Tech giants face off in our battle of the 4K streamers
Want to make your dumb TV smart? Or perhaps your TV’s built-in streaming apps just aren’t cutting it. Either way, you will need a streaming device, and these are the two main players when it comes to mainstream 4K players.
In the Amazon corner, we have the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and as the overly long product name may suggest, it is Amazon’s top-of-the-range streaming stick. Sitting just below the Fire TV Cube, this much smaller and slimmer cuboid streaming stick is the latest addition to the Fire TV Stick lineup, with 4K HDR streaming, beefier internal specs and Wi-Fi 6 support.
And in the Google corner, we have the Chromecast with Google TV, a plucky puck that also represents Google’s finest when it comes to TV streaming. It too is capable of 4K HDR streaming and it is powered by Google TV, an operating system you will find on many TVs from Sony and TCL. This Google streamer sits above the HD model that was released last year, and Google’s two-streamer approach is a lot simpler than Amazon’s current lineup of four sticks and one cube.
But which one is right for you? Well, there are many factors to consider, such as compatibility with your TV (there is no point buying a 4K streamer if you don’t have a 4K TV, check out the Fire TV Stick 3rd Generation instead), app compatibility, ease of use and of course, picture and sound performance. Lucky for you, we have compiled all of that right here, with a head-to-head comparison between these two streaming sticks.
Price
Amazon has the slightly pricier streamer out of the two, with the Stick 4K Max retailing for £65, whereas the Chromecast costs £60. There’s not much in it, but if you are holding on to an older TV with the hopes of smartening it up instead of shelling out for a replacement, it’s likely that every penny counts.
That being said, Amazon often has sales occurring in which pretty much all of its first-party tech products have their prices slashed. At the time of going to press, in the Amazon Spring Sale, you can pick up a Fire TV Stick 4K Max for just £48. However, it looks as if Google anticipated this as it currently has savings on its Chromecast devices and you can get the Google TV-equipped streamer for just £45.
While the price difference is pretty negligible, especially during sales, we have to give it to the Chromecast, as it is the cheaper option.
