 "AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV (AB55U20PS) review: Good platform, soothing picture")
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K is one of the finest video streaming platforms available in India in terms of both app compatibility and video quality. We have had a couple of models from Onida and Akai based on Amazon’s Fire OS, but they were both Full HD TVs. We now have a full-blown Ultra HD smart TV from the company’s home brand AmazonBasics that promises to utilise the full potential of the platform and give you a great viewing experience without breaking the bank. Let’s see if this Amazon TV gets the basics right. [caption id=“attachment_10051141” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]
The TV is priced at Rs 39,999. Image: Amazon[/caption]
AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV - Design and Connectivity: 7/10
This TV has a standard design with narrow bezels around the 55-inch screen. There is a metallic line that runs across the bottom bezel that breaks the monotony and looks good. A tiny chin at the centre hosts a power LED and an IR receiver. The TV can be wall-mounted using the bundled mount or placed on a desk using the sturdy metallic grey stands that hold it firmly in place. The necessary screws are provided in the package. [caption id=“attachment_10051151” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]
Tiny chin on the bottom bezel houses the power LED and IR receiver. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi[/caption] Two USB ports (one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0), three HDMI ports, optical audio out, an A/V input, IR port and a LAN port are placed on the left side of the TV. The ports are not too hard to reach if you place the TV on a desk, but are a lot more difficult to access if you wall-mount the TV. I never get tired of saying that the ports should be placed closer to the edge of the TV rather than near the centre, but is anybody listening? [caption id=“attachment_10051161” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]
Ports hard to reach if you mount the TV on the wall. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi[/caption] There is no mention of either of the HDMI ports supporting the ARC feature. Unfortunately, I did not have a speaker with the relevant input at the time of testing to confirm that. What’s missing here is an analogue audio output like a 3.5 mm headphone jack or coaxial A/V out. The A/V cable for the input and an IR receiver are bundled in the package.
AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV - Features and specifications: 8.5/10
By now you know that this AmazonBasics TV has a 4K panel with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. The panel type isn’t specified, but seems like a good one; more on that later. It has a 60 Hz refresh rate, which is standard. This TV is powered by an Amlogic chip with a quad-core processor clocked at 1.95 GHz and Mali G31-MP2 GPU. It is accompanied by 1.5 GB RAM and 8 GB of internal storage, a chunk of which is taken up by the Fire OS. Wireless connectivity includes Bluetooth 5.0 and dual band Wi-Fi with support for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. Audio output is rated at 20 Watts RMS with support for Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Atmos. Since this isn’t an official Android TV, it does not have Chromecast but lets you mirror content from your phone or tablet using Miracast. HDR format support is quite good here, with the TV able to crunch most of the popular formats from Dolby Vision to HDR10 to HLG. Though the product page of this TV does not explicitly highlight HDR10+ compliance, it seems to manage that too, mainly for content on Prime Video. [caption id=“attachment_10051171” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]
You get a wireless remote control that resembles the one you get with a Fire TV Stick 4K but with a few extra buttons. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi[/caption] You get a wireless remote control that resembles the one you get with a Fire TV Stick 4K but with a few extra buttons; no surprises there. Other than the usual buttons found on a Fire TV Stick remote, you have a dedicated button for quick settings and hotkeys for Netflix, Prime Video, Amazon Music and Apps. There’s a mute button too along with volume control. The remote is voice enabled, and you can summon Alexa by keeping the microphone button pressed to issue voice commands. They work smoothly. The build quality of this remote is as good as that of the Fire TV Stick remote; both are probably made by the same OEM. A pair of AAA batteries are bundled in the package. The remote comes pre-paired with the TV and you don’t need to set it up. The power button on the remote communicates with the TV using IR, while the rest of the functions operate over Bluetooth.
AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV - OS and User Interface: 9/10
The user interface here is very similar to the one you get on Fire TV Sticks with a few extras such as input sources, media player and TV settings. You now have the latest Fire OS interface on this TV, that looks more fluid and elegant. And even better, you get a more recent version of the software (7.2.5.2) as compared to what’s available on even the Fire TV Stick 4K. As with all Fire OS devices, you need to login with your Amazon ID to access all the features. If you don’t have one, you will need to register and create one. [caption id=“attachment_10051181” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]
All the apps and related content are organised neatly on this TV. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi[/caption] You get apps for all popular streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Hotstar, Apple TV, Sony LIV etc. All the apps and content are neatly organised, and you have an option to tweak the sound, picture and other settings of this TV. It also lets you adjust the sound and picture on the fly from almost anywhere, be it while watching something on an OTT service or through an HDMI source like DTH or even in USB mode. All you need to do is press the settings button (with gear icon) on the remote to bring up the quick settings menu. You can also ask Alexa for assistance to search for content in certain apps beyond Prime Video. It worked well with Netflix and YouTube. The overall experience is generally smooth and lag free.
AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV - Picture quality: 8/10
Right out of the box, the picture quality of this TV is pleasant. The panel is reasonably bright, and just like the Realme SLED TV that we reviewed a while ago, the picture is easy on the eyes. Some may feel it’s a little on the softer side, but it puts very little strain on the eyes even after viewing it for a few hours. The colour reproduction of this TV is excellent, with close to natural colours. Mind you, they are vibrant enough but not overly boosted, which is a good thing. If you feel the need to tweak the output, the picture adjustments are just a keypress away. You have more than a handful of options ranging from the usual brightness, colour, contrast, sharpness etc. to advanced options for adjusting white balance, noise reduction and many more. There are no motion adjustment options, but the default setting is good enough and I could hardly notice any motion artefacts. [caption id=“attachment_10051191” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]
Basic and advanced picture adjustment settings are only a keypress away. Image: Tech2/Ameya Dalvi[/caption] This TV is compliant with Dolby Vision and HDR10 standards, and though it doesn’t mention HDR10+ in the spec-sheet, it recognises the format and is adept at decoding it. Well, good enough for a budget TV, I meant. Each of the HDR formats have Bright, Dark, Standard and Dynamic picture pre-sets with the respective HDR format prefix, as well as a manual adjustment option. Either of the first three pre-sets generally gets the job done in most HDR content. Dynamic lends the picture cooler tones and boosts the colours a bit too much, so I wouldn’t recommend it. 4K Dolby Vision and HDR10+ content on Netflix and Prime Video respectively looks vibrant on this screen with good contrast. Details in dark areas were clearly visible and there was hardly any flickering in high contrast scenes, an area where most budget TVs tend to falter. The black levels on this TV are probably the only thing I would criticise. While they are passable for the segment, they could have been a tad darker. The level of detail in the picture is generally very good, and again, if you find the picture a little soft, feel free to push the sharpness up a bit from the quick settings menu. Moving on from HDR content, even SDR Ultra HD content looks lively on this TV and that applies to most Full HD content too with accurate colours and good amount of detail. 720p videos are perfectly watchable too courtesy of a capable upscaling engine here. Anything with a lower resolution looks a bit flat and noticeably low on detail, but that’s the case with almost all 55-inch TVs. The viewing angles are pretty good too with only a slight colour shift when watching content from sharp angles. All said and done, I was quite pleased with the picture quality of this TV.
AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV - Audio quality: 7/10
A pair of bottom-firing speakers rated at 20 Watts RMS deliver decent audio output. The output is loud and clear at 50 percent volume for general purpose viewing but nothing special. It is perfectly fine for watching news, sports or the odd web series. The output is tuned to favour the vocals understandably, but does have a hint of warmth to make it a little more pleasant. While the output quality is acceptable for TV speakers, neither the loudness nor the clarity is as good as that of the Hisense 55A71F TV. The speakers are tuned well out of the box, and there are a handful of sound adjustments to tune it further, which can be accessed from almost anywhere. You also have a few audio pre-sets to try your hands on. The TV speakers claim to support Dolby Atmos but hold your horses; do not expect multi-point surround sound from the TV speakers. The TV has limited audio output options, and if HDMI ARC is indeed absent, that leaves you with just optical out and Bluetooth. So, if you plan to hook this TV up with a soundbar or speaker system, make sure they have either of those options.
AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV - Overall performance: 8.5/10
The TV takes about 45 seconds to boot up and get to the home screen when you switch it on from the mains, which is average at best for smart TVs today. Post that, if you switch it off and on from the remote control, the TV comes back on instantaneously from standby mode. The default media player on this AmazonBasics TV is pretty good and supports most of the popular video codecs and can playback 4K videos too from USB. In case you don’t like it, VLC player is also available on Fire OS. Most of the things worked as expected on this TV and it gave me little reason to complain about things, other than those I have already mentioned.
AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV - Price and verdict
The AmazonBasics 55-inch 4K Fire TV can be purchased on Amazon India for Rs 39,999 with a one-year comprehensive warranty and an additional year on the panel. For that price you get a large screen smart TV with good picture quality that’s easy on the eyes, lots of picture adjustments, support for popular HDR formats and the latest Fire OS platform with good apps support and a fluid UI. Audio quality is serviceable, but the lack of several popular audio outputs can be a hindrance. All in all, it is a good smart TV and worth the asking price, if its flaws, especially on the audio front, are not much of an issue for you. As for competition, a couple of Android TV options come to mind around the Rs 40,000 mark. Firstly, the Realme Smart TV SLED 55 with similar picture quality but without Dolby Vision support. The other option being the Hisense 55A71F that supports Dolby Vision, has comparable picture quality and offers much better sound output. As for 55-inch 4K TVs based on Fire OS, this AmazonBasics model is the only one in India currently. Overall Rating: 4/5 Price: Rs 39,999