What we unpacked today is FireTVStick4K
an upgraded version of FireTVStick4K
Hey
I'm wukong
Today I want to share
with you an upgraded version of FireTVStick4K FireTVStick4KMAX.
Many friends don't quite understand the differences
and upgrades of 4kmax.
I will give you a summary and
share it with you.
One is the hardware part
and the other is
the software part.
Let's talk about the hardware part first.
The previous SOC was Mt8695,
and now it has been upgraded to Mt8696. It may not
be possible to see any difference simply from the numbers.
Let me say the result directly
The single-core performance is improved by 30%
and the multi-core performance is improved by about 20%
Compared to the Google TV stick
its performance is almost the same
with a slight improvement in multi-core performance at most
That's a big improvement over the
previous FireTV Stick4K.
The second point is
that the memory has been upgraded
from a very small 1.5g memory to
a still very small 2GB memory.
Yes, in terms of memory control,
it's still a pinch.. But it's better than no upgrade.
Then the third point is
that WiFi has been upgraded
from WiFi5 to WiFi6.
Many people who hear about this WiFi6 may be excited and excited
but in fact
is there any significant improvement in WiFi6
We will talk about
the hardware part later,
and then we will talk about the software.
The first point of the software is the upgrade of
the system version,
and many small partners may be confused by its gorgeous appearance UI.
In fact,
the last version is fireTVStick4k,
and its system version is still Android 7.1.
2, which many people don't know.
This time, Max has
finally been upgraded directly
to Android 9.0.
Android 9.0 has been around for more than a year,
but the upgrade could bring
a lot of changes
to the underlying system.
Ok
the second point is the HDR off function
which is not available in all previous fireTV
Assuming your TV doesn't support HDR,
forcing HDR on will cause your
entire picture to be grayed
out or
have a color mapping error.
That's why the HDR off feature is so critical
and this time it's expected
The third point is
that the previous FireTV Stick4K of Dolby Panoramic Sound is
actually very controversial,
because it can't really support Netflix's Dolby Panoramic Sound on Netflix.
In this generation,
Dolby Panoramic Sound, which really supports Netflix,
including Disney's Dolby Panoramic Sound,
can also be perfectly lit up.
The fourth point
is that the audio and video diagnostic function has been added this time.
This function sounds like a niche.
I will give you a
demonstration later.
It can detect the capability of your TV itself,
that is, the ability of the TV,
including whether it supports HDR and
whether it supports dual Dolby.
I think this function is somewhat similar to XBOX,
which is very intuitive.
Now, without further ado,
let's take you to experience it.
The body of
the remote control has many more buttons than before,
and the MicroUSB power supply line FireTV
has its own characteristics every time.
Add such an extension line,
OK, this is the body,
you can have a look.
In fact, this body is almost the same as before.
This is a simple manual,
a small 5v1A power supply,
and two No.7 batteries,
that's all.
Ok, let's make a simple comparison with the previous
generation of FireTV.
You can see that there is no difference in appearance,
but the only difference may be
that it has an additional word FireTV this time.
There is no other difference
including the location of the interface and the size of the volume
In terms of the docking station,
you can still buy this very cheap docking station,
which costs only a dozen yuan on Taobao,
and it is also very convenient to connect a U
disk or a mouse.
For an extension of type-C,
it costs a lot less.
Okay, next up is a USB network card.
I am very happy
to tell you that all three models support drive-free use,
whether it is Crab's 8153 chip or AX88179,
they are all perfectly compatible.
Of course
there may be many people who do not actually have the need to transfer the network port
and the level of transfer is still more than 300 megabytes
which can not be changed
In terms of remote control, although several buttons have been added this time, in fact,
the design has not changed much in general.
Let's take a look at Google TV again
From the perspective of hand feeling
Google TV actually has a better hand feeling
because its navigation button area is larger
so it is more comfortable
In other areas, there are some buttons that
increase efficiency,
such as fast forward and fast rewind,
which are some features of FireTV. When you go to watch Netflix or Disney,
the fast forward button is very efficient.
