- Stunning 4K Quantum Dot Display (QLED) – Makes movies, shows, and live sports pop in brighter, richer, and more lifelike colors.
- Advanced HDR – Scenes leap off the screen in deep, realistic color with Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive. HDR10 and HLG are also supported.
- Fire TV Ambient Experience now with AI Art – Transform your TV into a canvas to display images you create with your imagination, or choose over 2,000 pieces of museum-quality art and photography.
- Adaptive Brightness – Fire TV automatically optimizes the brightness of movies and shows through a built-in sensor that detects the lighting in your room.
- Bolder contrast – Experience deeper darks and brighter whites with full array local dimming in 64 individual zones enhancing contrast.
- Watch what you want – Stream over 1.5 million movies and TV episodes. Watch favorites with subscriptions to Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and more.
- Hands-free TV with Alexa – With built-in microphones, just ask to turn on the TV, and find, launch, and control content, so you can put down the remote.
- Build your home theater – With Alexa Home Theater you can wirelessly pair Echo speakers using the Alexa app, or connect a soundbar or an AV receiver.
- Connect all your devices – Use the 4 HDMI inputs to connect to cable or satellite and video game consoles. The HDMI eARC lets you add audio equipment for enhanced sound.
- Designed to protect your privacy – Built with privacy protections and controls, including a switch that electronically disconnects the microphones.
TMF –
Summary: image quality is great, but the clunky interface, unavoidable hardware lag, and Amazon bloatware make owning this TV an absolutely abysmal experience. If this is the highest tier of TV Amazon has to offer, look elsewhere even if it costs you a few hundred dollars more.
Details on why you SHOULD NOT buy this TV:
1. THERE ARE INESCAPABLE ADS THAT YOU MUST CLICK THROUGH TO ACCESS CONTENT. This is absolutely unacceptable on a TV that is paid for in full. There are similar features on other Fire devices, like tablets, but that is disclosed to you up front at the time of purchase, and you have the option of paying slightly more to disable them. No such option exists on these TVs, and no disclosure is made at the time of purchase. It’s a joke and an insult to customers. (NOTE: other competitors, like Roku, have ads as well, but the ads don’t need to be clicked through to access content)
2. The user interface is unnecessarily complex, and it can’t get out of its own way. As one small example, you have to select a Fire profile on TV startup, and only then can you access apps, like Netflix, which themselves have profiles you must select. Forcing users to select a profile up front when they will have to again select further app profiles regardless is ridiculous. Let us just get into our apps from the beginning and skip this unnecessary step.. This is just one example of user-unfriendly interface design; it’s endemic and everywhere you go in the Fire TV UI: super tiny apps, apps that take multiple clicks to access even if ads were removed, inability to access picture and sound settings from the main menu, profile and other settings that are completely inaccessible on the TV and must be edited on websites or apps for seemingly-arbitrary reasons, and a slew of others. You simply can’t make this TV do what you want it to do without having to click a million things, and even then, the end result is sometimes hidden away on another device or simply can’t be accessed.
3. Glitchy, rampant hardware lag is EVERYWHERE. The TV takes seconds to respond to single clicks of the remote. Shows start without proper buffering and play in resolution worse than a Super Nintendo while also moving in stop-motion for 10 seconds before actually working. Ad-supported apps bounce between commercials and content incredibly slowly, which would be fine if it were buffering, but it’s not and the first bit of commercial or content is a pixelated, glitchy mess regardless. Trying to fast forward or rewind a show requires a prayer to ancient Incan gods, and only half the time does the TV actually respond to your button press, and only half of the time after that does it actually stop fast forwarding/rewinding when you let go of the button instead of 5 seconds later. Menus boot up super slowly, and once available still don’t respond to your clicks. It’s like this TV has 40 pounds of crap shoved into 5 pounds of hardware, and it just can’t keep up. The worst part is that when the TV confuses itself enough from all the overload, it crashes and restarts…multiple times per day. (NOTE: TV is completely up to date, and it’s connected to Amazon’s own 6th-gen eero mesh network, which is excellent; all hardware acceleration is also turned off since it makes content look terrible anyway)
4. Bloatware. Bloatware everywhere. The TV comes with about as much unwanted software on it as a 2003 Dell PC. Unlike the 20-year-old Dell, however, this bloatware can’t be removed. You can hide it from certain menus, but it will always be there, always try to send you notifications, and always try to force its way into your periphery. Even Apple figured this out a decade ago with its native apps: let us delete unwanted junk that we don’t need. Maybe the TV would actually work if we could get rid of all this garbage?
