of app icons raises the question of how people actually find content. After all, the remote has shortcuts to major streaming services which differs by region, but usually includes Netflix and Disney+, alongside Prime Video and one other.

But I've always found that discovery suggestions are rather poor, no matter the platform. From Sky OS, webOS, Tizen OS, Google TV through to Fire TV OS, when I want to find something to watch, I go straight to the app, rather than rely on what the TV wants to push to me.

Removing the icons might mean that I have to scroll down the page a little to open an app (if there's no shortcut on the menu) and that's going to be irritating rather than pushing me to watch something else.

Ultimately, all Fire TV devices support Alexa – either though the button on the remote or handsfree through the TV – and that's a perfectly good way to open streaming services.

That might be Amazon's thinking – especially as its starts to prep for its Alexa+ rollout.

If you're the proud owner of an Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series, or plan to buy one soon, you'll be pleased to hear that a new update introduces a couple of interesting features.

First teased when Amazon refreshed its flagship TV lineup in November last year, Interactive Art is now part of the Fire TV's Ambient Experience and will respond to movement in front of the set.

When activated by the TV's high-fidelity radar, the mode will display one of 10 animated scenes on the screen. These include fluttering butterflies, swimming koi carp, and colourful tiles.

You will need to turn on the option, which can be found inside the Ambient Experience menu, although you can use your voice to do so, using Alexa.

The new feature joins the existing 2,000+ images that can be displayed on your screen when the TV's not in use.

Dual Audio for the hard of hearing

The other main feature to arrive with the update is Dual Audio. This is especially useful for those with hearing loss, as it enables users to pair their hearing aids to the Fire TV Omni Mini-LED to access a direct audio stream.

This can be done with the normal TV speakers working in tandem, so other family members can watch the same programming as per usual.

The new mode can be activated through the Accessibility settings.

What is the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series?

Amazon launched its Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series models at the tail end of last year. The range comes in 55-, 65- and 75-inch screen sizes and each set features a Mini-LED panel for greater contrast and deeper black levels.

They also each come with 144Hz refresh rates for modern gaming use, plus Dolby Vision IQ and HDR 10+ Adaptive technology support which can adapt the HDR playback effect dependent on the ambient lighting in your room.

Dolby Atmos audio is also supported.

The Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series models usually start at £849.99 / $999.99 but are currently available with big discounts in both the UK and US.

With its first Fire TV Omni Mini-LED 4K TV, Amazon has stepped up its flatscreen game, with a screen that blends premium display technology with a suite of Alexa-endorsed smart features. It's an interesting approach, and aims to be one of the best TVs under £1000 you can find, even good enough to compete with the best OLED sets out there.

The retail giant’s first foray into the smart TV market was very much aimed at bargain buyers, but with the adoption of Mini-LED backlighting, it’s clearly hoping to win over savvy purchasers who demand more of their picture quality too. The result is a telly that should appeal to boxset bingers, gamers, and smart-home users alike.

Is the Amazon Omni Mini-LED TV worth it?

The Mini-LED Omni is available in three screen sizes: 55-, 65- and 75-inches. In the UK, these sell for £850, £1,150 and £1,599 respectively. In the US, the trio is joined by an 85-inch model; they sell for $740, $1,040, $1,440 and $1,970 respectively. The line-up is not currently available in Australia.

The aggressive pricing puts them in the same ballpark as competitive models from Toshiba, TCL, Bush and Hisense. For this review, we hauled the cheaper 55-inch model onto our test bench – and you can see its best price in the live shopping widget embedded above.

Are Amazon's Omni TVs well made?

This Omni Mini-LED TV makes a great first impression. With its slim profile, small bezel and tidy feet, it’ll fit neatly into any modern living space. Despite the lightweight build, the set feels reasonably robust and well-constructed.

Two elongated feet slot onto either end of the screen. This means you’ll need generously wide AV furniture, if you’re not planning to wall-mount the set instead.

Of the four HDMI ports, only two support 4K/120Hz high frame-rate (HFR) gameplay; one HDMI is also eARC enabled, for streaming audio to an external sound system. There’s Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth for wireless connectivity.

Unsurprisingly, the Omni Mini-LED is built around the Fire TV platform. All major streaming services are available, including Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Apple TV+ – even BBC iPlayer in the UK – although using this interface to access TV-specific settings feels long-winded.

Streaming aside, the set also offers a Fire TV Ambient Experience, which ostensibly turns the screen into an interactive display when not in use. There are apparently 2,000 pieces of artwork to view, as well as customisable widgets for weather or news.

The Omni is also one of a growing band of TVs that offers Freely linear TV in the UK. Developed by the folks behind Freeview, Freely delivers free-to-air channels (the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5, plus others) via Wi-Fi, without any need to connect an aerial, which is undeniably handy.

The accompanying Fire TV remote control is both familiar and intuitive, sporting a streamlined layout with dedicated buttons for Prime Video, Netflix, Amazon Music and Freely. A built-in microphone supports hands-free Alexa commands, useful for content searches and controlling smart home devices.

Like Sky Glass, the set turns itself on when you walk into the room, but unlike Glass it tends to stay awake for hours. No doubt I inadvertently activated this mode during installation, but never quite mustered the enthusiasm to dig deep and turn the setting off, even though I found it quite annoying.

Finally, console gamers will be happy with the TV’s latency. I measured input lag at 13.4ms (1080p/60) with the set in its Game setting. Not too shabby.

Is Amazon's Omni Mini-LED as good as other TV brands?

This new Mini-LED display has 512 dimming zones (in its 55-inch size), and offers decent contrast, convincing black levels, and appreciable high dynamic range (HDR) peak highlights. There’s a vibrancy to its images I’ve not seen on previous Amazon own-brand Fire TVs. The set supports all major HDR formats, too, including Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+, and HLG – ensuring optimised content playback, no matter the source.

I measured 1191 nits of peak brightness (using a 10 per cent patch), with the set in Vivid mode. This suits both dark room movie nights and bright room daytime viewing. Dim the house lights, and those black bars which sandwich letterboxed movies remain appreciably dark.

But there are limitations to its range, particularly when it comes to low-level shadow detail. Shows with a restricted colour palette, like The Agency on Paramount+, can look a little flat. The set certainly doesn’t have the dynamic bite of an OLED. It's best with brightly lit sports, vibrant animation and brightly lit studio fare.

In the default Standard picture mode, there’s a slight drop off in peak HDR brightness, with 1082 nits measured. This is still impressive for what is essentially a mid-range telly. Colours are knocked back, but not aggressively so. Motion handling is reasonably good, without too much blur or judder.

Gaming looks consistently good, with punchy colours, and blisteringly sharp detail. That 4K/120Hz refresh rate ensures fast, smooth gameplay, and is quite a treat with colourful shooters like Overwatch. PC gamers will similarly appreciate the 144Hz mode and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro support, which reduces latency and ensures smooth, tear-free visuals.

Sadly, the Omni’s sound system, powered by two 12W speakers, is serviceable but ultimately unremarkable. Dialogue is clear enough, even during argumentative dramas, and it manages to avoid the sonic thinness often associated with low-cost LED TV designs, but those seeking a more immersive Dolby Atmos experience should definitely consider pairing the TV with the best soundbar they can afford, or an external audio system, via the eARC port.

Alternatively, you can always partner the set with your favourite Bluetooth headphones, for private listening. I paired the set with Marshall Monitor III ANC over-ears, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, rocking out with concerts on YouTube, in fulsome stereo.

Amazon Omni Mini-LED TV review: Verdict

Amazon has taken a big step forward with its Omni Mini-LED debutant. The set offers a fine picture performance for the asking price, with likeable colours, deep contrast and impressive HDR highlights.

Finely honed Fire TV features and Alexa integration ensure a highly interactive experience. If you’re already an Amazon Prime subscriber, you’ll feel quite at home navigating around (and if you’re not then maybe consider a Roku or Tivo-powered smart TV instead).

While I’d like 4K/120Hz high frame rate support across all four HDMI inputs, and the sound will have you reaching for a soundbar, I find what’s on offer at this price point is impressive. The slim design looks great and for those seeking a better-than-budget TV performance, without breaking the bank, Amazon's Mini-LED set is a solid option.

Also consider

For other impressive TVs that won’t break the bank, you should check out an LG OLED C2 (or C3/C4), which is now a few generations old in terms of LG's OLED tech, but therefore more affordable and still fantastic to look at. It's amazing for gamers, too, but it does miss out on some of the Freely convenience offered by Amazon's newer TV.

Another all-in-one option is Sky Glass. There’s no aerial or dish required, as the set also receives its bouquet of channels over the Internet. What’s more, the price of the screen is bundled into your chosen subscription deal and channel package. In addition to Sky’s own channel selection, there are integrated apps from Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+ and others. Picture quality is very good, while audio, courtesy of a 215W Dolby Atmos sound system, is excellent. There’s no support for 4K/120Hz gaming though, which could be a deal breaker for console owners.

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick is one of the most popular streaming devices, an affordable accessory you can use to upgrade your television and make sure you have access to all the apps and services that you want.

In fact, we rate the Fire TV Stick 4K Max as the best streaming stick out there, but we also acknowledge that it leans heavily towards Amazon’s content. If that’s a concern for you, then this latest update might not be too popular.

