Better than last year, less expensive | Tech Reddy

I have been testing for a long time Amazon‘s new 65-inch Fire TV Omni QLED Series 4K UHD smart TV. If you’re a casual TV watcher like me, the new Fire TV is easy to use and has excellent picture quality for the price.

And speaking of price, at the time of publication it retails for $550, about $250 off its launch price, making it cheaper than last year’s model that Amazon sold. There is also a more expensive 75-inch model that costs $1,100.

The company made its debut in Amazon-branded TVs last year with a model that was good, but not perfect. This year’s version has many updated features that make it a better buy. Most notably, the picture is improved, there is a new ambient graphic and the speakers are improved.

But Amazon doesn’t make a lot of money on hardware. It is a cloud company and an online retailer. Instead, its hardware acts as a gateway to its services, such as Prime Video and the Amazon store. You can talk to Alexa, which is built-in. It’s one big window on Amazon that you can hang on your wall. And people who use many of Amazon’s services may like that.

Here’s what you need to know about it.

The new Fire TV will fit right into your home ecosystem if you’re already using the company’s Alexa voice assistant with other products like the Amazon Echo. The TV has hands-free voice commands, so if you can’t find your remote, you can shout, “Alexa, turn off the TV.” More complex instructions are possible. I was able to tell the TV to “play the next episode,” of “Devil’s Hour” on Prime, so I didn’t have to sit through the end credits.

This feature is not new. Last year’s TV featured hands-free Alexa, but it’s still great and I was able to use it easily. You can turn off the microphone if you don’t want to use the Alexa function.

My current TVs are hard to watch in my living room, which gets a lot of natural light. But this Fire TV was very bright so I could still watch TV clearly even in bright sunlight.

There is a new “ambient” experience in this year’s model that uses sensors to detect your presence in the room. It’s a bit of a theory, but now I can see the value of having the biggest screen in my living room serve as a decoration, or a place to display important information such as calendar events and digital sticky notes.

There are a few cool things about the ambient mode. Someone turns your TV into a piece of art. Art is drawn from a collection of 1,500 photographs and fine arts, including from the National Gallery of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. Samsung’s “Frame TVs” have this feature, too, but you have to pay to display the art, while Amazon’s TV gallery is free.

You can show your photos on the TV which is a nice but common feature found in other sets. You can create widgets on your screen with news, reminders, sticky notes and calendars, and you can add control centers for your smart home devices. I used a sticky note to choose to leave my husband a reminder to pick up oat milk at the grocery store.

You can play music on the TV even when the screen is not on. I didn’t expect to use this feature because I have a good stereo system, but I was impressed with the sound quality and volume of the TV’s built-in speakers. I have sound bar speakers for my other two TVs at home because the speakers are so bad, but I didn’t feel the need for one here. The new Fire TV is loud and clear. However, sound bars provide deep bass and rich sound.

Alexa didn’t always hear my commands when the TV volume was up, which makes sense but can be annoying. You must use the remote to pause to talk to Alexa.

Also, this TV isn’t the best option for people who aren’t really into Alexa or don’t subscribe to Amazon Prime. All Fire TVs feature premium content in a premium user interface. You’ll see suggestions for shows to watch, like Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”

As you can see in the picture below, there are many ads for Prime movies, there are a series of sponsored movies from Tubi, and I kept seeing other ads. It can be annoying if you are not interested in them.

Although the brightness and picture will be sufficient for the average TV viewer, there are other TVs in the same price range that are capable of more brightness. And others can provide a better gaming experience. Hisense’s 65-inch Class ULED Premium U7H QLED Quantum Dot Google 4K offers a 120Hz refresh rate, for example, while the Omni QLED only offers 60Hz. The U7H costs the same at $700 and the picture has deep blacks and realistic tones, too.

You’ll love that you’re deep into Amazon’s ecosystem of products and services. I appreciate that it makes the biggest screen in your house useful with its “ambient” experience. It’s very easy to set up and using Alexa is a breeze. The new Amazon Fire TV Omni is a big improvement over last year’s model, especially when it comes to the screen, and its current price drop makes it an even better deal for its capabilities and size.