5. WHY DOES ALEXA HOME THEATER MAKE A LOUD, OBNOXIOUS “BOOP” NOISE EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE THE VOLUME!? And how in the world do we disable that freaking noise so we don’t wake up napping children when we want to turn the volume down from 5/100 to 3/100? It’s not in the options of the TV, I can tell you that, which further reinforces how clunky and unintuitive this entire UI experience is if this option is hidden in some other app completely unrelated to Fire TV.
6. Every possible hardware modification of the TV’s content is turned on from the start, meaning everything you watch looks like a super saturated daytime soap opera. It’s 2022, guys. Stop shipping TVs with Motion Smoothing and 17 other things turned on by default. No one likes them.
If for some masochistic reason you still want this TV after the above points, here is the singular reason you SHOULD buy this TV:
1. Once all the hardware acceleration bloat is turned off, and after you’ve edited the picture settings (which again, cannot be accessed through the main menu) so that the image quality doesn’t look like the Teletubbies, the image quality is excellent. Colors are uniform, pictures are crisp (when they aren’t pixelated from all the lag), details are clear, dark areas are dark without looking grey, etc. It’s likely that the display is manufactured by Samsung (like most QLED displays), which is great, and it shows.
Overall, there is no way I can recommend this TV to anyone who wants to retain their sanity. It’s very clear that Amazon chose to compromise TV functionality and the user experience so that it could push Alexa, a metric short-ton of Amazon services, and ads, and it does all of this by bait and switching you with an excellent display at an excellent price-point. It’s a borderline scam since the ads, bloatware, overloaded hardware, and unusable interfaces aren’t made apparent to you up front. The price looks great compared to its competitors, but there’s a reason for that, and the reason isn’t made clear at the time of purchase. It’s an unforgivable business strategy, and I’ll be returning this TV in 5 days once Thanksgiving has passed.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Electro Tech –
55″ Omni 4k QLED
The picture is amazing in 4K full HDR! You cannot beat this TV for this price. I found out through my Roku that the manufacturer is Toshiba.
So I had some issues. First it would log me out of my Amazon account and I would have to go in and set up my home screen again. No biggie and it stopped doing that. The Pandora music app plays but lags so bad that you can barely use it besides just letting it play. The fire TV will not support the spectrum TV app which was almost a deal breaker.
The ARC HDMI will control my home theater receiver, turn up and down the volume, turn it on and off, etc but only if I don’t have a receiver installed through the TV. When I install it through the TV settings it will be fine most of the time but then glitches and mutes the receiver when turning the volume up, will randomly display the volume every 20 seconds unless I turn the volume up or down a few times etc.
The Alexa works great on it and actually took the place of the echo dot that I had installed in the room. Bonus because I can use that echo dot as another zone in a different room for my smart home. It automatically controlled all of the same things, lights, switches etc, and required no extra setup which was very cool.
So the good… Well the really good… I’ve always used Roku and, sorry Amazon, totally prefer Roku over the fire OS. I bought the more expensive Roku 4k stick and it does full HDR and Dolby Vision in beautiful, dazzling picture even though it’s not plugged into the HDMI 2.1 port (HDMI 4 ARC). I need the ARC input to control my home theater receiver. The other three ports, HDMI 1 through 3 are HDMI 2.0 ports according to the description, but it still pushes the full HDR signal through these ports. So I’m extremely happy with the TV now. The Roku also controls TV power on/off and volume through my home theater receiver. The only issue I have is when I turn the TV off through the remote it’s not turning my receiver off. But I’m sure there’s a setting somewhere that I haven’t found yet to fix this. Also with the Roku I get the spectrum TV app and my Pandora works fine and switches to the screen saver (the Pandora app through the fire TV OS stays on the blue screen while playing and I’m afraid that will cause burn-in on the TV screen after countless hours of play).