A recent update to the Fire TV devices has removed the option to hide certain apps from view. Previously, you could hit the menu button when on an app and in the list of options you could move, get more info, uninstall (in some cases) and hide.

The latter is particularly useful if there’s an app that’s pre-installed that you can’t uninstall, but you don’t want in your list. For example, as pointed out by aftvnews.com, if you want to hide the Freevee app now that it’s being discontinued, you can’t.

It also means you have more apps cluttering up your view. Previously, each profile on the Fire TV device would be able to hide apps, allowing for greater personalisation, but now if an app is installed by any user, every user will see that app. That means if the kids use Twitch but you don’t, you can’t hide it from your own view, so you have to navigate around it when using your Fire TV.

I’ve confirmed this to be the case on the Panasonic Z95A, while the original source says that it’s confirmed on a first-gen Fire TV Stick 4K, as well as the latest Fire TV Stick 4K Max, so it’s likely to come to all devices that run Fire OS as they get updated.

Fire OS has been criticised for adverts in recent years, as well as for pushing content or services that need a subscription. For some, this is a reason to choose a streaming device like the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, which offers similar performance, but with a simpler interface that basically just provides quick access to apps.

Amazon’s devices do have advantages though: with Alexa searching for content, as well as offering all the normal Alexa services, the Fire OS experience is one that’s well connected. It also has access to Xbox cloud gaming, meaning it offers plenty when you’re looking to upgrade your TV.

The Amazon Fire TV Cube is one of the best streaming devices available, thanks to its wide range of features and hands-free voice control.

By having it hooked up to your TV, you’ll be able to stream 4K content from all the best streaming services, use voice commands to search for shows, control your other smart home devices – such as your lights – and even get answers to your questions about everything from the weather to the news.

It’ll be best used alongside one of the best TVs (and a 4K Ultra-HD one, no less) and you can even use it with your games consoles, such as PS5 Pro or Xbox Series X. It supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+ high dynamic range format, plus Dolby Atmos surround sound (if you have output for it) to deliver high-quality picture and sound.

So is the Fire TV Cube worth splashing out on, instead of buying something more stripped-back and affordable, like the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K? Keep reading to find out...

Amazon Fire TV Cube: Price & Availability

The Amazon Fire TV Cube is available to buy from Amazon US, UK and Australia. At the time of writing it will set you back £139.99 / $139.99 / AU$219 – but it is regularly discounted, especially during sales like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday.

Amazon Fire TV Cube review: What’s new?

The Amazon Fire TV Cube is the most advanced and feature-packed streamer with the Fire TV interface. This is the third-generation of the Amazon Fire TV Cube, improving on the first with a new HDMI In port to connect games consoles or set-top boxes, a USB-A port to connect peripherals like a mouse or webcam, improved performance, faster response times and Wi-Fi to 6E speeds.

Thanks to a built-in speaker and microphones, you’ll be able to control it completely hands-free through the Alexa voice assistant. That means you can use it just like a smart speaker to control your smart home devices, such as your lights or a coffee machine (if you have a fancy and smart one anyway!). You can even use it to get a live view from a compatible video doorbell or smart security camera.

When you’re not feeling like talking, it comes with the Alexa Voice Remote Enhanced – which you can use to navigate the operating system and control the TV, so you can use it to turn the set on or off, change the volume, and so on.

Amazon Fire TV Cube review: Performance

The Cube can stream TV shows and movies in resolutions up to 4K for those with compatible TVs and app subscriptions, delivering clear and detailed picture quality with vibrant colours and a good level of contrast. If you don't need 4K as your TV can't cater for that, then you might want to save and buy a basic Fire TV Stick instead.

As well as that, Dolby Vision enhances the look of certain compatible content, while Dolby Atmos delivers a more immersive surround sound experience. If you don’t already pay for services with those features, then it will be worth the upgrade. So long as you have decent enough kit that can output such visual and audio levels.

You can use the Amazon Fire TV Cube as a speaker, but I didn't rely on it for anything other than simple voice commands and questions. Playing music of any kind will leave you a little disappointed, as the audio delivery is flat and quiet – lacking both clarity and precision. I’ll be sticking to my regular Echo Studio for listening to playlists and entertaining guests.

Thanks to Wi-Fi 6E, I found the Cube loaded new pages and apps quickly, although that will depend a lot on your internet speed at home.

Amazon Fire TV Cube review: Design & Usability

As you may have guessed from the name, the Fire TV Cube is box-shaped. It has a control panel on top, framed with the Alexa light strip and fabric mesh wrapped around its body. There are buttons to increase or decrease the volume, mute the microphone and manually summon the voice assistant.

On the back, there are six ports: an HDMI Out to connect it to your TV, an HDMI In to hook up a console or set-top box, the power input, an IR extender, a USB port and the Ethernet port. Annoyingly you don’t get an HDMI cable included in the box, so you’ll need to buy that separately if you don’t already have one.

You can control the system using voice commands like “Alexa, show me comedy films”, or using the included Alexa Voice Remote – which you can also use to control the TV itself (to turn it on or off and control the volume).

You'll know when the speaker is listening because the light strip circles in blue. Every time I said "Alexa" the speaker quickly picked up the sound of my voice, and for the most part searches were accurate – although it did occasionally misunderstand me.

One thing I wouldn’t use voice commands for was to look through the interface, as it's a very slow way of doing things – the navigation pad on the remote is much easier to use if you’re not sure what you’re looking for.

The remote is pretty straightforward with all the buttons you’d expect. That includes volume controls, a power button, skip and pause buttons. There are also a couple of useful extras, like an Alexa button to call the voice assistant, a settings button, and four others that take you directly to popular streaming apps (Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Music).

Overall, the Fire TV operating system is very easy to use, albeit a little overcrowded with Prime Video recommendations and Amazon adverts. Oh yes, the adverts, it's the same with Fire TV on Panasonic Z95A OLED TV, though, so no surprise.

You can access all the streaming apps you’d expect, as well as more obscure ones like Crunchyroll and Hayu. Other services such as YouTube and Spotify are also available, and there's a section to find live TV (that does take you through to the channel's catch-up app, though).

You can pin your most used apps to the navigation bar at the top of the home screen, and below that there are several reels with content recommendations including options to rent or buy.

Amazon Fire TV Cube review: Verdict

The Amazon Fire TV Cube is one of the most powerful streamers you can buy, and the added benefit of hands-free voice control makes it one of the easiest to use as well – if that's how you like to do things.

As long as your TV, soundbar and streaming apps are compatible, you’ll be able to watch TV shows and movies in crystal clear 4K quality with immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound. Just make sure you possess the kind of kit that will make that both look and sound worthy.

The Cube can be used just like any other Alexa speaker, which virtually gives you two devices in one, both of which I would use regularly. The only major downside is that the speaker isn’t particularly good, so you’ll need to play music through another device, as this won’t be a replacement for a home speaker.

Also consider

If you don’t necessarily need hands-free Alexa and you’d prefer something a little more discreet with a lot of the same capabilities, take a look at the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max instead. It plugs directly into the back of your TV and will give you the same interface as the Cube, with a lot of the same features including 4K streaming, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and Live View. You won’t be able to plug your other devices like a games console into it, though.

The Apple TV 4K is another premium streamer to consider. It has top-level performance and a simple but aesthetically pleasing operating system featuring plenty of tailored content recommendations. It supports 4K UHD, voice control, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. You will also get access to Apple Arcade games.

We've long held that almost anyone who doesn't have a soundbar under their main TV is probably missing a major trick – some of the very best TVs out there still have surprisingly muddy sound, and a soundbar can fix that easily.

The best soundbars are often quite expensive, though, and Amazon has clearly clocked a relative gap in the market at lower-end prices. Thus, the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar on review here: a super-affordable multi-speaker soundbar that promises sonic upgrades without a huge price tag. But can it deliver?

Amazon Fire TV Soundbar: Price & Availability

Amazon's budget soundbar has been available in the US for nearly a year – but has only been on sale in the UK for a number of months. Being one of Amazon's own products you can get it delivered super promptly if you're a Prime member (or not, frankly).

Its full retail price was initially at £119.99 in the UK or $119 in the US, although relatively frequent sales have seen it fall below £100 or $100 – as you can see in the shopping widget embedded above.

Amazon Fire TV Soundbar review: Design & Features

The Amazon Fire TV Soundbar is a really compact soundbar, coming in at just a hair over 60cm long, and is pretty narrow. This makes it really straightforward to fit into most setups, whether you have a modest TV – such as the best 32in TV – on a stand or a bigger one – such as one of the best 48in TVs – with plenty of room.

There's a lot to be said for going with a more compact design and, having swapped out our normal Sonos Beam (1st Gen) for it, the footprint being taken up was almost identical.

Amazon's design isn't the most inspiring aside from its size, though. The soundbar is mostly covered with a greyish mesh cover at the front, while the rest of the body is black plastic, with some control buttons on the top of the unit.

These let you make adjustments if you like, although you also get an included remote which is more useful. Amazon has designed the soundbar to work with existing Fire TV device remotes, though, so after a quick and easy pairing setup you can stick the included remote in a drawer to gather dust if you already use a Fire TV Stick with your TV.

