Hello everyone it's SpawnPoint and welcome back to another video so i've been using the new 2021
apple tv for a few weeks now and having coming from using the previous model the 2017 i wondered
was it really worth changing what extra features do we actually get or are you better off just
buying the new remote instead and as most tvs now have all of these streaming apps installed anyway
is there really a need for this little box at all well today i'm going to show you what
this new apple tv offers including using AirPods to watch movies screen mirroring
and playing apple arcade games plus what the new remote is like compared to the old design
what i like dislike and what i actually think needs improving
right here's the box and just like with the previous model it's pretty small and compact
inside the box we've got the new remote control which on first impressions it feels really really
nice then we've got the new apple tv box the power cable some instructions and finally the lightning
to usb cable and then the same as last time there is no HDMI cable in the box even though we need
that to use it so visually the 2021 apple tv box is no different to the previous model it's still
got the same design weight and even the dimensions of the 2017 model i'll refer to the 2017 model
as the gen 1 as that is the first 4k model so it's pretty clean and simple looking but i do
like the design especially with the apple logo on the top it's got those nice glossy sides as
well it'll obviously fit into any setup as for the ports on this well around the back we've got the
hdmi which is now hdmi 2.1 rather than just hdmi 2.0 this means it will be future-proof for any
frames per second content there's also the power port and the ethernet port if you're not using
wi-fi oh and wi-fi has been upgraded on this so it now supports wi-fi six so you've got the different
options on screen now it basically means that it's now capable of more bandwidth while streaming now
they both support dolby digital and dolby digital plus 7.1 have a 4k resolution dolby vision and
hdr10 now the biggest spec difference here is the 60 frames per second on the gen 1 versus the 120
frames capability on the gen 2. this will support any high frame rate hdr content so essentially any
really fast-paced sports like motorsports that will be absolutely perfect for this
now i have tried to get the red bull app to work so i can actually load some content in that kind
of speed but unfortunately i could not get that to work so i've not been able to test out yet
another change on the new model is the processor so it's now got the a12 chip instead of the a10x
chip that we've seen before but i can tell you now i've seen no noticeable difference between the two
boxes so those new features of the chip and the new features of the high framework hdr it's made
no difference to my viewing at all so the biggest change with the new apple tv is actually down to
the remote control which i'll start by saying you can buy this separately so if you do like
the look of it and you're using a previous version of the apple tvs just buy the remote instead now
this remote if you buy it separately will work on both the 4k and the hd versions from the previous
gem now the new design actually looks awesome i really really like this aluminium casing and
it's got this kind of sharp edges it looks like a lot of the other products in the apple lineup so
on the remote we've still got the buttons like the home where it returns you to the dashboard or the
home screen we've got the back button to return you to the previous window we've got the volume
buttons obviously controls the volume on your tv your soundbar or your avr and then we've got the
play and the pause buttons and it still has this siri mic at the top and the charging port at the
bottom and it's also got a dedicated power button and this turns off the tv your avr and the apple
tv in one go and the siri remote has now been moved to the side so you can actually access
this with your index finger instead this is a lot easier than using the search functionality but you
can actually use your voice to search for things instead but feeling this in my hand now it feels
like a real step up in quality over the previous gen and obviously with those extra buttons as
well you can obviously control other devices as well a little bit easier now the previous gen by
comparison i actually feel it feels a little bit flimsy it feels like you could break it really
really easily but other than the overall look feel and placement of the buttons there's another big
change here and that's the touch pad in the middle so just like before the center of this click pad
is touch sensitive and around the outside you've got the left the right the up and the down buttons
it means as you're moving around the home screen or you're scrubbing through a movie timeline
you can either use the touch pad to kind of swipe left and right to do so or you can use the
actual buttons around it to be a little bit more directional and accurate now on the old remote i
would use the touchpad quite a lot actually but i would definitely found the new one to be a little
bit more sensitive now that's a good and a bad thing because it means that it actually picks
up input really easily if i'm actually trying to press the buttons instead of the touchpad but it
means when i am using the touchpad it's really really responsive and this is how it compares
to the older remote you can see here it's taller and the buttons have obviously moved up and i'll
tell you what actually the way the buttons are placed now actually makes a little bit easier to
hold because your fingers are resting a little bit further up the remote it's also a lot thicker as
well but i definitely prefer the overall design in both the way it looks and the way that it feels to
get the apple tv setup it takes literally a couple of minutes so you plug it in using the power cable
and you're obviously your own hdmi cable and then you just use any other apple device you've got so
like an iphone or an ipad and it will actually set it up automatically so what you'll then do is it
will use your account to log in to itunes and then if you've actually had a previous apple tv before
like i have it will then download all the apps you had previously and lay out in exactly the same way
so the tv os is exactly the same as the previous model we're not getting a whole new operating
system which is a shame although it is pretty clean anyway there's not a lot i would change
here other than the option to maybe add your own wallpapers to the background so across the top
there's a kind of a dock or a springboard and this is where you can place your most used or your most
frequently used apps so i've got things here like netflix and disney but any apps you wish to add
here you can just move them around all you need to do is click and hold on the app and then you
just drag it around just like you would on your iphone and the rest of the apps around the home
screen are all displayed across five columns but again you can move these around into any layout
that you wish you can even store apps in folders so i've actually got all of my games i'm using
in a particular folder here but you could put all of your tv apps for example or all of your
entertainment apps into one folder just to kind of keep it a little bit more organized so just click
and hold on the app wait for it to wiggle and if you press the play and pause button you get these
extra options then you can either create or move into an existing folder and i've got an app here
that i wish to delete so again you click and hold press play and pause and then you just hit delete
now to jump between apps or to see what other apps you've got open you can actually double tap
