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Update Your Streaming: The New Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K 2nd Gen [2024] -- UNBOXING & DETAILED SETUP
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May 29, 2025
Tired of the clumsy "smart" TV interface built into your television? Or maybe you want to turn a computer monitor into an instant streaming powerhouse? Either way, the new second generation Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K offers a huge amount of power and capabilities at a startlingly affordable price. Tech expert Dave Taylor shares an unboxing of the Firestick TV 4K and then goes into the full setup and configuration process. All 15 minutes of it! [YouTube may compensate me for using the shopping tags in this video] Grab a cup of tea and learn everything you need to know about plugging in and configuring the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2nd generation, 2024). Check it out at Amazon: https://amzn.to/4gvrKrX or use my YT shopping link to get it from Lowes instead! Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 2:00 Unboxing 7:01 Setup and Configuration 15:56 Thoughts and Assessment #amazongadgets #firetvstick4k #firetv #firestick4k #firestick #streaming #askdavetaylor
View Video Transcript
0:00
is this still a viable 4K streaming
0:02
device let's open the box and find
0:11
out Dave Taylor here with this this is
0:15
the Amazon Fire TV stick 4K streaming
0:19
device the second generation 2024 model
0:23
how do you know because on the back it
0:26
says WiFi 6 the earlier generation the
0:30
first gen of this product was WiFi 5 not
0:34
Wi-Fi 6 now it's worth mentioning that
0:37
we're now 8 months into wifi 7 so it is
0:42
a generation behind but I bet your
0:45
router is on Wi-Fi 5 so unless you have
0:48
really modern update to all of your gear
0:52
then it doesn't really matter if it's
0:54
five or six still why not buy stuff
0:57
that's future proof so what I want to do
1:00
is I'm going to unbox this so we can
1:02
together see what the heck comes in the
1:04
Box nowadays then I'm going to hook it
1:06
up to my little tiny Vio TV and we'll
1:09
run it through some of its features and
1:11
see what it looks like and then I'll
1:13
give you my assessment now before we
1:15
start let me give you a couple of quick
1:16
specs so this is now powered by a quad
1:20
core 1.7 GHz CPU that's 30% faster than
1:25
the first gen and its output is up to 20
1:30
160p at 60 frames per second that's 4K
1:34
so it gives you 4K Ultra HD and hdr10
1:39
plus the former being like a resolution
1:43
the latter being the depth and richness
1:45
of the color so very nice Bluetooth 5.2
1:49
and blle which is Bluetooth low energy
1:52
and supports dob vision and Atmos and
1:56
lots of other cool features so I'll get
1:58
into some more specs in a little bit but
2:00
let's start by just seeing what's in
2:02
this very nice streamline box in a
2:06
typical Amazon orange color so I like
2:10
that nowadays you don't have to actually
2:12
have scissors or a knife that they
2:15
design these to be opened so I will open
2:19
it now let's see what's inside well it
2:22
is a box full of stuff as you would
2:25
expect and it comes out on a nice neat
2:27
tray how slick is that so first thing
2:31
that you will notice is that it has a
2:34
remote control and it's a pretty nice
2:37
little remote so you can see let's get
2:40
this other piece off that it's a pretty
2:43
straightforward design and it comes with
2:46
four preset buttons and it's interesting
2:49
if you read closely what the Amazon page
2:53
says it says that you're going to get
2:55
Prime and you're going to get Netflix
2:58
and then you're going to get two
2:59
different buttons depending on your
3:00
region so in my region apparently Disney
3:04
and peacock are the two companies that
3:06
I'm going to guess paid for the
3:08
privilege of being on the remote control
3:10
but one button shortcuts pretty handy
3:13
otherwise it's a bunch of hopefully
3:16
pretty intuitive controls it is super
3:19
super light so I'm hoping there are
3:21
batteries in the box cuz this definitely
3:23
does not have batteries in it now let's
3:25
see what else is in here there is a
3:30
ooh usba which is the rectangle to micro
3:35
USB H Amazon seriously this is 2024 and
3:40
you're still using micro USB be that as
3:43
it may that cable and then let's see
3:47
here's the actual unit itself it's
3:49
amazing that the unit is actually
3:51
smaller than its remote control so this
3:54
is the 4K Fire TV stick and it has HDMI
4:00
on one end there's unsurprisingly the
4:03
micro USB connection on the side and
4:07
that is it there are no other buttons
4:09
there's no other ports there's no other
4:11
controls you plug this in use this to
4:14
give it power and then everything else
4:16
you're going to do is going to be either
4:18
via the remote or there's an Amazon Fire
4:22
TV app you can get for your smartphone
4:25
which in my opinion is actually easier
4:27
to work with than the remote control but
4:30
either way it's really very much a plug