Bottom line, you won’t be disappointed with this TV. The fire TV OS will work great for you I’m sure, but I just prefer Roku.
I spent the extra for the 4 year extended warranty as this is a relatively new line of TV. But being manufactured by Toshiba I’m sure it will be fine!
ENJOY!
Gabe –
I’ve now had this TV for about 3.5 months, but it’s been fantastic. The picture quality is outstanding, and the sound is surprisingly good. The bass is what really surprised me, as I’m not used to flat screen TVs having much bass, but this does. Yes, it has five gazillion different picture settings, but it doesn’t take long to get it dialed in to how you like it. I also love the fact that it auto adjusts when movies or TV shows are shown in a higher quality, like the HDR and Filmmaker Mode. You can turn those kinds of things off if you like, but to me the settings being the way the movie or TV show is intended makes it look that much better.
The size is perfect for my needs. That it has four HDMI ports is fantastic, as it allows me to have my satellite TV service, a Blu Ray player and a DVD player always connected. The remaining port allows me to connect a retro video game console or my Raspberry Pi, which is also used for retro gaming. And one of the picture settings with the TV is Game Mode, which basically turns off all of the bells and whistles, meaning any input lag while gaming disappears. There’s nothing like playing Space Invaders on a 50″, high def TV! And I use the USB port for an 8TB external HDD that has my favorite TV series and movies.
The picture itself is crisp, bright and vibrant. It just looks great. I’m really impressed with how good it looks in a TV in this price range. I was originally considering getting a sound bar, but the speakers are quite good, with good volume and bass, negating the need for the sound bar.
So far there are only two cons, but they aren’t big ones and one was easily remedied…
– The USB port, while 5V, is only 500mA, which limits the types of devices it can power. For instance, though a lot of people can power a recently released retro gaming console with the USB port on their TVs, I can’t, as the console recommends at least 1A (1000mA).
– The included media player. The aforementioned external HDD I have connected via the USB port has literally thousands of individual files on it, from hundreds of movies, documentaries, TV series and miniseries. Even though I have everything sorted on the drive itself into folders, first by category (Movies, TV Shows, Documentaries), then alphabetical folders in each of those three categories, the player doesn’t show them that way, but rather all individual files on one screen. I can sort them alphabetically, but if I want to watch something that starts with the letter N, I have to scroll for eight or ten minutes to get there. The included media player plays the files just fine, and they look great, but it’s the lack of grouping that is a HUGE problem. Thankfully, through Amazon I was able to download a free media player app called “MX Player” that’s compatible with this TV and which shows the files the way they are grouped on the drive, making it much, MUCH easier and quicker to get to what you want to watch.
Overall I would highly recommend this TV, especially for how great it looks and sounds for a TV in this price range. Sure, there are better ones out there, but you’re also going to pay a lot more for them.
JCS HANDYMAN SERVICES –
I like divorce capability of Alexa to allow easy control of satellite receivers and other media equipment. The TV seemed like it was well built it was not as light as cheapest TVs are. The sound from the built-in speakers was really good had really good bass as well with surprise me. Unfortunately things did not work out with my purchase and I decided to return this TV back to Amazon. This was not due to any manufacturing defects or the TV failing to operate it was just a decision I made after watching the TV and realizing that the 4K upscaling sucks to be blunt about it. I have a 10-year-old sharp Aquos 65-in flat screen that has better picture quality than this 4K QLED TV did. Even when I was streaming 4K movies the picture looked very how can I put this fake like a video game the colors was off you could see the pixels in the display that was not the picture quality I was expecting from a 4K TV which in theory should be four times a clear image than a standard 1080 HDTV is. But overall for the price and for the built-in functions this TV offers it is the best candidate in my opinion comparing 4K TVs in Best buy side by side this Omni series q LED 55-in had a stunning picture quality in Best buy. Not so much when I go to the home and hooked it up to my dish Network satellite box. Maybe I am mistaken and this TV does not have built in 4K upscaling but I thought that was kind of a standard feature on all 4K TVs especially options in this price range of $530 all in including tax. My take on the picture quality is purely a personal preference and in a way takes away from all of the great features and performance packed into this Amazon backed 55-in 4K TV. I had just discovered the freevee that was built into the TV. That was amazed that I could stream all the live TV channels even local news channels for free. Freevee I believe is a Amazon company. They offer a paid monthly subscription as well which is ad free. The free one only had maybe 90 seconds of ads every 10 or 15 minutes so much less than conventional TV and it was free.