The speaker is a 2.0 one, meaning it's stereo, so you're not dealing with many channels. And while Amazon says that it has virtualised Dolby Atmos support built-in, you really shouldn't come to this device hoping for impressive virtual surround sound – it's almost non-existent.

Still, this means that the setup process is very simple – at the back of the soundbar there's a plug for power, another for an HDMI cable, or another for optical cable, depending on your choice.

You can also connect to the soundbar via Bluetooth to play music through it, although there's no persistent Wi-Fi option, so you will find it a little more limited than a smart speaker might be.

Finally, despite the name, it's worth clarifying that the soundbar cannot actually act as a Fire TV hub of its own – it can't run apps or anything, so you will need a separate product to do that.

Amazon Fire TV Soundbar review: Performance

A soundbar isn't the sort of thing that most of us expect to look beautiful, so if we're not blown away by the design of the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar that's no tragedy – it's sound performance that really makes it or breaks it. Given Amazon's sterling work on the likes of the Echo Dot and Echo Studio, we've been optimistic that this would be a slamdunk... but sadly things aren't quite that simple.

There's no doubt that hooking the Fire TV Soundbar up will likely feel like an upgrade on your TV audio in one obvious and immediate way – general oomph. It's got a decent whack of power, can get really loud, and has punchier bass than most built-in TV speakers can manage.

However, where precision and clarity come into play, we can't claim to be particularly impressed. One thing a soundbar shouldn't do is make dialogue hard to hear, and while the Fire TV Soundbar didn't worsen dialogue clarity compared to our TV's native speakers, it certainly didn't improve it – and compared to our Sonos Beam it was a huge step-down. Obviously, Sonos prices its products at far more premium points, but the difference is still stark. This lack of precision got worse at higher volumes, too.

As we mentioned earlier, the apparently virtualised surround sound also didn't really manifest at all in our testing – if the soundscape on offer was a bit wider than it might otherwise be, the difference seemed marginal, but there was certainly no impressive audio -ouncing going on.

While it might also be a specific issue on our end, we repeatedly found the soundbar's volume extremely inconsistent when swapping inputs – leaving our PS5 behind to go to Apple TV+'s smart app on an LG OLED would sometimes result in murderously loud sound at the start of a programme or the opposite problem of vanishingly low volume.

Amazon Fire TV Soundbar: Verdict

We love how Amazon has positioned the Fire TV Soundbar in terms of price, and its compact design shows an awareness of what makes sense for most people.

However, it's severely let down by distinctly middling sound quality and a relative paucity of features, making what we've previously thought of as a "no-brainer" upgrade look much less so.

If it included Fire TV streaming software and had more refined audio, this could be a real contender, but as it stands the Fire TV Soundbar should only really be considered if its price is the limit of your spending power.

Also consider

We've mentioned it a few times in our review so far, which means the Beam from Sonos is a great option for those happy to spend a little more. You can occasionally grab it renewed from Sonos at a discount, although the pricier second-gen model is obviously an even better buy if you can afford it.

At a more relevant price point, though, we think the Denon DHT-S316 is a great option. It's chunkier and comes with a subwoofer, but if you have the space for it you'll get terrific sound for the money.

Amazon could be about to release a new Fire TV update that'll add a new feature – but you might prefer it didn't.

Just weeks after it rolled back its full-screen video ads that played on startup, it's testing another way to feed you ads – this time via your screensaver.

That's according to Cord Cutters News, which says that if you leave your Fire TV inactive for a while you'll get a long advert – between 30 seconds and a minute
before your screensaver kicks in. The new ads appear to be rolling out in the US to all Fire TV models made in 2016 or later.

It's fair to say that the test is not going down well with users. As one commenter put: "It's one thing for content to have ads, but the device itself should not."

What's Amazon doing with Fire TV ads?

Amazon's been pushing more ads into its platform for a while now. In addition to inserting ads into Prime Video content unless subscribers pay extra, it's added full-screen video advertising on the home screen and briefly added ads on device startup, although that latter was rolled back after a user outcry.

Amazon isn't the only firm doing this; for example, Roku is keen on homescreen ads too. But I'm with the Cord Cutters commenter when it comes to on-device ads. Ads on free or ad-supported content are part of the deal, but when you buy a piece of hardware, such as a TV or streaming device, it's pretty customer-hostile for firms to start degrading the user experience after you've bought it. 

There's no guarantee that the new ad feature will be adopted across devices – it's allegedly just in the testing phase at present – but a full roll out could clearly make some consider rival TVs instead. Even if Amazon's own Fire TVs end up hevaily discounted in the Prime Day sales.

No sooner than I'd written a piece on Xbox ditching its own streaming device, where I suggested it partnered with Amazon to add Xbox Cloud Gaming to Fire TV devices, than I got notification that Amazon has partnered with Xbox to... well, you get the picture.

Life has a funny way of doing that sort of thing sometimes.

Owners of the latest Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max and Fire TV Stick 4K models can now download an Xbox app from the Amazon Appstore and connect with Microsoft's cloud gaming platform.

All you need is an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and a compatible Bluetooth controller and away you go. And, with Game Pass available for just £1 / $1 for the first 14 days, you can try it before having to pay the full fee.

Xbox Cloud Gaming gives you access to 100s of Xbox games, some of which among the very best available today. The library is regularly updated to include new titles, with all of Xbox Game Studios' own releases added on the same day as the general release.

That includes the likes of Starfield, Forza Motorsport, and the recently-released Senua's Sage: Hellblade II. There are plenty of third-party games added from launch, too.

As with Amazon's own Luna service, which is also available on Fire TV, Xbox Cloud Gaming uses a myriad of data centres around the world that host the games, so bar the Xbox app you don't need to download anything else.

Your controller codes go in one direction over the internet, while video of the gameplay comes back the other way. Latency is dramatically reduced in comparison with other similar platforms released over the years, and is getting better all the time.

Indeed, it is hard to tell when a game is being played over the cloud these days.

Prior to the Amazon tie-in, Xbox Cloud Gaming was only available on Microsoft's own consoles, computers, mobile devices, and Samsung Smart TVs.

Hopefully, this latest partnership is a sign of the service expanding to other streaming devices we already have in our homes.

Your Amazon Fire TV device is about to get a whole lot smarter. That's because the search feature in Fire TV is getting some extra AI power to help Alexa give you more accurate and more useful answers, and to give you much better viewing recommendations too.

The newly upgraded search feature will be able to answer more complex plain language questions such as "Which movie has the line 'life is like a box of chocolates?'" and will also be able to give you viewing options based on actors, the characters they play, and the genre and subjects of movies and TV shows. 

The feature was announced late last year, but it's only just rolling out now. Amazon is prioritising the US for this upgrade and it should reach your device in the next few weeks if you're a US user. UK users will have to wait a little longer.

What will AI bring to Fire TV?

Leaving aside the usual linguistic quibbles – this upgrade is based on ChatGPT-style large language models rather than actual artificial intelligence, so it's more of a super-powered natural language interpreter than Skynet – the features will be much more useful and much more personalised. 

For example, Alexa can now tell which streaming services you're subscribed to and which ones you aren't, so when you ask for recommendations it's not going to suggest shows or movies on services you don't have. Or at least, that's the current situation: I can't imagine Amazon will want to pass up the opportunity to sell additional channel bundles going forwards.

The new search feature is rolling out to customers in the US over the next few weeks, and you'll need to be running Fire OS 6 or later in order to get it. As yet we don't know when the rollout will reach other countries such as the UK. 

Amazon is going big on generative AI: it previously added an artwork generator that enabled you to generate your own background images on your Fire TV, and that was part of a wider suite of features that Amazon calls the Ambient Experience. 

Amazon has finally added the ability to cast content to its smart devices.

However, it hasn't embraced Apple AirPlay video casting, nor Google's Chromecast functionality, it has instead turned to Matter Casting. This enables supporting streaming services and apps on iPhone and Android to cast video directly to an Echo Show smart display, with Fire TV Sticks and televisions to get support soon.

In many ways, this works just as well as Apple and Google's similar systems, and as Matter is designed to be a centralised technology that thousands of products will support, it's only a matter of time (yeah, we know) before it's widely adopted by all streaming apps.

Prime Video is naturally one of the first to employ it. You just need to start to watch a show or movie on your phone and hit the casting icon. It should then find any available Echo Show device that works with the system.

The same technology will roll out to Fire TV devices "in the coming months".

Amazon is a founding member of the Matter Standard, along with Google and Apple, so we can expect to see more cross-compatibility with devices in future. Matter is a technology standard designed to simplify the use of smart home devices, with many different manufacturers pledging to make their products work with one another.

Also announced during CES 2024 was a new partnership between Amazon and Panasonic to bring the Fire TV user experience to Panasonic's 2024 smart TVs.

This is a major step for both brands, with the platform being markedly better than the homegrown operating system the TVs have used in the past, In addition, Amazon's service will now find its way onto premium, pro-level OLED TVs, such as the Panasonic X95A.

