Fire TV Sticks are often some of the cheapest streaming devices you can find. At any given time you check Amazon, you’re likely to find one on sale. That’s part of what makes these sticks so easy to recommend, because you’re not in much of a hole at all if you buy one and don’t like using it.
I actually found myself in that boat. I couldn’t pass up the value of a 4K Stick Max, so I grabbed one with the intention of using it in my bedroom. While that worked fine for a while, I eventually replaced it with a Roku Ultra, and I eventually swapped over to a 1080p Roku Streaming Stick in my basement. The problem with Fire TV is the number of ads being shown to me at any given time. Roku, while not perfect, is much better in that regard, and part of me thinks that’s what’s able to keep the price so low.
Both Roku and Amazon make affordable streaming sticks, but it feels like it’s easier and cheaper to get your hands on a Fire TV Stick. With Roku raising its prices, the Fire TV Stick sits alone as the cheapest option, but it comes at a hidden cost of a poor interface.
4.5/5
- Downloadable Apps
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Yes
- Resolution
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Full HD
- RAM/storage
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8GB of storage
- Connectivity
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HDMI
Ads are part of the package
Can’t avoid them
It feels like ads are just part of life today, but it feels like Amazon takes it a step too far. Any time I look at my Fire TV home screen, it feels like an advertisement for Prime Video. That’s annoying for many reasons, but the big one is that I’m already a subscriber to Prime Video. I don’t need to be blasted with the latest release like I’m being sold something when I’m already paying for it. It’s an issue that’s creeping its way into other streaming devices, which is part of why the Apple TV 4K is my favorite streaming device.
The next time you use your Fire TV Stick, take a long, hard look at the home page and ask yourself if it’s something that your enjoy. Chances are that it’s not, but there’s next to no customization that you can do to make it feel more appealing. The Apple TV 4K lets you organize things into folders and there are no ads, so it feels like a much better user experience.
Of course, you might care about this all that much, and that’s perfectly fine. I have a Fire TV in a spare bedroom with voice controls built in, and I use those to navigate. While it’s still the Fire TV OS, I get to avoid a lot of these problems by jumping around to specific HDMI inputs and apps, so I don’t have to be treated with a Prime Video flash bang each time I turn on my TV.
I don’t want to call it a necessary evil, but it really might be. Amazon Fire TV devices are the cheapest thing available on the market, so it’s a situation where you get what you pay for. If you want to have a better user experience, there are more expensive options out there. If you’re looking for the cheapest way to watch your favorite shows and movies, this is it, but it’ll come with ads.
It’s fine if you know what you signed up for
Fire TV isn’t the ideal way
While I have a Prime Video subscription, I use the ad-supported tier since I mainly have it for Amazon Prime, so I don’t particularly need to have an ad-free Prime Video experience. I fully understand that since it’s in my subscription terms, so when I see a commercial, it’s understandable. That’s what I sign up for when I watch services like Tubi and The Roku Channel, so it’s not like I have anything against ads. What’s annoying is when ads show up on the home screen for something I purchased, like a Fire TV Stick.
Free services rely on ads to make money, but the same can’t be said for a Fire TV Stick. I already bought the stick, so getting a bunch of ads on top of that just doesn’t feel good. This is why the Apple TV 4K stands out so much to me, because it’s just a no-frills streaming device. I buy it and I get to use it without having something sold to me all the time. Every other streamer on the market tries to sell me things, but the Fire TV interface feels like it’s the worst offender in this regard. I don’t see Amazon switching up this strategy any time soon, since it seems to be going so well for them. It’s not like a Fire TV Stick is a bad device, mind you. My problem is with the interface, and if that doesn’t bother you at all, then there’s a lot to like.
