Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA Brilliant Smart TV Upgrade
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2021
I have a five-year-old 60” 4K Samsung smart TV, however, the smart functions have never been the best as they are slow and temperamental, and as a frequent user of the in-built apps, the slow loading and occasional crashing of Apps became frustrating and sometimes infuriating. Instead of going to the expense of buying a brand new TV, I decided to spend just £50 on the new 4K fire TV stick, and its transformed my TV, it now actually does what it’s supposed to do.
Setting it up was a doddle, it’s pretty much plug and play, I was even able to connect the USB for the power supply to an inbuilt USB port on the back of my TV, it prevented having another cable hanging down the back of the TV cabinet and using up a power socket. The only time consuming part is entering your user names and passwords into each of the apps (except Amazon Video which is done automatically) and it could become frustrating if you have forgotten some of your login details.
The remote control is great, it has all the buttons I need to control the functions on the TV including power on/off and volume, and as I don’t watch terrestrial TV, this has replaced my TV remote completely. The shortcut buttons for Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+ are handy, but I would have preferred a button for YouTube instead of Amazon Music. The Alexa button also works well for opening apps with voice control, although this is a bit of a novelty and will be rarely used.
All of the apps that I frequently use are included, which are; Amazon Video, Netflix, YouTube, Now TV, Disney+ and BT Sports. They all open quickly and effortlessly, it’s a huge improvement on the inbuilt apps on my TV, and I haven’t experienced any crashes like I frequently did with the in-built apps on the TV. The only annoying thing was a clicking noise when scrolling through the apps, but this was immediately and easily sorted by turning off the sound effect in settings.
The UI is great, I can’t fault it, it’s easy to navigate and simple to add apps to the Home Screen as well as changing the order of which they are displayed.
Overall, it’s a big improvement to what I was using before and it’s saved me a lot of money. I’m very pleased with the lasted Fire Stuck and would 100% recommend it to anyone who wants to upgrade or add smart functionality to their TV.