You'll be able to use the entire Fire TV platform on the set without needing to plug in a separate Amazon device. That will include access to all the best streaming services too – not just Amazon's.

This is the "first time generative AI has been applied at this scale. It’s about to get much easier to interact with your home assistant." Strong words from Amazon at it's annual product showcase which saw not only updates to its Echo, Fire TV, Ring, Blink, and Eero devices but also a major change in the way Alexa works. 

While the new products were impressive – especially the new Echo Home Hub and second-generation Echo Frames – it's the way you can interact with its voice assistant that offers the biggest change. 

First of all, there's the way it speaks. Amazon compared the same sentence as Alexa would have delivered it in 2014 with the upcoming 2024 language model. It wasn't just that the pronunciation was better, but there was a wider change in expression in the voice that made it sound much more real. 

It's when there is interaction between you and Alexa though that will get the biggest makeover. In these speech-to-speech occasions, as Amazon calls it, the new large language model (LLM) can react faster and without additional prompts. This feels more like a conversation than a call and answer.

The conversation mode enters the device into a continuous chat that you can leave and come back to without having to go back over the same points. The responses shown (though part of a demo) showed a lot more character than I'm used to seeing and allowed you to delve into subjects much easier.

The potential for this in the home is one thing, but Amazon is also working with partners such as BMW to bring this into cars too. Here there is huge scope to bring a Knight Rider car experience to life, with a car that not only 'gets you' but can respond like a human.

What was clear from the 2023 showcase was that Amazon is offering a full eco-system with its devices and this generative AI is at the heart of it. From editing images on the Fire TV Stick to the Eye Gaze function on the Fire Max 11 tablet that allows hands and voice-free operation.

Alexa remains at the heart of the eco-system though, and will be even more useful in its upcoming 2024 form. If people can speak to Alexa like a person they will get more out of those conversations than just turning on lights and setting a timer.

Anyone who thought Alexa's days were numbered would definitely change their mind if they saw this level of interaction. I've used Alexa devices throughout my home for years but I'm genuinely excited about the potential of the new updates to the large language model.

Along with a swathe of other products, including a new Echo Show 8, the Echo Hub control panel, and new Fire TV Sticks, Amazon has unveiled its fastest mesh Wi-Fi system yet.

The Eero Max 7 is a system that's capable of almost 10 Gigabit speeds when connected via Ethernet, 4.3 Gigabit through a wireless connection. That's enough for just about every member of a family streaming 4K HDR video with Dolby Atmos sound simultaneously.

It is the first Eero network to use Wi-Fi 7 and is really only limited by your broadband provider's speeds.

The tri-band mesh device supports 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz radio bands, with two 10 and two 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports on the rear. Amazon also claims that just one Eero Max 7 device can provide up to 2,500 square feet of stable Wi-Fi connectivity.

Add extra devices and that can be extended, with a three-pack offering up to 7,500 square feet.

As with all mesh network systems, the new Eero connects via a main hub that you plug into your home router/modem. Additional Eero Max 7 devices can then be dotted around the home to extend your coverage. Unlike traditional extenders, the mesh works intelligently together to fill dead spots between each device.

Your connection is also seamless, with mobile and other internet-connected products selecting the best signal that's nearest. You do not have to enter different passwords nor suffer drop out as it disconnects from one to another.

The system also supports Matter, so can be integrated into a smart home setup easily. It also acts as a Thread router, plus comes with Zigbee support.

You can subscribe to Eero Plus to open up extra features as well, with additional parental controls and security functionality on offer.

The Eero Max 7 will be "available soon" priced at $599.99 in the US, £599.99 in the UK for a one-pack.

A two-pack will cost $1,149.99 / £1,149.99, and a three-pack will set you back $1,699.99 / £1,699.99.

We'll hopefully get them into the T3 test labs in the near future to give you our thoughts on the setup and speed benefits.

As previously rumoured, Amazon has announced a couple of new Fire TV Stick streamers during its devices launch event in the US.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K is being updated with Wi-Fi 6 for more stable, faster connectivity. It also gets a bump in processing, so is claimed to be 30% faster than the previous generation.

Perhaps the biggest refresh is with the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which replaces the 2021 model with double the storage space (16GB), a new 2.0 GHz processor, and Wi-Fi 6E for the range's fastest wireless internet connection yet.

This should enable smoother 4K HDR video streaming with Dolby Atmos audio without needing an Ethernet hook up.

You will need a compatible router, of course, but if you do, you'll likely see videos start almost instantly with no pre-buffering. And, the lack of latency should allow Amazon to serve other streamed content more effectively, such as Amazon Luna cloud gaming.

Also available on the new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is the new Fire TV Ambient Experience.

This allows the streaming device to show artwork in a similar way to Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series sets. It can either show art or information on a TV through just an Alexa command or two.

By the end of the year, customers in the US will also be able to use generative AI to create their own customised art to display. It will be a free update when it arrives.

The new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K is available to pre-order today for $49.99 in the States, £59.99 in the UK and AUD$79. The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max can also be pre-ordered, priced at $59.99 / £69.99 / AUD$119. Both feature a slightly rounder design and we're still waiting for UK details.

Amazon has also announced an all-new Fire TV product, the Fire TV Soundbar which is a 24-inch speaker system that can be wallmounted. Strangely, regardless of its name, it doesn't include Fire TV functionality.

Instead, it is designed to enhance the audio of a Fire TV 2-Series, 4-Series or Omni QLED television.

That's available now for $119.99 in the US, but is yet to be announced for the UK market.

Amazon will host its annual product announcement event today, which traditionally yields a whole bunch of new devices and services that will be coming out prior to the holiday season.

The Amazon Devices event won't be available to view online, but we'll be bringing you all the news throughout so you can keep up-to-date on any new Kindles (we got the Kindle Scribe last year), Echo speakers, Fire TV Sticks, Ring doorbells and cameras, and anything else the company is set to unveil.

Oh, and don't forget the usual, innovative oddity or two – remember Astro the robot?

Here then is our guide on what time the announcements will start to appear and what we expect.

When will the Amazon Devices event start?

Amazon is hosting its annual launch event in Arlington, Virginia from 11am ET. You will see announcements start to appear shortly after it begins.

Here are the times for your region:

• US West Coast: 08:00 PT
• US East Coast: 11:00 ET
• UK: 16:00 BST
• Central Europe: 17:00 CEST
• India (New Delhi): 20:30 IST
• China (Beijing): 23:00 CST
• Japan (Tokyo): 00:00 JST (21 September)
• South Korea (Seoul): 00:00 KST (21 September)
• Australia (Sydney): 01:00 AEST (21 September)

Can I watch the Amazon Devices event live online?

Sadly, unlike other big brands, Amazon doesn't broadcast many of its launch events live online. T3 is in attendance though, while our newsroom is poised to let you know all about the major announcements as they happen.

Just make sure you keep your eyes peeled on T3.com and we'll bring you all the hottest news.

What to expect

Perhaps surprisingly, there have been relatively few leaks and rumours about the new Amazon products to be announced today.

The only devices we're pretty sure of are a couple of new Fire TV Sticks.

A listing was spotted on the website of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US, which regulates the wireless capabilities of all technologies released in the country. It listed two devices, so it's almost certain they will be part of the Amazon Devices event.

We've also seen that the powerful Amazon Fire Stick 4K Max has recently been delisted on Amazon's own website, so it's likely that one of the streamers will be a replacement.

Other than that, we can make a measured guess that we'll get a couple of new Kindle eBook readers too – for largely the same reason. Kindles have been discounted in the US recently, suggesting that a refresh is on its way.

We'd also be surprised if we didn't see some new devices in the Amazon-owned Ring lineup of security cameras and doorbells – there usually is. And, although we don't expect any major Echo announcements, there may be an upgrade or two along the way – to add Matter support, perhaps.

Join us later to find out more.

Whether you have multiple smart home devices dotted around your home or just one hub that takes care of everything, you need to choose a virtual assistant to start creating your own smart home. From asking what time it is to locking your front doors, a virtual assistant makes your day-to-day life significantly easier and stress-free. But which one should you choose?

Alexa vs Google Assistant is a fairly common debate. Alongside Apple Home, the two make up the top three most popular voice assistants available today. Built into some of the best smart speakers and compatible with multiple devices, both virtual assistants excel in different areas. 

As an Android user, I’ve tried out both Alexa and Google Assistant, and I have to say Alexa is my winner… here’s why.

Google Assistant vs Alexa: what’s the difference?

For starters, Google Assistant and Alexa are owned and operated by two completely different companies. Alexa is owned by Amazon and Google Assistant is owned by Google (no surprises there).

Both are virtual and voice assistants that are available on multiple devices that are owned and made by its company. For example, Alexa is built into the Echo Dot and the Echo Show 15, whereas Google Assistant comes with the Google Nest Hub Max and Google smartphones. Both Alexa and Google Assistant are also compatible with devices from other manufacturers like Philips Hue, Arlo and much more.

Both virtual assistants do much of the same thing but they have different areas that they excel at. With Alexa, the Amazon virtual assistant is brilliant for controlling and customising your smart home and linking up multiple devices. It’s also better with general requests and tends to be quicker and more responsive. In comparison, Google has a better search and knowledge (what with being connected to Google Search) and is more equipped to handle complex requests and questions.