In other respects, I think they are equal.
If I had to choose between these two remotes
I would probably prefer Google TV
because the feel is probably more important than the buttons
In terms of power supply
it is still 5v1A
and we can directly use the USB of the TV backplane to power FireTV
The advantage of this is
that as your TV goes to sleep
or shuts down,
it shuts down too, making it 100% portable.
Okay, now I'm going to power it up,
and I'm currently connected to Echo Wall.
Of course
you can also connect to the Hdmi of the TV backplane
You can see that the overall interface
can be said to be very gorgeous,
and it looks very clear.
Compared with other Android set-top boxes,
its UI may be
deeply customized,
and it obviously looks clearer than other
Android TV boxes.
It gives me the feeling that it is rendered in 4K
and every icon is deeply customized
In order to prove this point,
we can open all the applications.
After opening,
you will find that there are some original
applications and some applications installed by myself.
For example,
there is Dangbei Market.
You can see that Dangbei Market has a rectangular icon,
but on FireTV,
it shows this icon (square),
that is to say, the whole system is redrawn.
It doesn't read Google's standard rectangular icons
not that it doesn't
but it redraws them
On the contrary, these icons are original,
that is to say,
it has its own market called appstore,
and all the applications in it will redraw the icons.
So you can clearly feel that the
redrawn icon is very clear,
while the icon that has not been redrawn looks very blurred.
It's not quite as interactive as Apple TV
but the UI is pretty flashy and
in my opinion
much clearer than the average Android TV box
In terms of appearance, let's take a look at the system settings.
We can click on the
upper right corner to focus on the settings interface.
The more important settings are the
display and sound settings,
which can be said to be the soul of the TV box.
As you can see, there is an additional option,
which is the diagnostic function of audio and video.
You can see that this audio and video diagnostic
function can test some capabilities
of your TV very well.
I can show here
that this TV supports Dolby Vision,
Dolby
Panoramic Sound and HLGHDR10. It is 4k60hz,
which is
somewhat similar to this XBOX.
It is also a good touchstone.
Let's play it again.
Okay, at this point,
the echo wall will display the words Dolby Panoramic Sound,
and Dolby Vision will also be displayed here.
Maybe many people haven't found this function.
I think it's a very good function.
It's also a display and sound setting.
It's a very important option.
Let's focus on the last one. Yes,
it's dynamic adjustment. Continue to click
we suddenly found that there is an additional option
Yes
it is disableHDR
which is very useful
If your TV is not HDR
or not a true HDR TV,
I suggest you turn this option off,
because this will prevent you from graying
the whole picture when
you play HDR.
Because my TV itself supports HDR
I choose dynamic adjustment here
As we all know
this time the 4kmax upgraded WiFi6
I will not keep you in suspense here
and I will give you the test results directly
The data on the left is the results of the previous generation.
Yes, 378Mbps is actually very good.
The data on
the right is 404Mbps.
The speed of 404Mbps is the new 4kmax.
I think you want to
cry again when you see it here. Yes
such an improvement can be said to be minimal
Some people say that this speed is normal
indeed it is normal
but compared with the excellent TV box
there is still a big gap
Let's take another set of data.
You can see that
this is the Apple 4K 2021 model,
which can run to 622 Mbps.
Comrades, they are all WiFi 6,
and you can see how big the difference is.
Then there is another set of data.
This is my iPhone 13. The data can run
to more than 700 megabytes,
so this is definitely not the problem of the router.
Of course, I also hope that this is the problem of firmware.
I guess a lot of people are disappointed when they hear this.
Let's take another set of data.
You can
see that this is an intranet speed measurement of iperf3.
From the internal network speed measurement,
we can see that the average speed of the previous generation of internal
network is more than 200 megabytes,
but this generation has indeed improved,
more than
300 megabytes has increased by 40%,
because the improvement of
the internal network speed will directly affect the local video playback.
I guess a lot of people are a little comforted to hear this.
Ok, let's talk about it.
