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.
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Great selection of streaming apps.
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Decent reflection handling.
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Image degrades at an angle.
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Slow response time.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare.
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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.
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Great selection of streaming apps.
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Decent reflection handling.
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Image degrades at an angle.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare.
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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.
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Great selection of streaming apps.
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Decent reflection handling.
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Image degrades at an angle.
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Slow response time.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare.
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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.
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Fantastic low input lag.
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Slow response time.
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No advanced gaming features.
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Terrible accuracy.
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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.
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Great selection of streaming apps.
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Judder-free from any source.
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No local dimming.
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Can't display a wide color gamut.
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Terrible accuracy.
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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.
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Fantastic low input lag.
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No local dimming.
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Slow response time.
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No advanced gaming features.
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Can't display a wide color gamut.
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Terrible accuracy.
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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.
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Fantastic low input lag.
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Decent reflection handling.
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Can't display 4:4:4 chroma properly.
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Image degrades at an angle.
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Slow response time.
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Terrible accuracy.
- 6.7 Mixed Usage
- 6.8 TV Shows
- 6.6 Sports
- 6.8 Video Games
- 6.6 HDR Movies
- 7.1 HDR Gaming
- 6.2 PC Monitor
- 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.
- Updated May 02, 2024: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Feb 13, 2024: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Dec 05, 2023: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Nov 22, 2023: We bought and tested the Vizio Quantum QLED and added some comparisons below in the Viewing Angle and Pre Calibration sections of the review.
- Updated Oct 12, 2023: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Sep 28, 2023: Mentioned the newly reviewed Toshiba C350 Series 2023 in the Pre Calibration section of this review.
- Updated Aug 09, 2023: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Jun 07, 2023: We uploaded the latest brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Apr 28, 2023: We've updated the text to match the latest changes to our test methodology.
- Updated Apr 28, 2023: Converted to Test Bench 1.11. With this update, we've added a new Upscaling: Sharpness Processing test and revamped our Blooming test so the scores and picture better match the real world experience. With this change, it was necessary to remove the Black Crush test. Finally, we've updated our usage scores to better align our scores with user expectations.
- Updated Apr 03, 2023: We uploaded the brightness measurements and uniformity photos after running the TV for four months in our Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Mar 07, 2023: This TV now has a full color and white balance calibration system. We calibrated it and updated our post calibration results. The settings page has also been updated with our white balance and color settings.
- Updated Feb 22, 2023: We bought and tested the Insignia F30 Series 2022. We've added a few relevant comparisons to this review.
- Updated Feb 16, 2023: We've updated the text in the review to reflect our latest test methodology updates.
- Updated Feb 16, 2023: We uploaded the brightness measurements and uniformity photos after running the TV for two months in our Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Feb 16, 2023: Converted to Test Bench 1.10. With this update we've revamped our Gradient testing, added a new test for Low Quality Content Smoothing, and expanded our Audio Passthrough testing.
- Updated Jan 11, 2023: Updated to Test Bench 1.9, modifying our Contrast testing and splitting our local dimming testing into multiple sections covering Blooming, Black Crush, and Lighting Zone Transitions. You can see our full changelog here.
- Updated Dec 16, 2022: Updated to Test Bench 1.8, adding a new box for PQ EOTF tracking and updating our Color Volume and Color Gamut tests to better reflect real world usage. You can see our full changelog here.
- Updated Dec 14, 2022: Updated to Test Bench 1.7 with an updated HDR Brightness test that better reflects real world usage. We've also split the console compatibility boxes into separate PS5 Compatibility and Xbox Series X|S Compatibility tests. You can see our full changelog here.
- Updated Nov 17, 2022: We uploaded the initial brightness measurements and uniformity photos for the Accelerated Longevity Test.
- Updated Apr 07, 2022: Updated to firmware 7.4.7.2 to retest the color accuracy with new calibration settings, and to retest the gradient handling.
- Updated Dec 20, 2021: We rechecked the audio passthrough and updated the console compatibility section.
- Updated Nov 15, 2021: Review published.
- Updated Nov 10, 2021: Early access published.
- Updated Nov 02, 2021: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Nov 01, 2021: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Oct 06, 2021: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
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.
Compared To Other TVs
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 4-Series is much better than the Insignia F30 Series 2022. The Amazon TV is significantly better for watching movies in a dark room thanks to its higher contrast ratio, and it can remove judder from any source. The Amazon TV gets brighter, so it can handle more glare in a bright room.
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 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.
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 R6090G is much better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series. The Hisense has much better accuracy, even out-of-the-box, and it has better black uniformity. The Amazon TV is a bit brighter, and it can remove judder from more sources. The Hisense is also better for use as a PC monitor, as it can display chroma 4:4:4 properly.
The Hisense U6G is much better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series. The Hisense has a full array local dimming feature, better black uniformity, and it's much brighter. The Hisense also has much better accuracy, even after calibration. Finally, the Hisense has a faster response time, and the unit we bought has better gray uniformity.
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.
