What Amazon lacks in design, it more than makes up for in speed

Between streaming boxes, built-in apps on smart TVs, game consoles, and casting from your phone, there are endless ways to watch new releases and classic shows right from the comfort of your living room. The number of options at your fingertips can make upgrading your home theater setup feel daunting. Do you stick in the Google ecosystem? Go third-party and pick up a Roku device? Hold out hope that you'll find a PS5 before the holidays?

Amazon's hoping that an onslaught of sales and continued Prime exclusives will convince buyers to opt for Fire TV devices this year. Joining its ever-growing lineup this year is the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, a mouthful of a product name that promises to boost your streaming experience to the next level for just $5 more than the original 4K model. The Max offers improved performance, faster connectivity, and Amazon's latest UI redesign, but whether that's enough to set it apart from the competition remains a serious question.

Amazon's latest streaming stick is perfect for anyone already deeply invested in its ecosystem, but others might want to look elsewhere.

These days, if you've seen one streaming stick, you've seen them all. There's not much diversity in design outside of Nvidia's tube-shaped Shield TV and Google's signature puck for its latest Chromecast. Frankly, when you're sticking something behind your television, there's nothing wrong with making it look as plain and utilitarian as possible.

As with the rest of its lineup of streaming sticks, Amazon's latest Fire TV Stick is a simple plastic rectangle with an HDMI connector sticking out of one end and a microUSB port in the middle. We've forgiven the company in the past for sticking to microUSB — after all, who cares if your streaming stick's power cable is interchangeable with the rest of your gadgets — but frankly, it's starting to feel long in the tooth.

USB-C might not seem like a useful improvement, but it would allow the Fire TV Stick Max to take advantage of hubs offering Ethernet and additional USB-A ports for external storage. MicroUSB isn’t a deal-breaker, but this gadget is Amazon's high-end streaming stick, and as such, caters more to power users than your average buyer. The company does sell an Ethernet adapter for $15, but throwing in a modern port would make swapping in and out accessories a whole lot easier.

While you won't be interacting with the actual stick very often, you will be grabbing the bundled remote every day. Although previous Amazon remotes have omitted the usual grab bag of streaming service shortcuts, its latest Alexa-enabled model includes four branded buttons along the bottom. Unsurprisingly, Prime Video gets prime placement, with Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu following suit. You can change these if you're willing to put in some work, but you'll still have logos all over your remote. No doubt these buttons will bug some people, but I think they're fine. I've even managed to avoid accidentally pressing them. The same can't be said for my Chromecast with Google TV remote.

The remote’s plastic body isn't anything remarkable, but it gets the job done. An Alexa-branded voice command button at the top of the remote makes it easy to search for movies and TV shows, issue commands to your smart home devices, and even control playback — though you're probably better off just hitting the pause button instead. If you have Echo speakers in your home, they'll also work to deliver voice commands and other actions to your TV. The remote can also control your TV's power and volume over IR — super handy if you're trying to avoid swapping back and forth between controls.

In the box, you'll find the Fire TV Stick itself, a microUSB cable, power brick, an HDMI extender, the remote, and two AAA batteries.

Late last year, Amazon finally started to roll out a new interface for its Fire TV devices, something most users would argue was long overdue. While I've never disliked the company's streaming UI, it was definitely starting to feel dated compared to competition from Google and Apple.

Unfortunately, I actually think I prefer Amazon's older look and feel to its current version. It doesn't necessarily look any more modern — it just looks different, with more tabs and menus spread around each menu. It also doesn't fix the biggest issue most people have with Fire TV products: incessant advertising. Between the rotating banners along the homepage and the constant prioritization of Prime and IMDB-branded content, it all feels a little overwhelming.

Granted, Amazon's not alone in this. Google has really been pushing sponsored content on its latest Chromecast, to the detriment of its recommendation engine. Even still, Amazon's experience is worse than usual. The banners along the top of the homepage don't feel personalized at all — often recommending Amazon's in-house home shopping network and Prime channels I don't subscribe to — and the second row of content is taken up by additional sponsored items. While you can reach your list of installed apps before scrolling by this banner, it's incredibly frustrating to constantly navigate around advertisements when trying to find a Friday night movie. Hell, if you walk away for a few minutes to make yourself some popcorn, you'll likely come back to a default screensaver filled with — you guessed it — ads.

Compared to Amazon's older UI, the most significant changes are at the top of the home screen. The search tab has been renamed "Find" and placed in a separate group alongside Home and Live. The Live tab — which you can also access from a dedicated button on the remote — pulls from any Prime Channel subscriptions you might have, along with a slightly smaller selection of channels from services like Pluto TV and IMDB TV.

To the right of these options are a handful of pinned apps you can keep as favorites. It makes it easy to jump right into any application — no matter how niche — without being forced to browse through ads and unrelated content to find the service you want.