Choosing between the two will completely depend on what you want to get out of them. For more details on both virtual assistants, check out how to start a smart home with Google Assistant and how to start a smart home with Alexa.

Why I’m choosing Alexa over Google Assistant

There are many things to consider when adopting a voice assistant but these are the key factors that make Alexa a winner in my eyes. For more details on entertainment, privacy and communication, make sure to check out our full comparison guides on Alexa vs Google Assistant and Chromecast vs Fire TV Stick.

Devices

Verdict: Alexa

Before we get into compatibility, I’m going to talk specifically about Amazon products with Alexa and Google products with Google Assistant.

On the Amazon website, there’s a dedicated page called Echo & Alexa devices where you can find a full range of smart speakers, displays, streaming sticks, and smart home devices. The types of Amazon Alexa devices you can buy include Echo Dots, Echo Pop, Echo Studio, Echo Shows, Fire TV sticks, Fire TV Cube, Amazon smart plugs, wireless routers, subwoofers and amps. Amazon also owns Ring and Blink who sell video doorbells, indoor and outdoor security cameras and other smart security products.

Google has many of its own smart home products which are under the Google Nest name. At the Google Store, you can find Google Nest smart displays, speakers, security cameras, video doorbells and smart thermostats. Google also offers Wi-Fi systems, smoke and CO alarms and Chromecast with Google TV.

Both Alexa and Google Assistant cover the main smart home categories but in terms of usability, features and functionality, Alexa takes the crown. Its products tend to be more straightforward and easy to use, and the sheer amount of them cover anything you could possibly want. Having said that, Google Assistant isn’t too far behind.

Compatibility

Verdict: Alexa

Alongside its own line of products, Alexa and Google Assistant are both compatible with other devices. To find out if your product is compatible with Alexa or Google Assistant, look for ‘Works with Amazon Alexa’ and ‘Works with Google Assistant’ branding.

Alexa is compatible with Philips Hue smart lighting, Ecobee and Tado smart thermostats, Arlo cameras, TP-Link smart plugs, Yale and Ultion Nuki smart locks, Sonos speakers, and many more. Google Assistant is also compatible with Philips Hue, Arlo and Tado, and works with Dyson vacuum cleaners, Roku streaming sticks, Nanoleaf smart bulbs, and JBL, LG and Harman speakers.

For compatibility, it’s completely up to you what kind of products you want to use in your home. If you’re looking for smart home devices, Alexa is the clear choice as it has access to more smart products, but Google Assistant has merits for connecting to vacuums and speakers. As you tend to invest in a smart device with a virtual assistant for more control over your home, this is why Alexa wins here.

Voice commands and recognition

Verdict: Tie

‘Hey Alexa!’ and ‘OK Google!’ are all you need to start using voice commands with Alexa and Google Assistant. From there, you can ask them to do almost anything from starting timers and reading the news to locking your doors and deleting your browsing history. As mentioned above, Alexa is better with general requests whereas Google can take care of more complex requests, although you’ll need to speak clearly and be specific.

Both Alexa and Google Assistant have strong voice commands and recognition, and both could improve in some areas which is why I’m calling it a tie. If you want to find more commands to ask your virtual assistants, check out the Google Assistant commands you didn’t know about and the Alexa commands you need to know.

Smart home

Verdict: Alexa

For me, Alexa wins for smart home hands down. The amount of smart devices that Amazon creates and are compatible with is far greater than Google Assistant and the automation and schedules are more streamlined and speedy (although Google Assistant is still admirable when it comes to smart home).

Why Alexa wins in smart home is its routines and schedules. Once you’ve connected your devices, you can set up routines where you turn on lights, play a podcast, set a timer and turn down your heating, all by putting together a schedule in the app. For non-smart devices, you can give them smart features and capabilities with the Amazon smart plug, something that Google hasn’t developed yet (although it’s compatible with smart plugs from other manufacturers).

Price

Verdict: Alexa

Amazo’s wide range of Alexa-enabled devices are incredibly cost-effective. While most of Google Assistant products are budget-friendly, Amazon starts its prices from as little as £34.99 and during big sales seasons, its popular products are hit with huge price cuts.

And that’s why I’m switching from Google Assistant to Alexa! Google Assistant only narrowly falls short and it’s still an incredibly impressive virtual assistant that has great value and is exceptional for building a smart home around. But for ease, better smart home control and price, Alexa wins for me.

Take a look at our deals widget below to save money on your next Amazon Alexa and Google Nest device.

Amazon is set to unveil new versions of its best-selling device, the Amazon Fire TV Stick, and it couldn't come too soon.

The last refresh to the successful range was in October 2021, with the addition of the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, so it's about time the company upgraded some of the other models to play the best streaming services with increased performance.

That's seemingly the plan, with two new Fire TV Stick variants spotted in an FCC filing online.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a US agency that has to approve the wireless communications tech inside devices before they can be sold in the country. A listing on its website, therefore, generally means that a product is close to release.

Amazon has two devices listed, under the model numbers of M3N6RA and K3R6AT. They were spotted by Janko Roettgers who posted a diagram on social media network Mastodon (via AFTVnews).

There's not a lot of detail to garner from the listings, sadly, and they are merely described as "digital media receivers" by Amazon, but from the diagram itself, it's clear that they are Fire TV Sticks.

When will we get new Amazon Fire TV Sticks?

Although we don't have extensive confirmed details and specifications, we do have a good idea of when Amazon plans to unveil the two new Fire TV Sticks (and other devices).

That's because it is to host its annual Amazon Devices launch event on 20 September 2023. That means it is likely to announce several new Echo devices too in a press gathering at its HQ in Arlington.

Sadly, Amazon doesn't tend to stream the event online, so you might not be able to watch it yourself, but we'll bring you everything you need to know as soon as it happens on stage.

We're not entirely sure what upgrades could be planned for the Stick range – after all, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is superfast, supersleek and supports all important video and audio standards. We guess we'll have to wait to see.

Cord-cutting has been a trend among TV audiences for years now. And now with inflation driving prices up right across our monthly budgets, this could be the perfect time to reconsider your traditional satellite TV subscription, and instead move exclusively to streaming.

Google, Amazon and Apple offer three of the most popular streaming devices, and while others also exist, it's this trio that offers the most content, the best features and the slickest user experience.

They also all offer a range of devices, which all look and work in a similar way, but vary in terms of features, performance and of course price. Picking the right one depends on your needs and also what type of television they’ll be connected to.

Chromecast vs Fire TV Stick vs Apple TV 4K: Hardware and design

All three work in a very similar way. The Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast with Google TV are dongles that plug into an HDMI port on the back of your TV, and just hang there. Out of sight, they don’t need to sit on a shelf or take up any space in front of the television.

Apple’s TV 4K takes a different approach and looks more like a traditional set-top box, with its HDMI cable and needing to sit somewhere. That said, you could just hide it behind the TV or inside your media cabinet, as it doesn’t need line-of-sight with the included remote.

Speaking of which, all three streamers come with a simple remote for browsing through streaming services and controlling content. In many cases they can control the power and volume of your TV or sound system too, so can act as your one-and-only remote.

Amazon sells a broad range of Fire TV products, all with a remote that can summon the Alexa voice assistant at the press of a button. The cheapest is called Stick Lite, costs £35 and streams content at Full HD resolution, also known as 1080p. The regular Fire TV Stick comes next, costing £45 and having a remote with TV volume controls.

Above this sits the Fire TV Stick 4K, which streams content in 4K resolution with support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and HDR. Lastly, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max has improved Wi-Fi, more RAM, a more powerful processor and live view picture-in-picture.

The Chromecast with Google TV range is simpler. There’s a Full HD version that comes in white (with matching remote) for £34.99 and a 4K version with three colour options for £59.99.

Lastly, the Apple TV 4K is the most expensive of the three streamers. It starts at £149 for a model with 64GB of storage (plus support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and HDR10+), then extends to £169 for a version with 128GB of storage and an Ethernet port. The latter is handy if you want a wired connection to your router, as perhaps you live in a home with thick walls and flakey Wi-Fi.

Chromecast vs Fire TV Stick vs Apple TV 4K: Software and content

All three streamers work in a very similar way. They all have access to the most popular catchup services, like BBC iPlayer ITV X and Channel 4, plus YouTube and subscriptions like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV and Apple TV+.

Although it hasn’t always been the case, it’s not easy to watch a rival service – for example, you can watch Amazon’s Prime Video on an Apple TV 4K, and you can watch Apple TV+ on a Fire TV Stick, or a Chromecast with Google TV. You can also access music streaming services, like Spotify or Apple Music, and view your image libraries on the TV, and the Apple TV 4K has access to Apple’s Fitness+ subscription service, streaming pre-recorded exercise classes to your television.

All three streamers include access to their manufacturers’ respective voice assistants, in the form of Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri. which can be used to find and control content.

Chromecast vs Fire TV Stick vs Apple TV 4K: Connectivity and smart home features

There’s much more to streaming devices than bingeing your latest Netflix addiction. They can all connect to smart speakers for improved audio, for a start. Google’s Chromecast hooks up to the company’s Nest Audio, while Amazon Fire Sticks can use a range of different Echo speakers to create a stereo or full surround sound system. The Apple TV 4K can also do this with the company’s HomePod and HomePod mini smart speakers.