Unless you're in a completely dark room, the Vizio Quantum QLED is slightly better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series. The Vizio has much better accuracy even before it's calibrated and has a much wider color gamut. The Vizio also has a very wide viewing angle, which is great if you have a wide seating arrangement, as the image doesn't look washed out at an angle.
The Sony X85J is significantly better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series in every way. The Sony has much better accuracy, it's significantly brighter, and it has better black uniformity. The Sony also has better contrast, a much faster response time, and better uniformity.
The Sony X90J is much better than the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series. The Sony has a great full array local dimming system, so it's a better choice for a dark room. The Sony also gets significantly brighter, has a faster response time, and has much better accuracy.
The Amazon Fire TV 4-Series and the Toshiba C350 Fire TV 2021 use different panel technologies, each with strengths and weaknesses. The Amazon TV has much better contrast, so it's a better choice for a dark room. The Toshiba TV has wide viewing angles, but it's not a good choice for a bright room, as it can't overcome glare.
The Amazon Fire TV 4-Series and the TCL 4 Series/S446 2021 are basic entry-level TVs, and the models we tested have different panel types with strengths and weaknesses. The Amazon TV has a VA panel, which has a higher contrast, while the TCL we tested has an IPS-like panel with wider viewing angles, but there are variants of the TCL with a VA panel instead. The TCL has much better accuracy out-of-the-box. The TCL also upscales 480p content better because it doesn't crop the image, and it displays 4k content without issues. Both TVs remove 24p judder from native sources and apps, but the Amazon TV also removes it from 60p/i sources, which is great.
Video
Test Results
The Amazon Fire TV has a basic design with a glossy black finish. It looks okay for a budget TV, but the overall design is a bit dated.
Update 09/11/2024: Unfortunately, the backlight on this TV has failed. We'll order replacement parts to try to fix it. Watch this space or our main longevity article update page for updates.
The stand is pretty basic, but it supports the TV well, with just a bit of wobble. The feet are wide-set, but leave enough room to place most soundbars in front of it.
Footprint of the 55-inch TV: 39.2" W x 11.8" D x 2.51" H
Unfortunately, there's no cable management on the back of the TV. The inputs are all housed in the center of the TV, so even though they face to the side, they're difficult to access when the TV is wall-mounted.
Sadly, the Amazon Fire TV has mediocre build quality. It looks and feels cheap, and there's a bit of flex and a creaking noise coming from the back panel when you press on it. The feet and bezels of the TV are glossy black plastic, which looks cheap. Overall, it doesn't feel very solid.
The Amazon Fire TV has a good native contrast ratio, resulting in deep blacks in dark scenes. There's no local dimming feature to improve contrast, though, so blacks are raised whenever there are bright highlights on the screen.
Since this TV lacks a local dimming feature, there's no blooming around bright objects in otherwise dark scenes. Since the entire backlight is always on at the same intensity, dark scenes show raised blacks when bright highlights are on the screen.
This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature; the entire backlight is always on at the same intensity, so there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move across the screen.
Switching to 'Game' mode doesn't result in any noticeable difference in dark scene performance.
Sadly, the Amazon Fire TV has poor peak brightness in HDR. Small highlights aren't bright enough to stand out, and HDR is flat and dull overall.
These measurements are in the 'Movie' Picture Mode with the Backlight at its max, Contrast at '50', and the Color Temperature set to 'Warm'.
There's no noticeable difference in peak brightness in 'Game' Mode.
This TV has great accuracy, as it tracks the PQ EOTF well. There's a sharp roll-off near the TV's peak brightness, causing a loss of fine details in bright scenes, and blacks are raised a bit in near-dark scenes.
The Amazon Fire TV has just okay peak brightness in SDR. There's very little variation in brightness with different content, which is great. Very small scenes are dimmed a tiny bit, but this is far from noticeable.
These measurements are in the 'Movie' Picture Mode with the Backlight at its max, Contrast at '50', Gamma at '0', Color Saturation at '45' and the Color Temperature set to 'Warm'.
Unfortunately, the Amazon Fire TV has just an alright color gamut. It can't display a wide color gamut for the latest HDR content, and tone mapping is off in the DCI-P3 and the Rec. 2020 color spaces, causing a loss of fine details in brightly saturated scenes. The Insignia F50 QLED, with its quantum dot panel, delivers a much wider range of colors.
Unfortunately, due to the narrow color gamut, the Amazon Fire TV has disappointing color volume.
Unfortunately, the Amazon Fire TV has terrible accuracy before calibration, even with the most accurate settings. The color temperature is very cool despite using the 'Warm' setting, and there are noticeable issues with every color and the white balance. Gamma is close to our target of 2.2 for a moderately lit room, though, but bright scenes are slightly over-brightened. If you're bothered by this TV's abysmal pre-calibration color accuracy, check out the vastly more accurate Toshiba C350 Series 2023 or the Vizio Quantum QLED.
