Amazon launched yet another Fire TV Stick device: the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Yes, that’s quite a mouthful. I’ve lost count as to how many Fire Sticks there are now. There is the original Fire Stick, a Fire Stick Lite, a Fire Stick Plus, a Fire Stick 4K, a Fire TV Cube and now a Fire Stick TV 4K Max. I am sure I have missed out a few and forgot to mention that there are also Fire TVs which have the same functionality.

Each iteration has slowly and surely been making minor changes and improvements. The Fire TV OS is actually quite nice to use and gives you access to most services and platforms that you may need.

With their app store, you can add any service you want. My typical usage is Prime, Disney Hotstar, Netflix, SonyLiV, TED, Apple TV+, Discovery+ and YouTube.

Quick access: So what does the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max bring? In the box, you get the usual. The Fire Stick, an HDMI extender, a power supply, a slightly longer cable and a new remote. Not much change there.

The remote now does have some useful shortcut buttons — one for Prime, Netflix, Amazon Music, and an app button allowing for quick access to any of these items.

The Fire TV Stick itself is a lot faster, or at least it seems that way and benchmarks have also proven that. The biggest change would be the support for WiFi 6.

If you have WiFi 6 in your home, the new Fire TV Stick will take full advantage of that and your 4K streams work without any stutter.

So who is it for?

If you already own a Fire TV Stick, then you may not really want the upgrade, unless you upgraded your TV to a 4K TV and need that. WiFi 6 is a definite advantage and the overall performance is very definitely smooth.

While the basic RAM on the Fire TV Stick was upgraded, the one thing they did not do is increase storage. I am yet to run out of the existing storage so it did not bother me.

Overall, this is a faster and smoother experience with its WiFi 6 support and the shortcuts on remote. But storage has not increased and the price is on the higher side for existing users.

It costs ₹6,499.