As its name suggests, the Fire TV Cube 3rd version always comes in the form of a small cube (86 x 86 x 77 mm) to be placed under your television or in a TV cabinet. Less compact than the Fire TV Stick dear to Amazon, this model stands out from the competition by integrating a speaker that transforms the multimedia box into an Alexa connected assistant. This integration also makes it possible to launch its applications or to carry out searches in the interface of the Fire TV Cube without having to enter anything. A classic now, although little used in practice.
On the new side, Amazon first integrated an Amlogic SoC 20% faster than the previous one. Technically, the newcomer benefits from two additional low-power cores (Cortex-A53), but the high-performance cores are still four in number and of the same nature (Cortex-A73 at 2.2 GHz). This increase in performance notably makes it possible to introduce a new feature called Super Resolution Upscaling. This is an upscaling algorithm to magnify Full HD videos when played on a 4K TV. We will have to see if this scaling engine will be more efficient than that of the TV. In any event, this puts Amazon on a par with the competition, with Nvidia offering compelling upscaling on its Shield TVs for several years now. Amazon also indicates that the system also works on photos, so as to bring sharpness to noisy shots.
On the connection side, there is a 100 Mb / s Ethernet connector – Amazon does not consider it useful to offer gigabit. The wireless connection is evolving beautifully with 6th wifi (two antennas) for the first time in a multimedia box; enough to ensure the playback of high-quality 4K videos.
The 3rd generation Fire TV Cube brings 6th wifi and an HDMI input. © Amazon
The box also offers an HDMI input allowing, for example, to connect a game console; an integration that will also appeal to users equipped with a soundbar with only one HDMI input. Finally, we note the presence of a USB-A port to connect external storage or a webcam for video calls – calls that can be launched by voice with a simple “Alexa, call grandpa and grandma”, for example .
The 3rd Generation Fire TV Cube can be pre-ordered now for $159.99. Deliveries will be launched from October 27, 2022. A high price which directly confronts it with the Nvidia Shield TV, Nvidia Shield TV Pro and Apple TV 4K.