the home button and you get this kind of task view at the top you can either navigate through going
between the different apps or if you want to close them just swipe up and it will close those apps
i mentioned this one at the start now this is actually on the previous gen as well
but you can actually pair your airpods to your apple tv in fact you can actually pair two sets
at the same time now this means if you wanted to watch a late night movie or stream some netflix
well you can actually do that with the volume up without annoying or waking your children or
your neighbors and setting them up is really easy just power them on whatever device you want to use
find and select them in the settings under your bluetooth settings and you're good to go then as
you're wearing them the movie will obviously play and as soon as you take them off the movie will
automatically pause now this is such an awesome feature and then as soon as you put them back
on it will just resume again now if you're into playing apple arcade games on your ipad or your
iphone for example well you can now play those on apple tv and this is just something that
smart tvs just cannot compete with an airplane from your phone to your tv just isn't quite the
same now you can use the apple tv remote to play some of these games but it is pretty difficult
now fortunately you are able to pair either a ps4 or ps5 or your xbox controller straight
to the apple tv now i've tested this on both the dual shock 4 and the dual sensor controllers and
they both work perfectly and once paired you can play any of these games and it feels like you're
playing a normal arcade game on your console and then as it's part of the apple arcade ecosystem
it means you can play it on your tv and then continue playing on your iphone later hopefully
over the coming months we'll see even more games added especially with the capability of hdmi 2.1
we may hopefully see some games running at 120 frames now i've said this before but i watch a lot
of movies across all of the main streaming apps as you would expect but what i really like about the
apple tv here is this isn't the same as smart tvs is the way that it integrates with the other apps
that are installed so on the apple tv home screen you can see here that it's not only got the apple
tv plus shows and movies it's actually got other apps installed as well so things like bbc iplayer
and itv now this doesn't work across all of the apps but the app that it does work with it shows
you what's up and what's playing next this is like a really really cool feature it's also got
another feature on here called what to watch now this is actually created by editors over at apple
and this is actually hand-picked and recommended for you now obviously if you don't have a smart
tv yet or you don't have a smart tv that's capable of all of the main streaming apps you would like
to use then this little box will give you all the apps you need in one place and as mentioned before
this does support 4k hdr so anything that i've watched through over the last few weeks has looked
awesome whether that's been through apple plus or disney plus or netflix it all looks really really
good there's no limitations here at all so you're getting everything that those streaming apps
actually support and talking about the picture quality of apple tv there's actually a new feature
that they've implemented with the latest tv os we've all messed around with our tv settings and
our picture settings on our tvs trying to get that perfect picture well now apple tv will actually
do that for you so there is a feature built in and it will calibrate the picture settings for your tv
so actually use your iphone proximity sensor the camera and the light sensor to read your tv's
current picture profile and then it will adjust it off the back of that now it doesn't actually
adjust the tv settings itself so any picture settings you've already got applied it won't
mess with that it'll actually kind of apply like a filter over the top of that through the apple
tv so you place your iphone about one centimeter from the tv itself it will then read the image and
the different colors is displayed on the screen and once it's finished it will then give you the
option to compare using the previous and the new calibration so if you can see the differences
here as i flip between the two you can see the original and you can see the calibrated option
on the right there's a slight difference between the two so i think it's a little bit warmer but
other than that it's very very similar now i've also shown this before but you can actually
airplay or screen mirror from your ipad your iphone or your mac straight to the apple tv
so i know that some tvs already support this for example the tv that i'm using the lg c1 this
already supports airplay but there's definitely a noticeable lag when i'm using the tv version
whereas on apple tv it feels instant now it's not something i use often but it is something
that's very very useful for either sharing photos or videos from my iphone this next one's for oled
users like myself who might be worried about burning well with the apple tv it does come
with an inbuilt screen saver you can actually select what images or videos you wish it to play
and it will rotate through these some of these are really nice as well and they auto update so
you'll regularly see new ones now the app store on apple tv is actually pretty good now most of
the apps i've installed over the last few weeks are the sort of apps you'd expect to see on your
phone anyway so you've got your streaming apps you've got your apple arcades there aren't many
apps on there that you won't see elsewhere but navigating around is really easy searching as well
is straightforward so if you've used an iphone or an ipad it's practically the same just search
and download anything that you need now this isn't something that i need to use at home but
the apple tv does actually support multi-user now this means if you have more than one person who's
using this apple tv well you can actually sign in and use their profile instead and that will
then show the games or app progress that you're currently seeing so we need to do is press and
hold the home button then you'll get this sidebar and you're able to change your account from here
so the new 2021 apple tv is launched at the same price as the previous apple tv so you can get the
32 gigabyte option at 169 pounds or 179 dollars and the 64 gigabyte option is 189 pounds or 199
dollars so i've got the 64 gigabyte version here but i've added about what 20 apps and 10 games to
this and i've used less than 10 gigabytes so to be honest i would just save that 20 dollars or
20 pounds and i would stick with a 32 gigabyte option so the question is is it worth going for a
2021 apple tv if you've got a previous 4k version or if you don't have one at all in short i think
the ui the available apps and the apple arcade are worth having an apple tv for i mean sure most tvs
including the one that i'm using here already have the streaming apps built in but they don't offer
the same experience they don't look the same and obviously you don't have that app store as well
and you certainly cannot play any of the apple arcade games if you wanted to but if you've got
a previous version of the apple tv say you've got the 2017 apple tv 4k i wouldn't bother upgrading
i would just buy the new remote if you like it for 55 pounds or 59 dollars and i would just be
happy with that well you've just made it to the end of today's video so thank you for watching
if you drop a 2021 apple tv in the comments i will give you a thumbs up as i know you're still here
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