Streaming devices can connect to smart home products too. They can each display live video feeds from smart security cameras and compatible video doorbells, and you can ask their integrated voice assistants to adjust smart lighting, change the temperature of a smart thermostat, turn on smart plugs and so much more.

Other tricks include the Apple TV 4K’s ability to calibrate its picture output using the camera of your iPhone, and how games are available on all three streaming devices. 

Chromecast vs Fire TV Stick vs Apple TV 4K: Which is best for you?

Since all three can access all of the most popular streaming services, deciding which to buy comes down to personal preference and which ecosystem you’re already a part of. Own a couple of Nest speakers? Then the Chromecast will be best for you. Already pay for Amazon Prime and have a Ring Video Doorbell? You should check out the Fire Stick TV range. Card-carrying member of Club Apple? The Apple TV 4K is the priciest of the bunch, but it’ll slot neatly into your current tech ecosystem.

If you're coming into this fresh, with no smart home devices or an open mind as to which is best, then it comes down to budget. For us, we think the 4K version of the Chromecast with Google TV represents great value for money, as we reckon Google Assistant has a slight edge over Alexa when it comes to intelligence.

That said, if you’re shopping for a streaming device for a smaller TV, perhaps in the kitchen or bedroom, it’s hard to say no to the regular HD version of Chromecast, or the equally priced £35 Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite.

According to smart home statistics, there’s an estimated 300 million smart homes around the world. Having a few smart devices dotted around your rooms can make a huge difference to your productivity, communication and life in general. But with many smart home ecosystems to choose from, picking the right one for your household can be difficult.

One of the most popular digital assistants and smart home ecosystems is Amazon’s Alexa, which has around 71.6 million global users. Compatible with multiple devices and brands, including the majority of the best smart speakers, Alexa has quickly become the go-to hub for most smart homes… but how do you get started?

In T3’s new ‘how to start a smart home’ series, this guide will look at how to set-up your smart home using Alexa. Before we get started, check out the mistakes everyone makes with Alexa to stop you from doing the same thing.

What is Alexa?

Alexa is a virtual assistant technology owned by Amazon. Released in 2013, Alexa was first introduced to the Amazon Echo and the Echo Dot before expanding to other Echo products and smart home devices from different manufacturers.

Whether it’s built into your device or is compatible with it (more on that later), Alexa can do a wide variety of tasks which make your day-to-day life easier. Alexa can play music, set timers and alarms, make phone calls, read out recipes and organise your calendar. From a smart home perspective, Alexa can act as the ecosystem or hub for your smart home, and can identify and control compatible devices, like turning on lights, customising your heating and checking your security camera footage.

Alexa can be controlled, connected and customised with the Alexa app that’s free to download and use. The app is a great way to create schedules and routines for your smart home devices, as well as access them while you’re out and about. Once everything is sorted in the app, you can use Alexa voice commands to request things from your devices by saying “Hey Alexa”.

What devices are Alexa-compatible?

There are two types of Alexa devices. The first is where Alexa is built into the system and the other is where the device works with Alexa but isn’t an Amazon-made product. Examples of the former are mainly Amazon devices like Echo speakers and displays, Blink and Ring security products and Fire TVs. These products are the best way to use Alexa as they’re specifically designed with and for Alexa. 

The latter are devices which are manufactured by a different company but can be used with Alexa. These include Philips Hue smart lighting, Ecobee and Tado smart thermostats, Sonos speakers, Arlo cameras, TP-Link smart plugs, Yale and Ultion Nuki smart locks, and many more. To find out if your product is compatible with Alexa, look out for “Works with Amazon Alexa” branding.

How to set-up a smart home with Alexa

If you’ve decided that Amazon’s Alexa is the ecosystem for you, here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up your smart home with Alexa.

Invest an Amazon device

First, you need to invest in an Amazon smart home product. As Amazon owns Alexa, it makes sense to start with an Amazon device that has Alexa built-in. This makes starting your smart home easier and more streamlined, and you’ll have immediate access to the Alexa app. I’d recommend choosing a smart display, like the Echo Show 15, as you can use it as your smart home hub which makes connecting devices simpler.

To set up your Amazon Echo devices, simply plug in your device, follow the manufacturer’s instructions and download the Alexa app. Setting up Amazon gadgets mainly involves selecting language and timezone, connecting to Wi-Fi, and naming your device. Once you’ve done that, you can connect your Echo to the Alexa app and you’re ready to go!

Add to your smart home with Alexa-enabled gadgets

Once you’ve got your first Alexa device installed, you can start expanding with more smart home gadgets. After your smart display, I’d first look into smart cameras from Ring or Blink as these have Alexa built-in. As of writing, Amazon doesn’t make its own smart lights and its Smart Thermostat is only available in the US. So, if you want smart lighting and heating, you’ll need to look into products that are compatible with Alexa.

Popular smart lighting and heating brands include Philips Hue and Tado. Both are easy to install, come with their own app and are compatible with Alexa. With this compatibility, you can connect your Philips Hue or Tado products to the Alexa app, so your ecosystem encompasses all your devices, making it easier to control your home.

To do this, plug in and turn on your smart home devices before adding them into the Alexa app. Open the app, select Devices, click + and Add Device. Choose your device type and brand, and follow the instructions. From there, your gadget should be added and you can create routines or turn things on and off using the app. Alternatively, you can say “Alexa, discover devices” to your hub.

Create personalised routines

Once you’ve installed and connected all your smart devices, you can set up routines and schedules. For example, let’s say when you wake up in the morning, you want to turn on your lights, play a podcast, set a timer for your workout and turn down your heating. Rather than shout “Hey Alexa’ multiple times to run through the changes you want made, put together a morning schedule in the app, so everything turns on and off how and when you want it to.

Look into ‘secret’ Alexa skills and commands

Other than “Hey Alexa, turn on the lights”, there are many different skills and commands that you can use with Alexa, from getting her to quote movies to telling you a fact of the day. Have a look into the different skills that Alexa can do and make sure to enable them in the app if you want to try them. Check out these Alexa commands for optimising your home security for more.

Buy the Amazon smart plug

Now that everything around your home is smart, it makes the things that aren’t smart a little boring! But not to worry, you can make your appliances smart with an Amazon smart plug. How smart plugs work is by adding voice control and commands to your electrical socket. Just plug in the Amazon smart plug, add it to the Alexa app and you can start using it – it’s that simple! The great thing about this is you can schedule your non-smart appliances like your coffee machine to turn on and off automatically and remotely.

And that’s how to set up your smart home using Alexa! Take a look at the best Amazon Echo deals in the widget below to get started.

If you're not sold on Amazon Alexa, check out our guides on how to set up a smart home with Google Assistant and Apple Home.

With a Summer of great sport on the way, it's a great time to upgrade your TV and make the most of  Wimbledon, the Ashes, the British Grand Prix and the Women's World Cup. Luckily Toshiba has a World Cup-worthy TV available for a park football price.

This 43" Toshiba QLED 4K Smart TV is a great way to watch everything this summer and with Amazon Fire TV built-in (no Fire Stick required), you won't even need to get up to switch between the best streaming services as you enjoy the benefits of Alexa voice control.

Featuring a sleek frameless design, this TV would make a great main set or even, if you're feeling luxurious, the ultimate bedroom telly, perfect for lazy Sundays spent watching 4K films in bed. 

That crisp resolution is supported by a QLED panel offering HDR and over 1 billion different colours and while not the biggest screen in the world, that actually works to your advantage with greater pixel density.  

We are big fans of the Fire TV system here at T3, and as a gateway into the ecosystem, with a fantastic TV as well, this is a compelling deal. 

Amazon has just released a brand new tablet called the Amazon Fire Max 11 – and I think it could be the best tablet release in a while. That's a bold claim, so let me justify it.

As you might have guessed from the name, the Fire Max 11 packs an 11-inch display, with a 2000 x 1200 resolution. That's powered by an octa-core processor and 4GB of RAM, with 128GB on offer for storage. Also included are fingerprint recognition and WiFi 6, for blistering fast connection.

Amazon also say it's good for up to 14 hours of battery life. That's really good, and should make it useful for a full day of work, play or streaming without scrambling for a charger. Plus, audio will sound great thanks to a Dolby Atmos certified surround sound system built-in.

"Okay," I hear you say, "that's good but hardly iPad killer territory."

I think it is, for a couple of reasons. First, there's the family integration. The Fire Max 11 supports multiple profiles – up to two adults and four children. That's a brilliant feature, which makes the tablet great for sharing among multiple users. We saw something similar recently on the Google Pixel Tablet.

Then there's the price. Starting at just £249.99 in the UK, the Fire Max 11 occupies a space below the older iPad (9th Gen). That device was really popular with parents and it's not hard to see why. A relatively affordable, fully-featured iPad was always going to be a shoe-in in the race to be crowned best tablet for kids.