4:35
and you can't do much with it unless you
4:36
have a remote control device so what
4:40
else is in here let's see so there is
4:43
what looks like well
4:45
well they didn't Design This cable to
4:48
come out very easily so this
4:52
is the Box destroying HDMI extension
4:57
cable and the idea of this is that like
5:00
if you have your TV near the wall and
5:03
doing this means you have to pull your
5:04
TV out then you can actually use this
5:08
extender and then you can do something
5:11
like that so I appreciate that it gives
5:13
you that extra flexibility I don't think
5:16
I will need that with this little tiny
5:18
TV we'll see when we get there so that's
5:20
also in the box and let's see I can feel
5:24
there's something heavy here and that's
5:26
probably yep that is the
5:30
charger and that's because the fire
5:35
stick is not self-powered and your TV
5:38
probably doesn't push out enough power
5:41
on that HDMI port to give it all the
5:44
power it needs however lots of TVs
5:47
actually have usba plugs for things like
5:50
flash drives and I have experimentally
5:53
found that for most modern televisions
5:57
this and the cable is all you need cuz
5:59
you can plug it into the USB port on the
6:03
television so that this has power so
6:05
that's pretty handy and then this is
6:07
your Standard usba wall plug not very
6:11
exciting so that's almost everything in
6:13
the Box let's see um oh no haha well
6:18
done Amazon batteries for the remote
6:21
control and I don't even have to fiddle
6:23
with getting the plastic off of them and
6:26
of course there is a tiny little get
6:28
start started guide so here's what I'm
6:30
going to do I'm going to
6:32
actually put the batteries in that's
6:34
easy enough
6:39
and that can't be right um I will figure
6:43
out how to put the batteries in the
6:44
remote I will move the TV over we're
6:47
going to plug this in and we'll walk
6:49
through the experience of getting it all
6:51
set up so give me a second to get
6:53
everything set up and I'll be right back
6:55
the Fire TV stick is plugged into the
6:58
back of this little Vio so now I have to
7:00
change inputs and notice that it has
7:03
identified itself this is one of the new
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things that devices do which is pretty
7:08
slick so now we're at the Fire
7:11
TV and it's time to grab that remote and
7:15
see what we can figure out so do a first
7:19
push there we go so choose language and
7:23
USB power insufficient okay so I plugged
7:26
it into the back of the television and
7:28
obviously this particular TV does not
7:30
generate enough juice for this so let's
7:34
go through this sequence again choose
7:36
the
7:37
language set up with the app so that's
7:40
one easy way to do it or I can just use
7:43
the remote so I'm going to set it up
7:46
with the
7:47
remote and first thing it's going to do
7:49
is it's going to want to find a Wi-Fi
7:51
network it can use and this is the one I
7:55
want to put it on and as usual with
7:57
modern consumer electronic devic is by
8:00
the time it gets to your house or office
8:03
its firmware is out of date so now it's
8:06
time to update by getting the latest
8:09
version of the Fire TV operating system
8:14
fortunately most of these devices update
8:16
pretty darn quickly so this should just
8:18
be a couple of seconds and it looks like
8:21
it's time for it to restart
8:33
fortunately this is something you should
8:34
only have to do once in I don't know a
8:36
blue moon maybe once or twice a year and
8:40
total elapse time here is going to be
8:42
under 5 minutes so not too much hassle
8:46
to make sure that your system is fully
8:48
up to
8:49
date while it's updating let me give you
8:51
some more information so that remote
8:54
control also works with Alexis so it
8:57
actually gives you the ability to
8:58
control your smart home too which is
9:00
pretty cool and this latest version of
9:04
the Fire TV operating system
9:08
theoretically gives you AI powered
9:10
search so you can ask for films that
9:12
star a certain person or films directed
9:15
by or films that or TV shows that take
9:19
place in certain locations and it should
9:21
have a lot of smarts behind it now it's
9:24
worth noting that the Fire TV is Amazon
9:27
and Amazon also owns the Internet Movie
9:30
Database IMDb so they have a deep and
9:33
Rich data set for that they can utilize
9:38
to give you really smart search results
9:40
here's another really cool thing is it
9:42
also lets you stream Xbox games if you
9:46
have the Xbox game pass ultimate and
9:50
that's pretty interesting uh 8 gig of
9:53
storage and of course as I said it does
9:56
have the app for your smartphone
9:58
meanwhile while it's still updating so
10:01
I'll be back when it's done
10:04
[Music]
10:09
updating and we're finally back from
10:12
that upgrade that took a lot longer than
10:15
I expected so my 5 minute comment let's
10:17
revise that to 10 to 15 minutes but we
10:21
are now starting up for you to be able
10:24
to acquire one of these fire stick TVs
