The Amazon Fire TV 4-Series is a very basic, entry-level 4k TV released in 2021. Along with the Amazon Fire TV Omni, it was one of the first Amazon-branded TVs. It's a very basic, entry-level 4k TV, similar to other budget models, like the Toshiba C350 Fire TV 2021, Insignia F50 QLED, and the Hisense A6G. The Fire TV smart interface is easy to use, and it has a great selection of additional apps, so you're sure to find your favorite streaming service.
Our Verdict
The Amazon Fire TV is okay overall. It's best suited for a dark room, as it can't overcome a lot of glare. It's great for watching movies thanks to its high contrast ratio. It's just passable for watching TV shows, with a great selection of streaming apps so you can easily find your favorite shows. It's not very good for watching sports or playing video games, though, as it has a slow response time, and HDR adds very little, as it's not bright enough for small highlights to stand out, and it can't display a wide color gamut.
- Great selection of streaming apps.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Image degrades at an angle.
- Slow response time.
- Not bright enough to overcome glare.
- Terrible accuracy.
The Amazon Fire TV is an alright TV for watching shows in a bright room. It has decent upscaling of 480p content, and the smart interface has a great selection of streaming apps, so you're sure to find your favorite shows. Sadly, although it has decent reflection handling, it has just okay peak brightness, so visibility is an issue in brighter rooms. It also has a poor viewing angle, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement or if you like to move around with the TV on as the image degrades from the sides.
- Great selection of streaming apps.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Image degrades at an angle.
- Not bright enough to overcome glare.
- Terrible accuracy.
The Amazon Fire TV isn't a very good TV for watching sports in a bright room. It has a relatively slow response time, resulting in significant blur around fast-moving objects. It has fair gray uniformity, but there's significant dirty screen effect, which is distracting when watching sports. Although it has okay peak brightness and decent reflection handling, visibility is an issue in brighter rooms. It's also not great for a wide seating arrangement, as the image degrades when viewed at an angle, so if you're watching the big game with a large group of people, you'll have to fight over the best spot.
- Great selection of streaming apps.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Image degrades at an angle.
- Slow response time.
- Not bright enough to overcome glare.
- Terrible accuracy.
The Amazon Fire TV is a good TV for playing video games. It has fantastic low input lag, resulting in a responsive gaming experience with little delay behind fast-moving objects, but it doesn't support any advanced gaming features like FreeSync, and it's limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. It also has a slow response time, so there's noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects. On the other hand, it has a high contrast ratio, and you don't have to sacrifice picture quality to get the best gaming experience.
- Fantastic low input lag.
- Slow response time.
- No advanced gaming features.
- Terrible accuracy.
- No local dimming feature to improve contrast.
The Amazon Fire TV is an okay TV for watching movies in HDR. It has a high native contrast ratio, so blacks in dark scenes are deep. There's no local dimming feature to improve dark scene performance, so blacks are raised when bright highlights are on the screen. On the other hand, this also means there's no blooming around bright objects. It can't get very bright in HDR, so small highlights don't stand out, and it can't display a wide color gamut. It can remove judder from all sources, though, and there's very little stutter.
- Great selection of streaming apps.
- Judder-free from any source.
- No local dimming.
- Can't display a wide color gamut.
- Terrible accuracy.
- No local dimming feature to improve contrast.
The Amazon Fire TV is good for gaming in HDR. It has fantastic low input lag, resulting in a responsive gaming experience, and it has excellent contrast, resulting in deep blacks in a dark room. Sadly, there's no local dimming feature to improve contrast, it can't get very bright in HDR, and it can't display a wide color gamut. It doesn't support any advanced gaming features like variable refresh rates, and it doesn't have any high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports.
- Fantastic low input lag.
- No local dimming.
- Slow response time.
- No advanced gaming features.
- Can't display a wide color gamut.
- Terrible accuracy.
- No local dimming feature to improve contrast.
The Amazon Fire TV is a poor TV for use as a PC monitor. It has fantastic low input lag in 'Game' Mode but a narrow viewing angle, so the sides of the screen don't appear uniform if you're sitting too close to the screen. Sadly, it can't display chroma 4:4:4 properly with any resolution, so text doesn't look good, and it has a slow response time, so there's noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects.
- Fantastic low input lag.
- Decent reflection handling.
- Can't display 4:4:4 chroma properly.
- Image degrades at an angle.
- Slow response time.
- Terrible accuracy.
Changelog
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Updated Jan 06, 2025:
Unfortunately, the backlight failure we reported in September has been traced to a faulty LED strip. Since it can't be repaired, this TV has been permanently removed from the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Sep 11, 2024: The backlight on this TV has failed. We've updated the Accelerated Longevity Test with details, and it's been temporarily removed from the test.
- Updated Sep 11, 2024: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Jul 17, 2024: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 55-inch Amazon Fire TV, and these results are also valid for the 43-inch and 50-inch models.
| Size | SKU number (U.S.) | SKU number (Canada) |
|---|---|---|
| 43" | 4K43N400A | 4K43N400C |
| 50" | 4K50N400A | 4K50N400C |
| 55" | 4K55N400A | 4K55N400C |
You can see the label for our unit here.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Amazon Fire TV is a very basic entry-level TV, and it's outperformed by the vast majority of TVs on the market. There are much better choices available in the same price range as other budget brands, including Hisense and TCL.
Also see our recommendations for the best budget TVs, the best smart TVs, and the best small TVs.
The Amazon Fire TV Omni Series is better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series. The Omni has better accuracy out of the box, and it's a bit brighter. The Omni also has a slightly faster response time, and the unit we bought has better black uniformity. Finally, the 65-inch and 75-inch models of the Omni have a more premium design, with hands-free voice control, and those sizes support Dolby Vision.
The Insignia F50 QLED is better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series. The Insignia has much better accuracy out of the box, a faster response time, better uniformity, and it's a bit brighter. On the other hand, the Amazon TV can remove judder from all sources, and it's better at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs.
The Hisense A6G and the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series use different panel types, each with strengths and weaknesses. The Amazon TV is better for a darker environment, as it has better contrast and better black uniformity. The Hisense has much better viewing angles and much better accuracy, but it's better suited for a room with a bit of lighting, as it has low contrast but can't get bright enough to overcome glare.
The Amazon Fire TV 4-Series is better than the Toshiba C350 Series 2023 as long as you don't care about color accuracy, as the Amazon TV has truly awful pre-calibration color accuracy. Still, the Amazon TV has much better contrast and black uniformity than the Toshiba, so it looks much better in a dark room. The Amazon TV also has much better image processing, making it the better choice for watching movies from all sources. The Toshiba is, however, the brighter TV of the two and has a much wider viewing angle, making it the better choice for a wide seating arrangement in a bright living room.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
Older Test Bench: This product has been tested using an older TV test methodology, before a major update. Some of the test results below aren't directly comparable with other TVs. Learn more
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