The Amazon Fire TV has fantastic accuracy after calibration. Although it didn't initially support calibration, after firmware updates, it now supports 2 and 11-point white balance calibration, and it has a full color calibration feature. It's easy to calibrate overall, but the color calibration is a bit more difficult, and blues are still inaccurate after calibration.
You can see our full calibration settings here.
The Amazon Fire TV has fair gray uniformity. There's quite a bit of dirty screen effect in the center of the screen, which is distracting when watching sports, and the sides of the screen are significantly darker than the center. Near-black scenes have much better uniformity, but there are still some noticeable issues.
The Amazon Fire TV has okay black uniformity. The screen is a bit cloudy throughout, which is distracting in dark scenes. There's some backlight bleed, but it's not too noticeable. Unfortunately, there's no local dimming feature to improve black uniformity.
Unfortunately, the Amazon Fire TV has a poor viewing angle, so it's not well-suited for a wide seating arrangement. The image appears washed out if you're even slightly off-center. If you're looking for a similar cheap TV with a wider viewing angle, check out the Insignia F30 Series 2022 or the Vizio Quantum QLED instead.
The Amazon Fire TV 4-Series has decent reflection handling. The semi-gloss finish reduces the intensity of direct reflections a bit without smearing them across the screen. Visibility is still an issue in brighter rooms, as the TV isn't bright enough to overcome direct sunlight.
This TV has excellent gradient handling in HDR. There's very little banding in areas of similar color, and gradients are displayed properly.
This TV can smooth out gradients well for the most part. There's very little macro blocking in low bitrate content, but the smoothing features result in some loss of fine details.
This TV has decent sharpness processing, so low-resolution or low-bitrate content looks satisfactory overall. Fine details are preserved well for the most part, but text is a bit blurry and hard to read.
The optimal settings for a sharp 480p image with no over-sharpening are as follows:
- Sharpness: 21
- Super Resolution: On
The Amazon Fire TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional Red-Green-Blue layout. It doesn't cause any issues for video content, but if you plan to use this TV as a PC monitor, it might be an issue for text clarity. You can read more about this here.
Unfortunately, the Amazon Fire TV has a mediocre response time, so there's considerable blur in fast scenes. Dark transitions are significantly slower, resulting in black smearing behind fast-moving dark objects.
Unfortunately, the Amazon Fire TV uses pulse-width modulation to dim the backlight. There's noticeable flicker at all backlight levels below the maximum. This flicker causes duplications in motion and can cause headaches if you're sensitive to flicker.
This TV doesn't have an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, but there's flicker at all backlight levels below the maximum.
The Amazon Fire TV has an optional motion interpolation feature, which can improve the appearance of low frame-rate content. The feature is okay, but it can't handle fast-moving content well, and there are noticeable artifacts and halos in some content. It's also a bit choppy when the camera is moving.
Thanks to the fairly slow response time, this TV has very little stutter when watching movies or other low frame rate content like most TV shows.
The Amazon Fire TV can remove judder from all sources. It's especially important for a smooth movie-watching experience.
The Amazon Fire TV has a basic 60Hz panel and doesn't support any variable refresh rate features.
The Amazon Fire TV has fantastic low input lag, as long as you're in 'Game' Mode. Unfortunately, 'PC' Mode and any mode other than 'Game' has extremely high input lag.
Unfortunately, the Amazon Fire TV can't display chroma 4:4:4 properly with any supported resolution, so text isn't displayed properly.
Unfortunately, this TV can't take full advantage of the PS5. It's okay for gamers who prefer high-quality graphics over performance mode, but it doesn't support variable refresh rates, and it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate.
Like with the PS5, this TV can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series S|X. It's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and doesn't support a variable refresh rate to reduce tearing.
Although advertised to have one HDMI 2.1 port, the Amazon Fire TV only supports HDMI 2.0 bandwidth.
The Amazon Fire TV supports eARC, and it supports passthrough of some advanced audio formats when your TV is connected to a high-definition video source.
Unfortunately, this TV has a disappointing frequency response. The low-frequency extension (LFE) is extremely high, resulting in a very weak bass with no thump or rumble. Above the LFE, the frequency response is fairly balanced, so dialogue sounds clear, as long you're not at max volume, as there's a bit more compression.
This TV has okay distortion handling. There's not much distortion at moderate listening levels, but it's a bit more noticeable at max volume. Not everyone will hear this, though, and it varies depending on the content.
The Amazon Fire TV runs a slightly more recent Fire TV interface than the previous non-Amazon branded Fire TVs, like the Toshiba C350 Fire TV 2021. The interface is smooth and easy to use.
Unfortunately, like almost every TV on the market, there are ads throughout the home interface and content store, and you can't disable them.
The app store has a great selection of additional apps to download, and you can also cast content from your mobile device.
The remote is nearly identical to the one included with the Toshiba C350 Fire TV 2021. It's a pretty basic remote, but it has built-in voice control, which you can use to change inputs, launch apps, or search for content, but it can't adjust the TV's settings. Through Amazon Alexa, you can use the voice controls to control other compatible smart products.
