Amazon says their newly-announced Fire TV Stick 4K Max has big improvements over its predecessor, the Fire TV Stick 4K. In fact, they claim that it’s “40% more powerful”, something that’s backed up by the specs on paper and hopefully in real life. We’re getting an upgraded processor and RAM and it’s also the first Amazon streaming stick to be Energy Star certified among other firsts for the device. It’s already available for pre-order and is expected to start shipping by October 2021.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (that’s a mouthful) now uses a MediaTek MT8696 CPU with four cores clocked at 1.8GHz, an upgrade compared to the quad-core MediaTek MT8695 clocked at 1.7GHz of its predecessor. The RAM has also been upgraded as the new streaming stick now has 2GB while the previous one only had 1.5GB RAM. The Max stick now supports Dolby Atmos 7.1 and up to 5.1 through HDMI audio pass through as well as Dolby Vision, HDR, and HDR10+ along with Dolby Atmos audio.
The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is the first of their streaming devices that will have Live View Picture-in-Picture so you’ll be able to multi-task while watching. It’s also the first to receive the Energy Star certification. In another of the many firsts of this device, it’s the first Amazon-branded streaming device to support WiFi 6 because of its MediaTek MT7921LS. Amazon is also saying it’s the “only streaming media device that supports WiFi 6 under $179 for smoother streaming in 4K and cloud gaming with Amazon Luna.”
It also has an updated Alexa Voice Remote and of course support for Alexa digital assistant. The remote has additional shortcut buttons for popular streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, although it depends on your region. It has support for all the major streaming apps and features so there are no changes when it comes to that. With all these specs and firsts, Amazon says this is their best Fire TV streaming stick just yet.
It’s already available for pre-order of course on Amazon. It’s priced at $54.99 and the official release date is October 7, 2021.
