What's the point of a Firestick 4K on a smart 4K TV?

I got an old Firestick that I use on a Dumb TV but what advantage does the 4K Firestick have with sn already overloaded Smart TV?

Comments

  • audioluvr
    audioluvr Posts: 5,420
    None that I'm aware of other than a familiar way to navigate
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  • Emlyn
    Emlyn Posts: 4,346
    Voice searching is usually going to be better with a standalone product. I've also found the standalone Fire TV products to be more stable with better WiFi reception than those built into one smart TV but not another. Audio is another area where a Fire TV product may be better for a user if sound is being output to a home theater directly from it compared to having to figure out how to get sound from the TV's innards out full range to a receiver. The Fire TV product may also have more up to date apps available to it.

    In most cases if someone is just watching programming through the built in Amazon app the standalone Fire TV products are redundant.
  • steveinaz
    steveinaz Posts: 19,521
    My Vizio "smartcast" was slow and lame. No ability to add 3rd party software. I love Firestick, I have them all over the house now.
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  • rooftop59
    rooftop59 Posts: 7,952
    Emlyn wrote: »
    Voice searching is usually going to be better with a standalone product. I've also found the standalone Fire TV products to be more stable with better WiFi reception than those built into one smart TV but not another. Audio is another area where a Fire TV product may be better for a user if sound is being output to a home theater directly from it compared to having to figure out how to get sound from the TV's innards out full range to a receiver. The Fire TV product may also have more up to date apps available to it.

    In most cases if someone is just watching programming through the built in Amazon app the standalone Fire TV products are redundant.

    Basically this. If the tv has a stable, powerful built-in OS with the apps that you want and if sound is not a problem then I see no reason to add something else. This was the case with my 2017 samsung 4K and my TCL 8 series roku tv. But with my Hisense H8F (which has a really good budget picture), the OS sucks and the ARC sucks so having an external device is necessary for me...
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  • Emlyn
    Emlyn Posts: 4,346
    I was surprised that although I have two Sony TVs with smart features the bigger and older set that is further away from the wifi router does not drop even 4K streaming while the smaller and newer one constantly drops 1080p signals. The newer set seems to have a newer Android based operating system. The Amazon Fire products have no problems with drop outs in either room.
  • Smart TVs generally don't have as many apps as a full fledged stick/streaming box. Not a big deal if the streaming service you want is covered. But the more fringy services don't invest the development time into every single platform.
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  • McLoki
    McLoki Posts: 5,231
    We have a 4k TV with the amazon app built in, but still have a 4k Firestick to access our Amazon Fire TV DVR (both for recorded and live programs).

    If we are just streaming something from amazon to the TV, we typically use the app built into the TV.

    Michael
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  • polrbehr
    polrbehr Posts: 2,825
    steveinaz wrote: »
    My Vizio "smartcast" was slow and lame. No ability to add 3rd party software. I love Firestick, I have them all over the house now.

    Damn, maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to ditch my FireStick? Hey @ken brydson , I think we need to talk.... LOL

    In fact both of my Toshibas with FireTV built in work just fine.
    So, are you willing to put forth a little effort or are you happy sitting in your skeptical poo pile?


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