I've tested Amazon's new Fire TV interface: This is what I love and this is what I hate
The new update is here – read what we think about it
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
The old Fire TV interface
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.