While the UI might feel cluttered and unorganized, at least Fire TV isn't lacking in content. Competitors like Roku struggle to keep services from leaving the platform, but Amazon's lineup of apps has every single service you could ever hope for — and countless you didn't know existed. Its channel service gives easy access to content you might otherwise not sign up for, occasionally offering massive discounts for new accounts. For example, I signed up for Showtime on Black Friday for just 99 cents for my first two months. Even if I cancel before it renews at full price, I've undoubtedly gotten my money's worth. And hey, since all Fire TV devices are using Android underneath Amazon's software, you can always sideload an APK if you're missing something.

The biggest difference between the original Fire TV Stick 4K and its new Max-ed out big brother is a significant boost in power — although you might not expect it when comparing these specs sheets side-by-side. Amazon promises a "40% more powerful experience" compared to the basic 4K device, though what that actually means in real-world performance is unclear.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max packs in a MediaTek MT8696 quad-core CPU rated at 1.8GHz, the successor to the MT8695 found in the company's first 4K streaming stick. It's paired with an upgraded IMG PowerVR GPU and 2GB of RAM — the latter of which, in my experience, makes the most significant difference between devices. While it's still limited to 10/100Mbps Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6 has been added for improved network performance (assuming you've upgraded your router to take advantage of it).

Specs aside, performance is excellent. I'm sure the newer CPU is helping, but I think the biggest reason to buy this over the 1080p or last-gen 4K model is the upgraded RAM. I was able to swap between four different apps without any of them relaunching or refreshing. If you've ever spent half an hour switching between various services while trying to find something to watch, you'll appreciate how much faster it feels not to have to re-select your profile name every single time.

As with any high-end streaming gadget, you'll find the usual slate of visual and audio standards. HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos are all available out of the box, as one would expect. Sadly, there’s no DTS audio support. The usual slate of video codecs is here, too, with one big addition: AV1 support. Amazon is a founding member of the Alliance for Open Media, so it shouldn't come as any big surprise that it's been added. Still, it's become as important as ever — especially considering it was one of the underlying issues surrounding YouTube TV getting pulled from Roku products.

Should you buy it? If you're already in the Alexa ecosystem, sure. Obviously, I have my qualms about Amazon's vision for how a TV-friendly UI should work. However, I don't think most general consumers will be bothered by the sponsored content — in fact, I bet they won't notice it most of the time. Once you've opened an app, the extra performance offered by the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is evident. Everything feels smooth, fast, and fluid, and the ability to quickly swap between apps without waiting for reloads is a big improvement over older Fire devices.

You're really going to get the most out of this if you have Echo-branded speakers and smart displays littering the house. Amazon's built itself quite the ecosystem, and if you've adopted Alexa as your preferred way to control your thermostat or the locks on your door, this Fire TV device will fit right in. The built-in voice control on the remote will still work well for anyone who doesn't use Echo products, but if you have the opportunity to shop around for other streaming gadgets, it might be worth your time.

Of course, it's worth taking the price into consideration. While its $55 MSRP might push you to shop around, it's tough to beat the $35 sale Amazon has been running throughout the holiday season. If you're looking to pick up a powerful streaming stick on the cheap, this might be your best bet.

Although I’ve switched back to my usual daily driver since this review — a Chromecast with Google TV — I’ve continuously found myself drawn to what I see as an improved streaming experience with Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick. While my Chromecast continues to feel sluggish, this device feels just as fast as when I unboxed it back in November. There’s no perceptible lag when scrolling between menus, and apps still load blazingly fast. The networking issues that caused me to hardwire my Chromecast with an Ethernet dongle don’t appear to affect this Fire TV Stick, which makes me think something’s wrong with Google’s hardware.

That’s not to say there’s no room for improvement. Nearly all of the faults I called out last month are still here: the remote is mediocre, Alexa isn’t nearly as good as Google Assistant, and the UI is loaded with ads and other sponsored content. But at the end of the day, ads on your TV are nothing new. What matters is the overall experience. Does Amazon’s latest streaming stick provide a fast and easy way to access all of those apps you’ve signed up for over the last decade? The answer is yes, and it does it faster and more reliably than most other gadgets in this price range — and even cheaper when it’s on sale.

Until Google announces a new Chromecast — one that’s more powerful and loaded up with extra storage — I think shoppers should take a long look at its Amazon-branded competitor. If you’re just looking for a way to stream original content from HBO and Netflix, it’s easy enough to ignore the mediocre home screen. Having a consistent, speedy, and crash-free experience when browsing through apps matters greatly, and Amazon gets it right.

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Will is a news editor at Android Police. He's been an Android enthusiast since he got his first smartphone in 2011. He loves watching movies, has a never-ending backlog of video games, and produces podcasts in his spare time. He lives in Buffalo, NY and is willing to give you chicken wing recommendations at any time. Just ask.