Now though, I think there's a new king in town. The Fire Max 11 boasts a spec sheet which can go toe-to-toe with the iPad, and beats it in a couple of crucial areas to boot. Pair it with the optional keyboard and stylus – with bundles from £375 – and you've got a workhorse machine that will be at home with everything from homework to home cinema.

The Fire Max 11 will start shipping from next month.

One name is conspicuous by its absence from the best TVs: Amazon. Until now it's preferred to make media streamers than actual TVs, but now it has a Fire TV that's an actual TV too. 

The Fire TV Omni QLED, the Fire TV 4-Series and the Fire TV 2-series are all coming to the UK this week – and because we're talking about Amazon here, they're already being discounted. Right now all the TVs are 30% off, so for example the Amazon Fire TV 43" Omni QLED is £349. The 65-inch is £699.

The 4-Series is cheaper still, at £269 for 43 inches and £379 for 55 inches. And if you don't want 4K, the entry level 2-Series is £209 for the 32 inch model and £209 for the 40 inch. That means these could well turn out to be among the best budget TVs around.

Are the Amazon Fire TV Omni, 4-Series and 2-Series any good?

They're certainly priced to sell. But the specs aren't bad either. The Omni QLEDs are clearly the top of the range options here, with screens of 43, 50, 55 and 65 inches. The displays support Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ Gaming and HDR10+ Adaptive as well as HDR 10 and HLG, and there are 80 dimming zones for good contrast. Naturally Alexa is built-in. There's also a Samsung The Frame-style "Ambient Experience" that you can use to turn your TV into a digital art gallery, photo viewer or widget viewer. HDMI-wise there are three HDMI 2.0 and one HDMI eARC 2.1.

The more affordable 4-Series is still 4K but drops the Dolby Vision, with support for HDR 10, HLG and Dolby Digital Plus. It's LED rather than QLED and comes in 43, 50 or 55 inches, and while it retains the built-in Alexa there's no Ambient Experience this time. As with the Omni you have 3 HDMI 2.0 and one HDMI eARC 2.1.

The 2-series seems positioned as one for the kids' room or the kitchen, with a choice of 32 or 40 inches and a fairly basic specification: 1080p HD LED with HDR10 and HLG, 2 HDMI 1.4 and one HDMI ARC.

All three series will go on sale on Amazon UK on 12 April.

Remember Amazon's Spring Sale? I know, I know, the 27th, 28th and 29th of March seem so long ago. So Amazon hopes to cushion the blow by having yet another sales event for its own brands. It's offering multiple deals on its own products including Echo smart speakers, Fire TV 4K, Ring and Blink smart home security kit, Kindles, Fire tablets and mesh networking too.

The discounts are much the same as they were during the Spring Sale, so if you didn't take advantage then you can still save quite a bit of cash. And yet again they're a reminder that it's usually a bad idea to pay the full RRP for any Amazon-owned tech product: chances are that if the day ends in "y", there's a discount on a Kindle, an Echo or a Ring Video Doorbell.

So what can you save this time around?

What discounts can you get on Amazon brands this week?

The biggest discounts right now on media devices are on Fire HD Kids tablets, with 48% off the Fire 7 Kids, 40% off the Fire HD 8 Kids and Fire HD 8 Kids Pro, and 29% off the Fire HD 10 Kids tablet.

If you're looking for Amazon's best smart speakers, there aren't any discounts on the large Echos but you can get 45% off 5th Gen Echo Dots and 38% off the Echo Dot Kids and Echo Dot with clock.

Over in the Kindle aisle there's money off pretty much every Kindle imaginable, including 27% off the 8GB Kindle Paperwhite, 18% off the Kindle 2022, 19% off the Paperwhite Signature Edition and 14% off the Kindle Scribe. That one's quite a big saving, taking the price down from £329.99 to £284.99.

Elsewhere there's up to 36% off the Eero mesh routers, 22% of Fire TV HD sticks, up to 33% off 4K Fire TV devices and up to 39% off Ring security kit. There's also up to 48% off Blink home security bundles and up to 45% off individual components such as the Blink Outdoor Cam.

Amazon hasn't indicated when this particular promotion will end so you might want to check it out sooner rather than later. Then again, if you miss it it's probably just a matter of time before Amazon's bargain bus trundles back round again.

Amazon never misses the chance to have a sale, which is one reason we strongly advise people not to pay full price for Kindle e-readers, Ring video doorbells, Eero routers or Fire TV sticks: Amazon always discounts at least some of its own-brand products during its sales events. And the newly announced Spring Sale is no exception.

The sale, which runs from 27 March to 29 March, promises discounts of up to 40% on pretty much every category of products. In terms of its own tech, you can expect deals taking up to £50 off Echo devices, £60 off Fire tablets and £20 off Fire TV products. Amazon will also be reducing the price of the Kindle Scribe, Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle kindle. 

What kind of discounts can you expect from the Amazon Spring Sale 2023?

According to Amazon you can expect to see some significant discounts, including:

• Save up to 35% on Smartphones, wearables and accessories from brands including Google, Samsung and OnePlus;
• Save up to 30% on televisions, soundbars, projectors, and media devices from Samsung, Sony, Google, and more;
• Save up to 30% on large home appliances from firms including Samsung and Hisense;
• Save up to 40% on video games, controllers, and accessories from Microsoft, Warner Bros, Square Enix, Ubisoft and others;
• Save "big" on electric toothbrushes from brands including Oral-B and Philips and hairstyling tools from Remington, Babyliss and more.

As ever, we'd recommend using the excellent CamelCamelCamel.com to look at any bargain's Amazon price history – you'll sometimes find that discounts just bring the price back down to where it was a few weeks or months ago – and PriceSpy or Pricerunner to see if your particular deal is market-leading or part of a wider manufacturer promotion. 

Amazon Fire TVs are finally coming to the UK. Fire TVs have been available in the US now for some time and offer a range of smart features all for a very competitive price. Having them available through Amazon.co.uk – to UK spec – will give users some great options, whether they are looking for budget models or some of the best TVs. 

The entry-level Fire TV series 2 models start from just £249.99 (currently £169) and are available in a 720p resolution 32-in and a 1080p 40-inch size. Both feature HDR 10, HLG and Dolby Digital Audio.  

The Fire TV series 4 models start from £429.99 (currently £269) and come in 43-inch, 50-inch and 55-inch sizes. These are all 4K TVs and include an Alexa voice remote. 

The Fire TV Omni models are the premium offering and have the very best of smart features. These models start from £549.99 (currently just £349) and come in 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch sizes. These feature 4K QLED displays with up to 80-zone dimming, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision IQ. As well as hands-free operation with Alexa routines and smart device control, these TVs can display gallery artworks in its Fire TV Ambient Experience. 

Amazon Luna is making its way across the pond too. Luna is Amazon's cloud gaming service, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and offers a wide range of games from retro classics to Ubisoft AAA titles. These are available in a range of different Luan subscriptions, depending on the titles you want to play. 

There's also a dedicated Luna controller that is compatible with a range of devices, including smart TVs, tablets, Chromebooks, PC and Mac laptops and smartphones. The controller costs £59.99 each while subscriptions range from £3.99 to £14.99 a month.  

Amazon makes some of the best smart speakers for buyers on a budget, but while devices such as the Echo Studio sound great the Alexa app hasn't been as good as rival devices'. As a long-time Alexa, Apple and Spotify user I'm not a fan of the Alexa app when it comes to controlling audio, especially with groups of speakers and multiple rooms. So I'm pleased to see that Amazon has upgraded the Alexa app to deliver much better multi-room features.

As reported by The Verge, the app update brings a new pop-up screen that should be instantly familiar to anyone who's used AirPlay, Spotify Connect or Sonos speakers. It makes it really easy to play audio on specific Alexa-enabled devices and in specific speaker groups.

What devices does Alexa's multi-room menu control?

The app works with the current Echo line-up, including the little Echo Dot and the big Echo Studio. It also enables you to play audio on Echo Show devices and on Fire TV devices too.

Amazon has also added a page that looks very – and by very I mean likely to end up getting a nastygram from lawyers – like the System page of the Sonos app. It's called the Active Media List and, whenever audio is playing in your smart home, it shows you what audio is playing on which device(s) and enables you to control them from the app.

Alexa devices have come a long way since their debut, when they were more about the smart than the speaker; some of the best ones are surprisingly good, especially when you consider the price tag. So it's good to see the app evolving too, making Alexa audio that little bit easier, more convenient and more controllable. 

Smart displays have really taken off in the last few years, with Amazon and Google unsurprisingly leading the pack. They're some of the best smart speakers you can buy, adding a visual element to your usual voice assistant. 

Amazon's biggest of the bunch is the Echo Show 15 which is designed to sit in the centre of your home, be that in the living room or kitchen. It'll help you and your family get organised with handy calendars and sticky notes, you can use it to suggest or display recipes, it doubles up as a digital photo frame and it'll allow you to control the rest of your smart home including your lights, doorbells and cameras.

I've been using the Amazon Echo Show 15 for over a year now, and I'm a huge fan.  I have it mounted in my kitchen and there's no end to its uses, it's truly the smart home hub it was made to be. But not long ago, it got even better and now I love it even more.

How could it possibly get any better, I hear you ask? Well, a great free upgrade was recently added to the mix adding Fire TV to its array of features. 