10:28
you probably have an Amazon account I do
10:31
so I'm going to sign into my account and
10:34
looks like the easiest way to do that is
10:36
with a mobile device so I'm going to do
10:39
just that there we go so that looks like
10:42
that worked fine on my
10:45
phone successfully registered come on
10:49
Fire TV it knows who I am that's pretty
10:52
handy we will go ahead and register this
10:54
to my Amazon account save wifi password
10:59
sure let's do
11:02
that restore Fire TV I am an existing
11:06
Fire TV customer but we're going to
11:08
start aesh because you might have this
11:11
be your very first Amazon Fire TV stick
11:14
so this is where you would start if you
11:17
just pulled one out of the box so the
11:20
remote is set up that's handy since I've
11:22
already been using
11:24
it
11:25
and we don't want to try Paramount Plus
11:31
we don't want to play Luna plus which is
11:35
Amazon's subscription video gaming
11:40
program do I want to try kid-friendly
11:43
content no I don't have any children in
11:46
my house choose my streaming
11:50
services so what we're going to do is
11:52
I'm just going to stick with Amazon
11:54
Prime video for now cuz that will get us
11:58
to move faster for screen saver I will
12:01
do stock
12:03
photography
12:05
okay I don't want parental controls
12:09
welcome to Fire TV personalize Fire TV
12:11
with profiles decide what to watch with
12:14
find which was that smart AI search I
12:16
was talking about easily navigate the
12:19
main menu customize the apps in your
12:21
main menu got
12:23
it maybe now we'll get to the home
12:27
screen okay well now we're on my
12:31
Amazon profiles so I already have a
12:35
profile for myself and lo and behold we
12:39
actually have got to the home screen so
12:42
here you can see there's a nice big
12:45
profile let's not do that and then I'm
12:48
on the middle row so there's live TV
12:52
options and I will note that this does
12:55
not give you your antenna it does it
12:58
gives you live streams that are on the
13:01
internet and then obviously I can choose
13:04
different video services and most of
13:08
these is subscription free is free
13:10
Amazon Prime video I already subscribed
13:13
to so let's jump there and now it's a
13:16
whole different set of
13:18
profiles and so you can see what I've
13:22
been watching um and then if we pick
13:27
something
13:29
let's just pick this one um caly 2898 ad
13:33
this is a great movie really very fun
13:36
and I'll just choose watch now
13:40
maybe
13:44
fo so this is an ad
13:48
so one of the things that happens is
13:51
that um let me mute this there's my mute
13:55
button um so because I don't pay for
13:58
Amazon Prime video plus I do get a
14:02
couple of ads at the beginning of my
14:03
movies and that's totally worth it to me
14:06
I don't really care um let's just go
14:08
back to home though so you can see the
14:10
quality of that video stream and you
14:13
heard it but now you can see that at
14:17
because there's a separate Prime video
14:20
that means that there's all these
14:22
options that it knows how to sort of mix
14:25
things up and it can show me things even
14:28
if I have no subscriptions so again
14:31
let's go back
14:33
to um live TV and now you can see
14:37
there's a program guide so I can go here
14:42
and look at it through various different
14:44
things and it's pretty darn slick so
14:48
let's do one more
14:51
thing and we can go through some of the
14:54
settings you can see so channel guide
14:57
and stuff like that I'm going to back up
15:01
and let's see I push the little tiny TV
15:04
icon and so this gives me all the actual
15:07
live streams and you can see that some
15:10
of it says program information
15:12
unavailable as the unit is online it
15:16
will actually pick up more data but here
15:19
I can look through these pretty quickly
15:21
it's a pretty slim bunch of choices but
15:24
if I keep moving up there are actually
15:26
more choices so I can look at say live
15:29
sports well not much there yet and this
15:33
is something where you can sort of um
15:36
make changes and update things but
15:38
suffice to say that's how you get it set
15:40
up and you can see the quality of the
15:43
picture we can look at that and you can
15:45
just see that it's really very
15:48
attractive very
15:50
viewable and it's Speedy so let me jump
15:53
back on camera and give you my
15:55
impressions of this unit after having
15:57
used it for a bit there's no way around
15:59
it it takes a while to set these things
16:02
up and I didn't log into the app and I
16:05
didn't set up actual subscriptions that
16:07
I have for different services and as it
16:10
shows on the bottom of the box that it
16:13
is compatible obviously with Netflix and
16:16
YouTube and Disney plus and Hulu and
16:20
Apple TV and mac and a whole lot more
16:24
but I'm going to be candid with you the
16:26
challenge with these devices is that our
16:28
our TVs come with built-in smart
16:31
operating systems so this is the Vio
16:34
interface that's built into my viio TV
16:38
