Fire TV Cube GEN 3 / 4K HDR / ATMOS + VISION - Must watch before you buy!

My full review of the All-New Fire TV Cube (3rd Gen). Amazon's latest steaming device priced around £139 - My Full detailed review, including specs, features, gaming, emulation, benchmarks and lots more. Should you buy the new Fire TV Cube?

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Fire TV Cube Specs: (3rd Gen)
AMLOGIC POP1-G Octa-core 2.0Ghz
Mali G52 Graphics
2GB DDR4 RAM
16GB Internal Storage
Wifi 6E / BT 5.0 / 100MB LAN
x1 HDMI output (4K 60)
X1 HDMI Input (Cable box)
Fire OS 7 (Android v9)
Alexa Voice Remote (4th Gen)
Far-field Voice Support
Supports 4K @ 60fps
Supports HDR10+, HLG, Dolby Vision
Supports Dolby ATMOS, 7.1, DA 5.1
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:38 Inside the box!
01:07 Specs
02:25 Design vs GEN 2
03:02 Connectivity
03:59 Boot-up Speed Test
04:08 Fire TV OS Walkthrough
04:24 HDMI-IN Port
05:55 System Settings
07:51 4K Videos from USB
10:00 4K YouTube test
11:07 4K Netflix Test
11:19 4K Prime Test
11:39 4K Disney Test
11:54 Install APKs
12:03 Gaming: Crossy Roads
12:31 Gaming: Asphalt 8
12:47 Dreamcast Emulation
13:00 N64 Emulation
12:33 PSP Emulation
14:25 System info / Benchmarks
15:16 TV Box Ranking Chart
16:05 Pros & Cons
17:37 Final Thoughts
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#FireTVCube4K #AllnewFireTVCube #FireTVCube3rdgen #dolbyvision #DolbyATMOS

[ChigzTech]

UPDATE: NTFS and FAT32 drives work fine on this device.

[danm]

As of May 2023, NTFS is available with few limitations, works directly with a thumb drive, and on powered external storage devices(didn't test SSDs). Apparently, the USB port of the Cube simply can't power enough not even external drives. So armed with an OTG cable I was able to power an old Seagate external drive and plug into Cube. Works like a charm. Install VLC or Just (Video) Player and can use it as any $300 media player. It plays Dolby Vision and Atmos, no DTS:X so far but supports the other DTS profiles.

[leswhitehouse]

Disappointed that in this day and age they've used 100Mb ethernet and USB 2 ports. What a shame. These are dealbreakees for me. I'll stick to my old Nvidia Shield.

[doncampbell]

1) NTFS was available as initially delivered but it required accessing that memory with an app like a file manager or directly from a playing app. That changed immediately with a revision graded OS within a week and NTFS is very nicely available by just plugging in the USB2. USB2 with NTFS is fast and supports large files. 2) More importantly, the video quality as played at 4K is extremely good even when it represents upscaled 720p, 1080p or 480p. The great colors and resolution seems slightly better since the latest upgrade software although better than simply terrific is hard to measure. 3) Overall it beats the video upscaled from standard HD from my other streaming devices including: googleTV with Chromecast 4K, Fire Stick 4K, ROKU Ultra 4K, Nvidia Shield TV 2017. 4) I have no need to pay more for 4K because it doesn't get me better video than the upscaled versions I'm watching. That might not be true with a super big screen TV but my living room won't accept such a TV and I'm fine with 50" and the Cube 3. 5) There's no chance I'd pay double the price for the Nvidia Shield TV Pro. (I paid $100 intro price for Fire Cube 3rd Gen). Wifi works terrifically with it and I have no interest in stringing a Cat 6 cable to get fast ethernet because I'm getting 160 Mb/s from wifi coming from the other end of my house.

[efpina]

Great overview, thanks for this review, helped me tremendously. Just a small remark, and since this is a tech channel, when you said 100 Megabyte LAN you obviously meant Megabit per second and not Megabyte. It's a mistake most people make but mind that one (Megabyte) is 8x the other (Megabit).

[gabrieliblalen]

This is the most complete Fire TV Cube 3rd Gen
test yet, thanks for testing emulation !

[vipulgupta]

2GB Ram in this is such a shame. If not 8GB, it should have at least 4GB RAM.

[manti]

Not for me FAT32, USB 2.0 in 2022 and them Ethernet speeds are a big suprise....I'll stick with my two Nvidia Shields more than happy...keep up the good work my man.

