Amazon's New Fire TV Stick Gives You 4K Streaming For Almost $100 Less Than Apple TV 4K
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Ahead of its October Prime Big Deal Days, Amazon has announced its latest streaming device, the Fire TV Stick 4K Select. The new 4K Ultra HD streaming stick will be priced at $39.99, which is a good $90 less than the 3rd generation Apple TV 4K's cheapest model. It's now available for pre-order and starts shipping on October 15th. It's part of a broader Fire TV lineup refresh announced at Amazon's product-centric event on September 30th. It arrives along with redesigned Fire TV Omni QLED televisions and upgraded Alexa+ software.
Right off the bat, this new 4K Select comes at a cheaper starting price than the standard 4K stick (typically $49.99, though currently on sale for $24.99) or the 4K Max stick (usually set at $59.99, but on sale now for $39.99). That technically makes the Fire TV Stick 4K Select the most affordable 4K streaming device at launch, but if you can't wait a couple of weeks, you can get the 4K stick or the 4K Max on sale right now for the same price or cheaper.
Digging into the specs for the Fire TV Stick 4K Select
The new 4K Select supports HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG and is powered by Vega, Amazon's new smart TV operating system. With this, it supports fast app launching, cloud gaming services like Xbox Gaming and Luna, and Alexa+ voice integration.
Worth noting before you buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick: It only has 1 GB of memory compared to 2 GB for the Fire TV Stick 4K and 4K Max, and only supports up to Wi-Fi 5. (The 4K and 4K Max support up to Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, respectively.) You get the same amount of storage as the base 4K model — 8 GB — which is less than the 4K Max's 16 GB. Live view picture-in-picture from the 4K and 4K Max models is also unavailable, as is Dolby Atmos audio.
At first glance, the Fire TV Stick 4K Select looks an awful lot like a 4K version of the Fire TV Stick HD. The Stick HD can't support Xbox Game Pass and can't give you 4K Ultra HD picture quality, nor will it work with Alexa+, but the fact remains: the two have the same supported video and audio formats, the same remote, the same amount of storage and memory, and the same Wi-Fi support.