Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Better than I thought… From a techie guy... I'm a big geek… I have tons of boxes and electronic toys… I even have several Google TVs which are now outdated. I'm pretty blown away by this box, and the amount of "content apps" available. For instance the unknown "Pluto TV" app has over 100 HD streaming stations. Some of them obviously aren't great, but it's definitely enough to keep you busy. For hours on end. Some of the channels have an hour or two of programming and just loop over and over again, but there's enough content on other channels to keep you busy for days. If you're looking for the end all answer to cut your cable TV service, FireTv does not have things like live CNN, AMC and other cable stations (yet), but you could purchase a subscription for Sling TV (Google it) which has ala-carte live TV services. Something Apple is promising to deliver. If you have a current cable subscription, you can get things like HBO and Netflix streamed to your box if you are already paying for it in your home cable subscription. Your provider "passes through" the HBO, Netflix, etc programming through to this box. So for instants if you had an outdoor TV, TV in an attic or basement, you don't need to add another cable box to watch movies. . It has all the standard bells and whistles like Netflix, Hulu, and those sort of services . The box is fast, does what it's advertised. I have a Ultra HDTV. Although ultra high definition content is scarce these days, this box probably has the most ultra high definition content of any other unit. Granted a lot of those ultra high definition videos are of "Flyovers of nature" type videos. if you have Amazon prime, then you can stream several of their in-house shows in ultra high definition. They do have a large range of very popular movie theater type movies in ultra high definition, but there is no rental availability. And I doubt I'm going to spend $35 to watch Spiderman and ultra high definition. Just not worth it. If you're looking at this to be your end all box, it's pretty close. I'm curious to see what the AppleTV will have to offer, since I have multiple televisions in my household, I plan on having both systems right now . If your TV has a "smart hub feature" that contains all these built in apps, you may be doubling up on some of those popular ones like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. I read the reviews on the Live Sling TV service, and they said they're still having a lot of problems with successful streaming, that it still there's quite a bit of buffering and videos just stopping for no reason. But sling TV does offer many stations live like cable for about $25 a month. If this is to be used with a second TV, like bedroom or living room, it's a nice supplement to have for your cable TV box, which you could probably drop down to basic service. Remember… This is all in its infancy. And it will take several years to shake out who the leader is. This is definitely "THE" top-of-the-line box right now. The price is cheap, and you will definitely spend hours, and hours sifting through many obscure and fun channels. UHD TV Note: If you have an ultra high definition television set and want to see content in 4K video, make sure that you check your TV manual or google your sets model number for info online. I have two Samsung 8500 TVs. It drove me crazy during set up, because I did not realize that only one of the four poorly marked inputs on my Samsungs could handle ultra high definition, 4K content thru HDMI. It's quite possible that your set will not handle any 4K content through HDMI, and that your tv only plays 4K content through its internal hub system or a special breakout box. Make sure you check that out first, if 4K is a critical feature for you ! You will also need a high-speed HDMI cable, that can carry the band width of 4K content. Your TV set will search for that band with to know that it's there. If you use a standard HDMI cable, even though you're running 4K content, your TV will not switch that feature on. One last critical thing… It would be best to run an ethernet cable from the back of that box, to your router. And then an HDMI 4K cable to the back of your television. If you're streaming bandwidth is not fast enough, or has lots of interference, your set or the box will downshift to standard high definition to deliver you smooth video. This box DOES deliver 4K video. It's up to you to make sure you have the bandwith, the inputs, and a television set that can handle this type of stream of data. The high definition picture on this is quite crisp and clear. And quite honestly, a lot of the 4K video, you probably won't notice much of a difference, and less you're a super geek LOL. Great box, definitely gworth the money. I forgot to mention, it has Amazon's "Alexa" built in… That is Amazon's version of Apple's Siri. Pick up the remote, ask it a question, the weather, pretty much anything, and chances are it will find it for you. I did ask it to find certain kinds of things and it had difficulty. It's a very simple system, pick up the remote, ask it a question, the weather, sports, news, pretty much anything, and chances are it will find it for you. I did ask it to find certain kinds of movies and it had difficult with it, but it did respond that it "wasn't available at this time" which seems to me that they are working to make it an even deeper search engine. This box is tiny… Enjoy!