Fire TV Stick 4K plus 1-year subscription to Food Network Kitchen at no additional cost (with auto-renewal)

I received the Fire TV Stick 4K on launch day. I own the previous model and this is a much better experience. First off the remote is a huge improvement. The power button on the remote can turn on my tv, my receiver, fire stick, and switch the inputs automatically so the fire stick is on screen and ready to go with just one click of the power button. It's really nice. This is how it should have been all along. It gets even better though... lets say my TV is already on, and my receiver is set to a different input such as my FIOS tv box? All you do is click the home button on the remote and the remote switches the receiver to the correct hdmi input on the receiver for the fire stick! One remote to rule them all, and yes it controls volume on the receiver too! This is excellent. It's highly configurable. The setup is quite nice. You can define which inputs get picked when hitting the power and home button. You can define which device the volume buttons control. Amazon has done a great job with the Fire Stick 4K.It's faster than previous fire sticks. No more menu lag. Things are smoother and faster overall. I've used Roku, Chromecast Ultra and Fire Stick... I like them all for different reasons. I also dislike chromecast because 5.1 audio will not work on my receiver because chromecast refuses to support Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1. Fire stick has no problem handling DD5.1. This makes my plex and netflix experience much more enjoyable. The remote is better than not having a remote (chromecast). Roku's are very nice as well. All 3 of these options are great in their own way and frankly I had thought fire stick was the least desirable but recently I've come to realize I prefer Fire stick so I pre-ordered the 4K fire stick and I could not be happier with it. Amazon needs to keep up the good work. The 4K stick is a solid product and an excellent upgrade from the previous model

Let me tell you, I was super excited for the launch of the new FireTV Stick with its leading edge technology and processing power. Well, it’s got that but there’s a couple bug, game breaking problems I have with this thing.1) The Amazon platform is basically retooled Android, which is a crap interface. It’s cluttered, redundant, and Amazon being Amazon wants you to use all their services over everyone else’s so not only does their menu get in the way but the top third of the home screen is promotions for whatever they want to push.2) Also because it’s Amazon they want you to use THEIR streaming services to rent movies so much so that there is no Vudu or Google Play app available to install. If Prime Video had a decent selection of rentals (it doesn’t) or a halfway usable interface (it doesn’t) I would have less of a problem.3) Our FireTV Stick has issues with flickering and sound dropout. Tech support immediately supplied a series of less than helpful troubleshooting tips. “Did you try a different TV? Did you try a different HDMI port?” Despite my Roku working just fine. I elected to return this since I was already fed up with the closed interface and terrible menus.Slightly less of an issue but still annoying is the inability to completely turn off HDR. Its either “always on” or “adaptive” meaning the content dictates HDR which is a problem especially with Netflix (which is calibrated too dark on some TVs)For now I’m happier with my Roku Stick despite less robust HDR support.Edit: updated my review for the following:- Amazon reached out immediately after my review to get additional feedback and to offer more support. That actually means something these days. I’ll continue to monitor for problems- I upgraded to a new TV and this makes the HDR issue better since it actually looks good on this TV. Problem still stands of not being able to disable HDR entirely if needed- The smart controls feature is nice. I can use Alexa to change TV inputs now.- Less flickering on new tv but still have sound dropoutsHowever my issue with not having a way to watch VUDU/UV movies is a huge issue. On top is that, MoviesAnywhere doesn’t tell you which movies were transferred over in 4K. So while the titles may sync, in cases of certain films (eg Deadpool 2) you only get the HD version and not the UHD/HDR one you paid for. Until this is fixed I’ll leave my review at 3 stars.

Our main streaming service is DirecTV Now, and this stick doesn't run it right. The app seems to works and then just freezes. When I go to run a speed test, the connection is super low, and then ramps up over time back up to full speed. It's as though the app crashes the stick. Other things seem to work fine, but not the app we use the most. Will return and continue to use gen 2 and gen 3 devices. Too bad.UPDATE: So, I deleted DirecTV Now and did a fresh install. For the past three days, things actually worked well and considered revising my rating. Then I tried to watch a little Sunday football. CBS froze over and over again and caused the app to continually crash. Thought maybe it was the local CBS stream because other channels worked fine. Then I tried the Roku I have in my kids room, DirecTV Now worked fine. Figured I'd give it another go for the second game, same result. Watched Rams/Seahawks in my kids room with no issue on the Roku device. Again, other apps seem to work fine (I think) on Fire, but this stick isn't right just yet. I'd wait for problems to work itself out.