So a sure sign of a great tech product is one that doesn't try to reinvent itself every couple years
the wheel for one still round the iPhone for another it's still basically an iPhone
after all these years now there are incremental changes sure uh things can work a little better
over time they can look a little better but the fundamental purpose of those things the wheel and
the iPhone for example still exactly the same and that brings us to the third iteration of
the Amazon Fire TV Cube still a cube still Amazon Fire TV it's still part Echo now it
just works a little better and it looks a little better and it basically does everything a little
bit better but yeah there's a little more going on here so let's dive into it foreign
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video is coming out which could be right about now we've been really busy lately all right let's go
do this first a word of warning though I'm gonna try to keep from saying Alexa every third oh see
I did it already it might happen so if you've got an Amazon echoing around maybe Go mute it
just in case sorry not sorry first some basics of the new Amazon Fire TV Cube so this new version
retails for about 139.99 but there's a pretty good chance that you will be able to find it on sale
if not immediately relatively soon especially as we get closer to the holidays now note that this
Fire TV bundle does not come with the Alexa voice remote Pro it just has a normal Fire TV OS voice
remote it does control your TV it still has the microphone built into it for some reason uh to do
all the Alexa stuff even though that's built into the cube we'll get to more of that in a second if
you want the voice remote Pro it's backlit it has spy to help you you know find a lost remote that's
going to cost you an extra 35 dollars so just keep that in mind so all you're going to get in
the Box here is the cube and the power brick and the remote control and some pieces of paper that
say they are very important and you should read them and I am absolutely going to read them just
as soon as we're done here I promise so the cube itself uh the first major difference is that it's
no longer a mix of like glossy and matte plastic it's now covered in that same cloth material as
the other current generation Amazon Echo speakers I like that a lot first it's continuity right
everything looks the same that's good second you won't get fingerprints all over this thing when
kids and spouses and yourself pick it up that's a good thing so let's flip things around to the back
that's where we really first start to see things that are different and you'll notice first and
foremost the new HDMI import we'll talk more about that in a second it's simultaneously a big deal
and kind of not a big deal we'll get there you'll note there's also a full USB a port and that's
good because you can plug in external storage and you might really want to do that out of the box
you only end up with about 10 gigabytes of storage on board after the operating system and all that
so just plug in a flash drive 32 gigabytes will probably do more than you need which is fine or
if you decide you don't need the extra storage plug in a webcam you can do video calls from this
thing that's kind of interesting and look at that there's now proper ethernet I like that a lot I
plug in things whenever I possibly can even though Wi-Fi has gotten better we'll talk about that in a
second but full ethernet port so you can plug in and get the fastest speeds possible probably more
important is it's just better than dealing with a dongle I hate the dongle life so things have
changed on the inside too mentioned Wi-Fi it now supports Wi-Fi 6E which is the fastest version of
that standard there's a pretty good chance your router doesn't even support it yet unless you've
got a really new router but it's good to see it on here 6E future proofed as fast as it gets for
Wi-Fi as of this recording the processor has also been beefed up a little bit we'll talk more about
that in a second I'm not a big speeds and feeds guy it seems faster how about that you happy so
what's the same here well it's still a cube it still looks like a cube still has the buttons
on top still has Alexa built in so hands-free voice control you almost don't even need a remote
control to use a fire TV Cube tell it what to do and it does it it's also still an Amazon Fire TV
device which is to say it's a little busy on the home screens but it's also really really good has
all the streaming apps you could possibly want a whole bunch of gaming Amazon music all the apps
you expect to find on a modern streaming device it's all still here just like the sticks before
it just like the cubes before it so back to that HDMI import that really is the big deal here and
the way it works is this if you have a cable box or a satellite box if you use those things instead
of streaming you're going to want to consider plugging it in here and that's because it lets
the Fire TV Cube control those devices easier than ever way easier than an IR blaster which yes is
still included here but now it's all running directly Through the Fire TV Cube and that's
cool and it's not just those that it works with if you have a gaming device if you have a Blu-ray
player same thing all right you have to check with Amazon make sure it's supported but it probably is
so you plug those in and you're gonna have to do a little setup and I'll be completely honest here
I missed it at first it took me a couple tries I actually had to ask Amazon what am I missing
uh so you go through the input setup and say hey I have a cable box this is my cable company and this
is where I live and now it's going to get really smart now it's going to let you say hey change the
channel to ESPN on cable and it's going to switch over to cable or hey change to Fox on cable and
it will change to Fox on cable or change to ABC on satellite it'll switch to satellite whatever
you've hooked it up with it's going to figure it out now another little bit of honesty here I'm not
actually the target market I think for that sort of thing and that's fine really the way I see this
HDMI import is an option it's not a requirement I wouldn't buy the TV Cube just because it has it
but it's cool to have it there I stream everything I haven't had cable in years I don't have
satellite I don't have Blu-ray player anymore and that's fine uh it really just gives you options
right so instead of switch switching from One streaming app to another I can just say hey switch
to cable or switch to satellite and in my limited testing here I think it kind of takes about the
same amount of time whether I'm changing apps or whether I'm changing inputs it's kind of the same
amount of brain power it's kind of the same amount of timing and end result is I'm watching what it
is I want to watch I'm also not a big talk to my devices guy I prefer to use the remote control I
like to keep things quiet it's just easier for me that way so maybe I'm not the target market
for a Fire TV cube in the first place and that's fine too a lot of options here the point is this
the HDMI in input thing is a nice option to have it's not a deal breaker if it's not there I think
it's a cool thing to have included though and ultimately it works pretty well perfect
seamless instant maybe not quite little room for improvement there but it's still pretty good now
one more thing worth mentioning and I don't know that this is the sort of thing you're going to
notice I'm not sure if it's the sort of thing I would notice unless somebody told me but the
better processor the more powerful processor lets Amazon do a little more things with the upscaling
so if you don't know what upscaling is if you have a show that's in 1080P or heaven forbid 720p it's
going to upscale it to the resolution of your TV so hopefully 4K right now they're not just
putting more pixels on the screen they're going to try to refine those pixels too I'm going to
sharpen things up clean it up a little bit try to make it look better Amazon is not new at this okay
other companies have done it for years Amazon has probably done it before as well they're doing it
here in the Fire TV Cube it's good you want this it's good to have would you notice if you didn't
have the exact same thing right next door and you're looking at them both side to side probably
not but it's worth mentioning and that brings us back to the beginning look this is an Amazon
Fire TV Cube they haven't reinvented it it's not an all-new Cube it's just a better Cube like the
two versions before it it's still part Amazon Echo still part Amazon our TV it's just better it's got
some new ports it's got some new features seems faster but fundamentally it's the same device and
it plays in the same space as the Apple TV 4K and the Roku Ultra and if you want something that does
all the things that does all the home control and all the streaming and all the Fire TV type stuff
it's a really good device no it's not as cheap as the 50 streamers out there and it's not supposed
to be but if the price is listed at now it's not bad at all so that's it for now again be sure to
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