Amazon has said the new streaming player has 40% more power than its predecessor, the Fire TV Stick 4K. Here’s how you can buy one today.
Amazon has today revealed the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, describing it as its “most powerful” high-definition streaming and media player.
With support for Ultra HD, Dolby Vision, HDR and HDR10+, the new stick is reportedly 40% more powerful than its predecessor, the Fire TV Stick 4K, and its specs mean that its apps will open faster and navigation will be much more fluid.
The Fire TV Stick range is one of the easiest ways to expand your TV’s functionality – with the device working as a central hub for services such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV and more – while also supporting Alexa voice controls.
Here’s everything we know about the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. If you want to read more about the existing series, don’t miss our coverage of the prior models, including the Fire TV Stick Lite review and the Fire TV Stick (2020) review.
Fire TV Stick 4K Max: How much does it cost?
The new Fire TV Stick 4K Max is priced at £54.99, and pre-orders are open now via its Amazon product page. The device will be released on October 7th, 2021.
Fire TV Stick 4K Max: What are the specs?
The stick comes with a quad-core 1.8GHz processor and 2GB RAM – which should be more than enough to keep performance smooth even when handling power-intensive apps that stream high-definition content. For comparison, the previous Fire TV Stick 4K had a quad-core 1.7 GHz processor and 1.5 GB of RAM.
The upcoming stick supports 4K UHD, HDR and HDR10+ streaming alongside both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Like the previous high-def model, the stick continues to offer voice commands via an Alexa Voice Remote, but one neat trick is that it’s the first stick to come with a feature called Live View Picture-in-Picture.
That can be used to display feeds of your video doorbells and security cameras on the screen from products such as the Ring Video Doorbell.
To bulk up the audio, the stick can be connected wirelessly to an Echo Studio or a pair of Echo (4th Gen) smart speakers – so that will help to immerse you in whatever content you are watching. The initial set-up for the streaming stick remains extremely simple – plugging directly into the TV’s HDMI port and a wall socket.
But one of the biggest selling points is that it comes with Wi-Fi 6 support. It’s the first time an Amazon streaming stick has had this ability, using a new type of Mediatek chipset that ultimately results in smoother 4K video and gaming when multiple Wi-Fi 6-connected devices are streaming – a big plus for futureproofing.
Amazon is pitching the new stick as a good way to access its game cloud streaming service, Luna. Prime members can currently request early access to the service.
We look forward to trying the Fire TV Stick 4K Max ahead of its release next month when we will be able to tell you if it’s worth the price and how it compares to the other sticks in the series, the Fire TV Stick Lite, Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick 4K.
At time of writing, the Fire TV Stick Lite costs £29.99, while the Fire TV Stick costs £39.99, and the Fire TV Stick 4K costs £49.99. However, don’t forget that there will likely be good deals during Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 in November.
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