This time, the fire stick still supports 4KHLG.
This is a very characteristic video.
Let's click play to have a
look. As you can see
this video is very characteristic
Its video format is hlg
and the color mapping is BT2020. The whole picture is normal color
without any gray phenomenon
And its video encoding is AV 1 encoding.
So this video basically tries out
some parameters of everything.
The pipeline of 4kMAX is quite special.
Its display resolution is also 4K.
1920 × and 1080 × 2 are written on it. As you can see,
HDR has been lit up,
and its adaptive speed is very fast.
Let me show you. Let's click back.
Okay, as you can see,
the speed is very fast, and it switches directly to the normal SDR mode.
Don't underestimate this action,
because it's very slow
on Apple TV.
Okay, next, everyone is more concerned
about the issue of Netflix's Dolby Panoramic Sound.
Everyone knows that the previous generation of FireTV
does not support Netflix's Dolby Panoramic Sound,
which has been turned on.
As you can see
the current film is just a double Dolby film
Dolby Vision and Dolby Panoramic Sound have been shown here
These two signs have appeared
In my video
it's not just a simple test of a logo
because the environment of each household's speaker is different
I just prove that this device has this ability
As for the effect
it's entirely up to your device
Then there is no gray phenomenon in this film.
If your TV does
have a screen that supports HDR,
it won't be gray.
It has been shown here that the highest bit rate is about 15Mbps
and there is no problem with 2160p
If you open the management interface of Sony's signal source,
you can see that the current picture quality is Dolby Vision,
and the Dolby Panoramic Sound logo can be displayed on your echo
wall. As we said just now, after Netflix,
the second more important streaming media is Disney +.
Why do we say Disney + now?
Because at present, Taiwan already supports Disney +,
that is to say, it will add a lot of Chinese
or Chinese film sources.
Let's open it and have a look. Well,
now we have entered Disney +.
You can see that there is a
series of Asian movies.
Although there are not many sources,
there are also many
movies or Korean dramas from mainland China.
Although there are not many,
there are
about ten or twenty.
Now if you look at this Disney movie,
almost all the movies have Chinese subtitles.
Okay, let's click on one and have a look.
As you can see, Disney is the same as Devi, 4K, Dolby Vision,
Dolby Panoramic Sound,
all of which are perfectly lit.
Let's have a look.
Ok, let's pause here and take a look.
The top is its audio track and subtitles.
You can see that its audio track is very complete.
It's a bit like when we watch the
original Blu-ray disc and
then look at the subtitles.
Many movies did not have Chinese before,
but now they have more Chinese.
If you hang the American node,
it can even appear in simplified Chinese.
We can use the fast forward button on the remote control to fast forward very quickly.
I have a very deep memory of this cartoon
There was absolutely no Chinese subtitles before
See
Now there are Chinese subtitles
And then even it has a Chinese audio track.
Disney + is a great
option if you have kids in the family.
Because there are not only movies that we adults watch
but also some cartoons that children watch
and even very old cartoons in the 1990s
such as Tarzan in 1999
which look very nostalgic
Yes, this one is also available in simplified Chinese.
Even the audio track is in Chinese.
So sometimes what we want to tell you is that
things like Dolby Vision and Dolby Panorama may
not be the most important,
but whether the movies you watch are the ones you like.
That's probably the most important thing.
I think today's children are really happy.
You can see a lot of film sources when you
open the streaming media software.
Compared with the past, when we were young,
we watched a lot of advertisements on
the TV before we could enjoy some of our favorite cartoons.
Compared with Netflix
the picture quality of Disney + is also very good
We can see that most of the sources
are actually dual Dolby films.
Of course, there are some films about Marvel,
which may have higher specifications,
and there will be an additional IMAX logo,
so it can be said that all the signs are complete.
Okay, the next step is to test the local high bit rate video.
As you can see,
this is a hevc video with a high bit rate.
It plays without any stutter.
The picture is very
clear and very smooth,
so there is no problem with the
local high bit rate video.
