Hands-free usage
Smart-home integration
Sharp picture quality
No HDMI cord included
Voice commands not always intuitive
Design
Setup Process
Streaming Performance
Software
Price
Competition
Final Verdict
Specs
Cutting the cord to cable is one thing, but having the ability to interact with an all-in-one entertainment center/smart hub at the touch of a button or with a voice prompt is another.
We tested just how easy the hands-free streaming capability is and how it stacks up against the competition.
Design: Sleek, attractive, and meant to be seen
At 3.4 x 3.4 x 3.0 inches, the Cube itself is compact enough that it would take up a minimal amount of space in your home entertainment setup. It’s black, sleek, and features four reflective sides with the signature light panel that illuminates with Alexa prompts. On the top of the unit, there’s a set of volume, mute, and power buttons that either raise and lower the built-in speaker, prevent Alexa from listening, or wake her up. There are also ports on the bottom of the back of the device, and they’re all clearly labeled.
It’s not huge, and because of the attractive design, you won’t mind leaving it out in the open (which you’ll have to do in order to interact with it). The Fire TV Cube isn’t an extension of the remote that also comes included in the box. It’s basically another remote that’s intended for hands-free use.
Alexa was able to understand us better when we used the built-in remote microphone.
For the connected customer or the smart-home guru, this is a plus. If you want to keep it out of sight–and still want to be able to use it to control your other smart devices—then you can use the enclosed IR (infrared) extender cable to still get a signal through a cabinet or media console doors.
The remote also matches the sleek and modern aesthetic of the Cube. It’s made from the same material, has a slim profile, and comes with power, volume, and two sets of directional controls—plus a built-in microphone. Even the back of the remote offers a refined touch to a commonplace item. There’s no arrow or visible compartment for the batteries. There is, however, an indent for your thumbs, and that’s where you’ll press to slide off the backing of the remote and reveal the battery bank.
Other cables to note out of the box include an ethernet adapter cable and power adapter. The ethernet adapter can be used with an Ethernet cable (not included) if you’d rather plug in directly to your network. The power adapter is a single unit as opposed to the adapter block and USB power cable.
One cable that is glaringly missing, though, is an HDMI cord. We thought this was a little odd given all the other cables the unit came with. It’s worth making sure you have one on hand before you begin setting it up.
Setup Process: Quick and straightforward
We were also asked to set up Alexa controls, which is something we skipped initially. It may be worth taking the time to do this during the initial setup to ensure you have a better experience when you do start poking around in the system. It essentially involves downloading the Alexa app through a web browser or on your smartphone, and it’s where you can control aspects like voice purchasing, smart devices, and calendar reminders. If you do this at the outset, this will probably take you some time to get up and running, but it’s always something you could revisit later.
One sticking point in the setup process was remote pairing. The remote had already been working when we inserted the batteries and finished the setup, but the volume buttons didn’t work. This wasn’t a huge deal since the Cube is, after all, a remote all on its own. But we were able to repair the remote by going to the Settings menu.
All of this was quick and painless, allowing us to dive straight into the content.
Streaming Performance: Fast and vivid
Content also always looks incredibly crisp. The Cube supports 4K HDR picture for a maximum screen resolution of 2160p. That’s another distinguishing factor of this device. There are some streaming options with 4K and 4K HDR capability, but they might not have voice assistants. The Fire TV Cube is kind of in a class of its own when it comes to maximum screen resolution, the amount of internal memory, and the streaming quality. We couldn’t test the 4K or 4K HDR performance directly with the HDTV we were using, but we were very impressed with the ultra-sharp picture quality on our 1080p HDTV.
Software: Easy to use with some practice
Finding what you want is relatively easy. There’s a search icon in the upper lefthand corner, but you can also toggle over to the right category page. This is where the experience can get a little muddy. While the content menus are visually appealing, it’s difficult to tell the difference between the home page—which features all of your apps and channels, some recommendations within apps, and a lot of Prime titles—and the “Your Videos” page, which also combines your media in one place.
Once you do find what you want, it’s easy to download an app with a simple click of the “Download” button. You’ll see the downloading progress, and we experienced almost no wait with downloading times.
Removing content isn’t as simple. You have to visit the Settings area and manually delete the app from the “Manage Installed Applications” area. It’s also worth noting that if you see an app still sticking around somewhere on your home page or another menu after you deleted it, you’ll have to actually click on it and select the option to remove it from your cloud. That’s the only way to stop seeing it prominently featured.
For the price, it’s as comprehensive as you would expect it to be.
And though it’s easy to use the remote, Alexa is there to help you out with faster navigating, searching for content, downloading, and playing it.
But Alexa has her limits, and that’s something we ran up against in our testing. Even sitting just five feet away without any potential interferences near the Fire TV Cube, a simple request to raise and lower the volume had spotty results. Sometimes it understood exactly what we wanted, but a few commands took some finessing to get them to work. (For the volume issue, specifying an increase or decrease in volume increments is what ended up working the best.)
Maybe it was a combination of learning an unfamiliar system and being relatively new to Alexa in general, but it was a bit of a battle to make requests that Alexa could understand. Sometimes there was a considerable delay, or Alexa would open a channel that was completely different from what we requested. In these instances, reaching for the remote just seemed more intuitive and easier—for some reason, it was able to understand us better when we used the built-in remote microphone.
Price: Reflects the capability of the device
You can download the Youtube.com app on the Cube, but that simply directs you to web content that’s been optimized for viewing on a TV, and that also requires downloading a separate browser app. If this isn’t a huge inconvenience for you, you may find the hands-free, remote-free experience the Fire TV Cube offers worth the extra price.
Competition: Close competitors, but none of them are hands-free
While the Roku Ultra offers much of the same performance power as the Fire TV Cube, it only has 1GB of memory compared to the 2GB the Cube offers. But the Roku does cost a bit less, and you’ll enjoy a few extra perks like the YouTube app, built-in voice commands, and private listening through the remote’s headphone jack. It also offers the fastest wireless performance of any of the current Roku devices.
If you want an all-inclusive entertainment solution, the NVIDIA SHIELD TV may be a worthy alternative. You’ll get a lot more memory (14GB more), 4K and 4K HDR support, and voice control. The downside is that it’s considerably more expensive—it retails for $179, and is even pricier if you splurge for the gaming edition.
Your decision may also depend on your system preference or loyalty. Both the NVIDIA SHIELD TV and Fire TV Cube are Android devices, but the NVIDIA features Google Assistant rather than Alexa. If you want Chromecast, a YouTube-forward experience, and gaming options (and you’re not afraid to spend more), then the NVIDIA may be more up your alley.
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