Design: Futuristic design powered by Alexa
The Fire TV Cube is a cute, futuristic-looking block that will stand out on your home console despite its 4-inch sides. On the outside, it’s virtually unchanged from the first-generation model. Across the top, there’s a blue LED bar that lights up whenever the Cube takes action. The sides of the cube have a glossy black finish that’s a fingerprint magnet. There’s volume and menu buttons on the top, as well, but we don’t foresee a lot of use for them considering that the Cube comes with a remote. In the back, there’s an HDMI connector, a power adapter port, and a micro USB port. You will also receive an Alexa-enabled remote with your Cube. It has buttons to navigate the UI, but it also has volume and power buttons that will work with your TV. It’s small, about the size of your palm, and it has a matte black finish that will make it easy to grip. The relatively large buttons make it simple to navigate the Cube without looking at the remote, as well.
Setup Process: Some difficulty in getting ready
Compared to the Fire TV Stick, the Cube is a little harder to set up— it doesn’t automatically boot like the Stick, and you need to take into consideration its IR receivers. It must have a clear line of sight to your remote, so place it somewhere you can see it. Additionally, if you want to take advantage of its 4K capabilities, you’ll likely want to use the included Ethernet adapter (and you’ll need to acquire an Ethernet cable).
Streaming Performance: Fast streaming and almost no buffering
With a hexa-core processor and an ARM Mali G52-MP2 GPU, the Fire TV Cube is blazing fast. Any trouble streaming 4K content is going to come from your internet connection. When I tested it, content loaded instantly, with little to no buffer time and instant thumbnail loading. Video looks vivid, and audio sounds great thanks to HDCP support and Dolby Vision encoding. I had no trouble getting my content in surround sound and in HDR, without any additional setup from my audio system or 4K projector. Video would consistently stream at 4K 60fps. If a show was particularly loud, Alexa had some trouble hearing me, but it was a quick fix by lowering or muting the volume. Alexa never confused the content audio for a command. However, while I didn’t have a problem with having Alexa understand my commands, I would be a little warier if your accent deviates strongly from standard American English. Google’s language recognition protocols tend to be better with understanding other languages and accents. Software is simultaneously Fire TV’s strongest and weakest point. On the one hand, the quantity of content available on the Fire TV platform is astounding—there’s over 5,000 apps to choose from, as well as a meager library of simple games to play. If you’re looking for something, you will find it.
Price: On the expensive side
There’s a lot to consider if you’re choosing between the Roku Ultra and the Fire TV Cube. Specs-wise, the Fire TV Cube is undoubtedly more powerful and supports more codecs. However, the Roku Ultra has more than enough power to handle 4K content, and it supports HDR, so only the pickiest film lovers would even notice the difference. Roku has the advantage when it comes to software, with the biggest and most varied library of any streaming platform. Both its menus and its search function are platform agnostic, meaning it’s simply interested in presenting you the most relevant and cost-effective results. For those that like quiet listening, you can also sync audio to your phone or the remote and listen with your headphones. Meanwhile, the Fire TV Cube has IoT integration.
