John Garcia
Senior HTF Member
Had it for almost a week now and so far I'm pretty pleased with it. My previous benchmark for a streamer were the PS3 and PS4. They both buffered better than any stand alone player I've tried including my Roku2XS as well. The PS3, being more mature, had more flexibility configuration wise, but the PS4 does fine also. Compared to all of those, the FireTV is noticably quicker to navigate, has a nicer interface than the Roku and also fires up apps and streams faster. The remote is similar to the Roku remote, though it doesn't feel as well built as their remote. The box itself feels much more sturdy and I like the back panel better than the 2XS plus the fact that they included an optical output even if I don't think it was totally necessary. I like the larger footprint and lower profle aspect ratio (~2 CDs thick as opposed to a hockey puck) of the FireTV as well, because a bluejeans HDMI cable was thick enough to lift the Roku off the shelf; I actually placed a hockey puck on the 2XS to hold it down The FireTV stays put on its own. Had my 2XS not developed an issue, I might not have tried the FireTV, but I'm glad I did.
I've tried the voice search function a few times so far and find it to be quite good. It will locate apps as well as movie/show titles. What might be nice is if they would prioritize based on the apps you have installed, but I had no problems locating what I was looking for as well as a bunch of related items that I was actually interested in. The interface itself is much slicker than the Amazon Prime apps on various devices and is what I would like the app to be more like; as I'm sure it will. As I get some more use out of it, I will update. For now with my limited use so far though: thumbs up.
I've tried the voice search function a few times so far and find it to be quite good. It will locate apps as well as movie/show titles. What might be nice is if they would prioritize based on the apps you have installed, but I had no problems locating what I was looking for as well as a bunch of related items that I was actually interested in. The interface itself is much slicker than the Amazon Prime apps on various devices and is what I would like the app to be more like; as I'm sure it will. As I get some more use out of it, I will update. For now with my limited use so far though: thumbs up.