Is the new Fire TV Stick 4K really faster? It depends

Last week, Amazon launched a new Fire TV Stick 4K with a bold claim: It’s nearly 20 to 40 percent faster, the company says, than “a similarly priced 4K streaming stick from another leading brand.”

Amazon won’t name the competitor, but in my own tests, the advantage over comparably priced streamers isn’t so clear-cut.

What I tested

Amazon’s own comparison video is impossible to test because it doesn’t show real-world results. Instead, it’s just a mock-up “for illustrative purposes,” based on Amazon’s measurements of “time from content selection to playback” in “the three most popular apps.” In addition to not naming the rival streamer, Amazon won’t say which apps it tested.

So I decided to conduct my own measurements instead, looking at how long a few similarly priced streamers take to boot up, wake from standby, and start streaming. I also measured their ability to quickly switch between different apps.