And I didn't connect the network cable
I used WiFi6 directly
Well
the next one is VP9. Vp9 has no problem
There is no problem with fast forward and fast rewind
Ok
the next test is the local AV 1 encoded video
which may be more challenging
Okay, we read the USB disk directly this time,
in case someone says it's because of the network speed, right?
Ok this video is a 4K AV 1 encoded video
You can see that this picture is very stuttering
It can be said that it has become a PPT
So the local AV 1 encoded
video doesn't play
well on online YouTube.
We have tried it just now,
and there is no problem with AV1 encoding,
but the local video encoded by AV1
has been stuck in PPT.
Of course, if I change a few more,
for example, 4k60 is even more unacceptable.
If there is a problem with its decoding
it will have more problems with HDR decoding
and there is no need to test this
Okay, let's try this game again.
As you can see
the remote control can act as a small handle
I can only play this small game.
Fast forward on the remote control is actually a jump.
It's quite interesting
You can see that the whole picture is very clear
It must be very smooth to play this little game. UNK1
This little game is quite interesting,
so it's a good choice
to play it with 4KMAX,
and some games I find seem to be exclusive.
Ok, see here,
I believe everyone has a
relatively rational
understanding of this 4kmax.
Some people may be a little disappointed with 4KMaX
thinking that its WiFi6 may not be up to standard
and then the local AV1 decoding is not so powerful
but the card is PPT
But what I want to say
is that encouragement is greater than criticism.
Because Amazon
at least as an industry giant
has made WiFi6 a priority
I think it will play a
leading role for future products,
especially for TV sticks next year or the year after next.
Because in this case
more TV sticks will adopt the WiFi6 protocol
Of course, there are some pessimists who think
it's just a gimmick,
but I don't think this test
can rule out some problems
at the firmware or software level.
Next
let's talk about AV 1 encoding
but I think this AV 1 encoding actually serves streaming media
especially streaming media in the future
Now that the AV1 encoding of the pipeline has
run very smoothly on this,
even if the local stutter is actually harmless,
it will eventually serve the vast number of streaming media.
After several days of use or trial,
I think the overall fluency of 4kmax,
including the performance of video and audio,
especially the performance of online streaming media and dual Dolby,
is very good, and my overall evaluation of it is relatively high.
Then you can also see
that this time it finally
added some options such as HDR off,
but did it do it perfectly?
In fact
there is no reason
it supports Dolby Vision
but we do not see the opening and closing of Dolby Vision
In this respect, Google TV can be said to be an industry leader,
and some of the switches it makes are simply complete,
very complete.
The switch of Dolby
Vision and HDR can be set very well,
so we have to look at Google's big brother in this respect.
In other ways,
I think Google TV and FireTV 4K MAX are really
hard to beat.
By the way
if you can't stand the fact that it has an English interface
you can only choose Google TV
People often ask me which one of these two TV
sticks I should buy. Personal experience,
if it is at this stage,
it is definitely safer to
buy Google TV,
because some of the problems it
exposed have been solved now,
and its firmware update is relatively stable,
and the switches are also very complete.
In fact, this one has just been on the market,
and I suggest you
wait and see for a while,
but it is already good, and the two can definitely compete with each other,
including the configuration and the overall fluency,
and 4kmax has a higher definition.
I think this aspect is
even more beautiful than Google's native one.
Of course, I recommend you to buy both of
them and use them for a period
of time to see which
one is more suitable for you.
Then you can keep it and sell the rest directly.
That's all.
Of course
there are also people who ask me which one to buy
Apple TV 4K or 4kmax
I think this is a problem of digging a hole,
because the price difference
between Apple TV 4K
and 4kmax is so big that it
is really a bad choice.
If you are not short of money,
then you can buy Apple TV4k.
Ok, that's all for today's video.
If you have any questions about this TV stick
or if there's anything else worth discussing
feel free to leave a comment below the video If you haven't subscribed to my channel yet
remember to click the subscribe button in the lower right corner of the video
OK
our video of this issue is here first
and our next video is here
Goodbye