Ultimately that transforms the Amazon Echo Show 15 into a small-screened television set, making it much easier to stream shows and movies, which I've found is particularly handy in the kitchen to watch as you cook. 

You get quick access to all your favourite streaming apps like Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ as well as clever recommendations based on what you've already been watching. You can actually connect a Fire TV remote to it which will help you to control it all. 

This new upgrade should have been offered to you at launch, but if not head to your Settings menu, choose Device options and Check for software updates. Once up and running you'll just need to log in to your accounts and you'll be good to go. 

Amazon has kept its promise to turn the Echo Show 15 smart display into a fully functional Fire TV. The update, which was made available yesterday (7 December), brings the Fire TV interface to the smart home device. That means you can stream from Amazon's own Prime Video as well from other big names such as Netflix and YouTube.

As Engadget reports, while the core interface is very familiar there are a few twists here. You can take advantage of a virtual remote on the Echo Show itself, and you won't need a separate controller for apps that weren't designed with touchscreens in mind.

To mark the update, Amazon is offering a little discount on the Echo Show 15: it's down £20 to £219.99 on Amazon UK, while in the US the usual $250 is down to $185 or $195 if you want an Alexa Voice Remote too.

Don't buy the Echo Show if all you want is a TV

As lovely and clever as the Echo Show 15 is, it's still small: 15 inches is big for a smart home device, but in the world of TV it's positively titchy. That makes it a good option for a kitchen TV, enabling you to watch your favourite cooking shows or keep yourself entertained as you cook, but it's a bit small for TV or movies to be its main purpose. 

If you've got or were planning to get an Echo Show 15 anyway, though, it's a worthwhile update: it adds Disney+ and Now TV, and the improved interface makes navigating to and through YouTube better. And because it supports multiple user profiles each household member can see their own personalised content instead of sharing it with everybody else.

It's worth mentioning one downside, which will only affect a few people: you can't use Developer Settings to enable sideloading of apps like you can with a Fire TV stick. That's most likely because on the Show, Fire TV is just an app rather than the entire operating system. 

If you've got one of the best TVs with Roku built-in, have a Roku Streaming Stick in one of your TV's HDMI ports or use the Roku app on your Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, we've got good news: there's been a massive update to the Roku Channel delivering a whopping 36 new live streaming TV channels. The channels are all free.

All you need to access them is a Roku device and account, and you'll be tuning in to shows such as The Great British Baking Show in no time at all.

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Some of the channels are more exciting than others. There's a new AMC Showcase channel that will feature popular shows such as Mad Men and The Walking Dead; an entire channel dedicated to The Great British Baking Show; The Block, a channel dedicated to Black movies and entertainment; NBCUniversal Telemundo, NBC's Spanish language channel; and less excitingly, QVC and the Home Shopping Network.

In addition to the new channels, Roku has also announced a large selection of free movies including lots of family-friendly films such as Chicken Run and Babe; action movies including The War of the Worlds, four Lethal Weapons and The Shallows; free comedy movies including There's Something About Mary and the cult hit Office Space; and dramas including Wall Street and Eat Pray Love.

The Roku Channel is available in the US, Canada and UK, but the website streaming is only available to people located in the US. You can access the Roku channel on Roku devices, of course, but there are also dedicated apps for iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV and some Samsung TVs too.

The Amazon Fire TV platform has lived in TVs made by Toshiba and Insignia for some time but now Amazon is producing its own brand of smart TVs with Fire TV built in. In addition to the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max and the new Pioneer and Toshiba Fire TV models, this is a big move for Amazon against the Google TV and Roku TV platforms.

Amazon has created two series of Fire TVs. The Fire TV Omni series are its premium offering, with top 4K Ultra HD displays, far-field hands-free voice control and easy connectivity to smart home devices, like the Amazon Echo devices. The Fire TV 4-series is the more affordable offering, but still offers 4K UHD picture and an Alexa voice remote.

For users looking to buy a Fire TV there’s now a lot of choice for very similar price points though this is clearly the aim. Right now, you can choose between more than 18 models with HD and 4K resolutions, sizes from 24-inch to 65-inch and prices from $170 to $830 (£120-£600)

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Amazon Fire TV Omni Series

The Amazon Fire TV Omni comes in five sizes, from 43 inches up to 75 inches. All of which feature 4K Ultra HD LED displays and both HDR10 and HLG support. The 65-inch and 75-inch models also come with Dolby Vision support. These are also finished in metallic silver rather than black and have thinner bezels.

The far-field voice technology (likely the same tech that is due to feature in the new Toshiba models) provides hands-free voice control for your TV and devices connected to it, such as sound bars and cable boxes. It also still works when the TV is turned off – though there is a switch to turn the microphone off too.

There are four HDMI connections on each unit, including one eARC 2.1 HDMI port, as well as an ethernet and USB port. Unfortunately for gamers, it has a 60Hz refresh rate and there’s no mention of a variable refresh rate.

Prices start from $409.99 for the 43-inch and go up to $1,099.99 for the 75-inch model and are available for pre-order now, with delivery due from October 27.

Amazon Fire TV 4-Series

The cheaper Amazon Fire TV 4-series comes in 43, 50 and 55-inch versions. While it lacks hands-free voice control, it still features a voice remote which can be used in much the same way with a press of a button.

Like the Omni series, these models all feature 4K UHD with support for HDR 10 and HLG formats, as well as Dolby Digital Plus audio. They also offer the same number of HDMI ports that include one HDMI 2.1 eARC port, USB and ethernet.

The 43-inch model is priced $369.99, the 50-inch is $469.99 and the 55-inch is $519.99. All are available for pre-order with delivery from October 27.

Amazon has released details of new Fire TVs, extending the range of models that feature this Amazon smart TV platform. Alongside new Toshiba models, the Pioneer name has returned to TV. Previous Fire TVs have been made by Toshiba and Insignia, while Amazon will also produce its own-brand Amazon Fire TVs.

Pioneer famously exited the TV market back in 2009 and while there was a brief revival under license in China, it has never returned to its class-leading levels. It’s not clear who is producing the latest batch of Pioneer Fire TVs, but it seems that TCL currently owns the rights to both Pioneer and Onkyo. If the Pioneer is a version of the TCL 6-series that features Roku TV, that might be no bad thing.  

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The new Pioneer Fire TVs are 4K Ultra HD devices and will be available in 43 and 50-inch versions. In addition, they will support HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR formats as well as DTS Virtual X audio.

The new Toshiba models, which won’t arrive until 2022 are slated to bring high-end picture quality and come in 55, 65 and 75-inch sizes. These will also benefit from a 4-array microphone to allow far-field voice capabilities.

The Pioneer 43 and 50-inch models will be available in the US and Canada, via Best Buy and Amazon starting from $369.99, though hopefully, we will see them in the UK and Australia sometime in the future. Shipping starts later this month for the 43-inch and in November for the 50-inch model.

Amazon is bringing its Alexa Announcements feature to its Fire TV set-top boxes and HDMI streaming dongles in the UK. The new functionality will land with a free over-the-air update that will install automatically in the coming days, Amazon says.

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For those who don't know, Alexa Announcements has long been a staple on the Amazon Echo-branded smart speakers and allows users to send messages to other Alexa-powered devices. For example, you could use the Echo Show 5 in the kitchen to send a message that plays from every other Alexa gadget in the house telling nearby family members or friends that dinner is ready.

To trigger the functionality, users will need to use the voice command: "Alexa, announce..." followed by the message they want to be beamed from every Echo gadget in the household. Rival Google Home smart speakers have a very similar feature dubbed "Broadcast". 

When the latest software update rolls out, Alexa Announcements will be enabled automatically on all Fire TV devices in your home.

If you'd like to disable the feature, head to the Alexa companion app on your smartphone or tablet, hit "Devices", select the appropriate Fire TV device, and you'll find the option to enable or disable Alexa Announcements.

To use the feature on Fire TV, you'll need to press and hold down the microphone button on the Alexa Voice Remote and say something like "Alexa, announce that the movie is about to start". A short chime will play on all other compatible Alexa-enabled devices followed by the message in the chatty AI assistant's voice.

To receive an Alexa Announcement from other Echo devices, you'll need to have the television switched on and turned to the Fire TV input, which means you're likely going to use the Fire TV to broadcast to other rooms, rather than receive messages.

When the Fire TV receives an Alexa Announcement, customers will get an audible and visual notification before the message starts. Obviously, Amazon will automatically pause whatever you're watching at the time, and resume playback of The Grand Tour as soon as the message has been read out.

As well as the arrival of Alexa Announcements, the Official YouTube app is also now available on all Fire TV devices. The new Google-designed YouTube app should already be in the Your Apps and Channels row right now. 

The official YouTube app on Fire TV is better than ever with expanded Alexa voice controls that let you find, launch, and control content (pause, play, rewind, fast-forward) using your voice. As you'd expect, the Fire TV can handle videos in 4K HDR at up to 60 fps on supported TVs. The new YouTube app will be the default YouTube experience for customers using a compatible Fire TV device, effective immediately.

The arrival of the Alexa-enabled app marks the end of a long-running feud between Google and Amazon around streaming devices.