so this isn't competing with having a
16:40
blank screen on your television if you
16:42
have a modern television you already
16:44
have an operating system you already
16:46
have streaming apps you already have the
16:48
ability to go to Netflix or Mac or
16:51
something so where this really wins is
16:55
that it is faster and it just has all of
16:59
those nice 4K features now if you don't
17:02
have a 4K TV you can plug this in and
17:05
it's going to work fine obviously it
17:07
cannot do magic you're not going to get
17:09
a better resolution picture than your
17:11
display can hold but it is pretty slick
17:15
where I find this really beneficial is
17:18
its portability so you go through all
17:21
that complexity with getting everything
17:23
set up and configured but then it's all
17:25
on this device so if I'm going to travel
17:28
somewhere
17:29
I can take this with me and plug this
17:31
into a hotel television and now I have
17:34
everything that just like I'm at home I
17:37
could take this to work I can hook this
17:39
up to a display projector I could
17:41
actually have this at school so that all
17:44
of my friends or maybe my students can
17:47
watch something that I want them to have
17:48
access to right off of this very very
17:52
convenient so you know it's not so much
17:56
that it's the only game in town there
18:00
are lots and lots of streaming devices
18:02
and in fact Google just released a new
18:04
version of its Google Chrome TV system
18:08
so there are various devices you can
18:11
plug into the back Roku is another one
18:13
that comes to mind does the Amazon fir
18:16
stick 4K second generation stand up to
18:19
that the answer is absolutely it's a
18:22
really nice device it's really simple
18:24
once you get it all updated and all set
18:27
up and configured but once once you have
18:29
that it's really a no-brainer to just
18:31
plug this into any display and boom
18:34
you're watching your favorite movies TV
18:37
series documentaries streaming live
18:40
television whatever it is that you want
18:42
to be able to access this is going to
18:44
give you the ability to do that really
18:46
easily I like the remote it's simple and
18:50
those little buttons on the bottom are
18:52
pretty handy I actually watch all four
18:54
of those channels so that works out well
18:56
for me and of course you have the
18:59
convenience of the HDMI extender which
19:02
you might or might not need so it's
19:05
really everything I wanted to share with
19:07
you sorry the video is long honestly I
19:10
cut it down to minimize the time I
19:12
actually spent probably five X's long
19:15
watching screens go updating updating
19:19
updating so I tried to make it a little
19:21
more exciting but that's the reality
19:24
you're going to get one of these
19:25
hopefully maybe and then you're going to
19:28
find that that you know allocate 15 to
19:31
30 minutes to get it all configured and
19:33
set up the way you want but once you do
19:36
this is a pretty rocking option to put
19:38
into your screen or television and
19:42
remember that I have this cuz this is a
19:45
television but you might plug this into
19:47
a computer monitor or a computer display
19:51
really like 99% of them have HDMI input
19:54
plug this in and that computer display
19:57
suddenly becomes a full functional
19:59
television and then some so it gives you
20:02
access to everything so this is a
20:04
perfect thing to have like in a dorm
20:06
room where you have your 20in display
20:09
for gaming and everything and then
20:11
sometimes you want to watch a TV show or
20:14
a movie or a new special and then you
20:16
just put this in the back or maybe it's
20:18
always plugged in and you just switch to
20:20
it and boom you saw all of those options
20:23
all of those different possibilities
20:25
definitely worth checking out now we do
20:28
need to talk about price before we get
20:29
there I'm going to ask you to subscribe
20:31
to my channel click on that subscribe
20:33
button hit the Bell icon for
20:35
notifications give me a thumbs up if you
20:37
found this valuable and as you can see I
20:41
spent a lot of time and try to give you
20:43
all the full scoop and the full
20:45
experience of devices so hopefully
20:48
that's something you find appealing and
20:49
would like to see more
20:51
of this is the Amazon Fire TV stick 4K
20:57
streaming device second generation for
21:00
2024 it is
21:02
$49.99 at
21:04
amazon.com and I do need to mention that
21:07
YouTube May compensate me for using the
21:10
shopping tags in this video if you click
21:12
on them and you go and buy one of these
21:15
devices but honestly I think you might
21:17
want to check it out if you don't
21:18
already have a streaming device that you
21:20
can plug into anything in the world that
21:22
has
21:23
HDMI this is an extremely viable and
21:27
worthwhile option to consider it's all I
21:30
got think I need to get back to that
21:32
movie so I want to catch you in my next
21:35
video
21:41
[Music]
21:52
[Music]
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