[joergr]

In the days were 256gb storage is the size of a fingernail, 16gb is just farcical...

[siriusmac]

This is not a worthy upgrade over the 2nd generation in my opinion. But if you are wanting a cube, it's a no brainer to buy this generation, though it's like that amazon will have some specials on that gen 2 to get rid of them.

[jamesbucsis]

I have a question: what boxes do you recommend for only iptv service

[yell]

Did you not test the upscaling ? I have nvidia shield and its upscaling works very good one thing that lets the shield down it doesnt support HLG :( so also have firestick 4K plugged in for that

[Fov]

I had NO idea it could do all of this and wondered why it cost so much more than the likes of a Firestick. Amazon often do eextremely aggressive pricing discounts, e.g. I believe I paid £40 for a Ring Doorbell and the 8" display, and also paid £15 for a Firestick.... I wouldn't be surprised to see this price at under £100 this year; It's already been down to £112 (install the "Keepa" chrome extension and it will add an unobtrusive chart which shows the price history of any product you are looking at; this has informed my buying and led me to save hundreds of £££ last year).

I used to have an NVidia Shield Tablet type, and the Nvidia Shield Portable Handheld (it was like a pre-historic Steam Deck with a 90's style chunky controller form factor).... no idea where they are ... I think the tablet is in a drawer somewhere after it stopped charging, along with a Google Android tablet of some variety).... I look back at some of my old gaming setups and wonder what the heck happened. Totally off-topic...

I guess this would be totally useless to me, but I'm still very interested and I wonder if there's an Nvidia device that competes at a similar price.... or would it make more sense to wait a bit and opt for a Gen.2 deck? Does the Fire TV Cube 2022 offer advantages over a Shield? I feel like it would have superior file compatability and potential, whereby if they discount it to £100 it would be a no-brainer I'd think?

Anyway - great video! Perhaps I'll just stick with my firestick (which is is super snappy and responsive, voice control etc...: brings my formerly-flagship Sony Screen up to date, as the UI is sluggish nowadays, and it's only 1080p. but it's still got incredible image quality as a £1000+ 42" screen from around 10 years ago, it was somewhat 'top end' - at the espense of screen size of course. It was the first Sony TV to featur the XMB (same UI as the Playstation 3)... in other words I can't think of what Iwould do with the Fire TV Cube, it's not like my TV would benefit from 4k, and this motorola x30's snapdragon chipset appears to be more powerful than the fire TV ; although I should compare specs. I could just WiFi direct from mobile ot my current tv and still emulate games I think? ... interesting stuff to look into once I tear myself away from OpenAI GPT3 :D

[Nite-owl]

Loving the improvement in looks, but that's about as far as it goes. For a few quid extra the Nvidea offers 1GB/s Lan, 4x faster read/write speeds and roughly 50% increase on Antutu score. Only real win for the Cube (IMO) is the ability to use WiFi6. It does have DDR4 instead of 3, but it has 2gb instead of 3. Really can't see what they've tried to achieve here by way of enticing users of other style TV Android boxes. Not at the price anyway. My V2 cube does everything I need it to as it is since the WiFi rarely fails and isn't capped at 100, unlike the lan port. If I was to be tempted to upgrade, it would either be an Nvidia Shield Pro, or wait until around 2028 when Amazon finally give us the updates to compete with it.

[robertpeterwhite]

Thanks for this review Chigz. I have the 2nd gen Cube. So be passing this one by.

[briananderson]

Thank you for your information and superb break down of the Amazon cube generation 3.

[dallase]

The Power port should not be a Con, it' s just power, as long as it powers the device and is not some strange non standard connection it's OK, as long as it has the current to power a USB Hard Rive it's just fine. The Ethernet Port being only 10/100Mbps and USB only out dated Stone Aged 2.0 that came out in 2000 and is only half duplex. USB 3 came out in 2008 so it's not like it's a brand new expensive luxury technology that costs substantially more than USB 3.

[lucassmith]

I just read the specks sheet you showed and the chrome cast with google tv 4k is really good and I got it to BTW but I only use 1080p

[garyedmonds]

I've a m7 Pro 4k I want to upgrade to a better box what would you suggest of around £40 look forward to your reply.

[aboutboxingbiz]

Thank you, I've been waiting for your review on this