Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsGood device, but lacks HDMI Master Audio output. ATMOS is DD+ lossy only. Improving with updates.
Reviewed in Australia on 19 October 2021
Dolby Vision and 4k HLG UHD output is good.
Interface is somewhat overcrowded with advertising and limited app access - it could be easier to use and promotes media options for many services, not necessarily those you subscribe to - paid advertising of a sort.
No KAYO app for Australian users in the Amazon App store, however the inbuilt browser does allow you to login, save a shorcut to the site, and stream through the browser interface in HD very well.
AX wireless is ok, and is improving with every firmware update. Initially it tended not to share 5GHz band very well with capable wireless access points and AC devices sharing the same band - AC devices that usually operate flawlessly in concert with other 5GHz AX devices tend to lose connectivity - perhaps from incorrect RADAR detection from the Fire TV 4k max AX output. Does not seem to play fairly with other AX devices as well as it should, but again this is improving over time .
Plex TV is good, Netflix dolby Vision enabled and Dolby Digital + level Dolby Atmos also works in Netflix if you have a HDCP 2.0 compliant set of devices, but lack of TrueHD audio output means TrueHD Dolby Master ATMOS ot DTS-HD DTS-X tracks in plex are transcoded to non atmos AC3 audio - Atmos is removed from the stream in the process for plex, so this is a real miss and deal breaker for me. Other HD streaming services such as Disney+. Stan, Netflix, AppleTV and Prime can stream low level DD+ Dolby Atmos audio natively.
There is now a USB Hub with Gigabit Ethernet Support sold on amazon with passthrough power, so you can add this an avoid wifi issues. It also support OTG USB drives for storage expansion and media access.
If you really want Lossless Master HD audio and high fidelity high channel Atmos support then you are much better of with a modern NVIDIA Sheild that appropriately supports these audio modes with better external connectivity and gigabit ethernet for high bandwidth media consumption and high definition audio modes.
Performance is very quick and snappy., the interface is rock solid and the voice recognition is more accurate than any other system I have used - my voice is difficult to correctly recognise typically.
Remote has improved since first received with subsequent updates and is very reliable.
The lack of UHD matching Audio capability is a real miss, and I assume results simply from not paying the correct licensing fees to support them - the internal hardware of the device is definitely capable of doing so. Maybe a future software upgrade will sort this. Finger crossed.