Overall I would go to a store where you can compare this model to other side by side and make an informed decision on which Omni TV or other best suits your needs.
John Wesley Hester –
Great Fire TV for the price and features. Picture and sound are both good on the 50” version that still has local dimming. Some infrequent blooming but overall another TV that proves less dimming zones isn’t a detriment with proper processing. Peak brightness isn’t as high as more expensive TV’s but is still noticeable with HDR content and very acceptable at this price. HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision IQ all work well with good brightness range and color volume. Note: no Dolby Atoms for sound. I knew this, my TV is wall mounted high and tilted down slightly in a small bedroom and I have no need for a sound bar. NOTE: if using a sound bar with an optical cable, try turning the TV speakers off AND changing the output to PCM or Dolby Digital; and use HDMI 4 (ARC/eARC).
This TV is a great value for my application and the budget I set for it.
I’m just using the Fire TV interface and none of the HDMI inputs. So I can’t speak on Hue, Contrast and Color issues others may see. Out of the box, mine seems spot on and I currently have no want or desire to go in and adjust any settings based on the content from the various apps I’ve used.
The interface isn’t as fast as the Fire TV Cube 3 or Fire Stick 4K Max but still pretty good overall. Note to new Fire TV users: the interface is slower when updates are being downloaded and installed. Check the Device Info for updates several times when first starting the TV. There will be several updates: some very big ones and 2 to 3 more little ones at the least. Keep checking back until it says that it’s “up-to-date”. THEN start to really enjoy the interface. Also the network connection and its QUALITY also plays a factor. This TV supports 2.4/5Ghz and wired (100Mbps).
Ambient mode is great but just remember what the TV tells you. The power button on the remote TOGGLES between the Fire TV interface and ambient mode and that long pressing it turns the TV off. No issues with any widgets so far for me. Also, my TV easily recognizes when I enter and exit the room.
If you have other Amazon products nearby that listen for “Alexa”, simply change the TV’s wake word to Computer, Amazon or Echo. Absolutely no issues with this.
1. I haven’t found any “inescapable” ads to get to content. You can “click” on these shortcuts if you want but you can just user your voice to search for titles instead. Like every other TV interface or box, third party apps have their own interfaces, sign-ins, ads, etc. that can’t be controlled by Amazon, Apple, Google, TCL, etc. Third party apps also place their own ads onto the TV platform they are on based on the deals they have in place.
2. The Fire TV interface is anything but complex. You can set it up anyway you want. Again, the various interfaces, profiles, etc. of third party apps are completely independent from Fire TV and on the makers of them and this would be the same on any other TV platform.
3. YMMV on the interface. Third party crashes and bugs are possible too. Third party interface issues need to be reported to their makers. They manage the various versions of their app across various platforms and sometimes they aren’t all equal in performance or features offered by platform.
4. It hasn’t quite been a decade for Apple to allow the removal of 1st party apps (2016) but maybe Amazon will allow certain apps to be deleted one day. But understand these devices are meant to interface with and promote Amazon products and services primarily.
5. The remote button press sounds can be turned off in options for the main interface. Don’t know about the Alexa Home Theater mode but if there isn’t a way, find out if there is one and if not ask that it be implemented.
6. Again, out of the box settings being what they may for everyone, at least there are detailed picture settings available for the TV and all of its inputs – all independent of one another to get things looking the way you personally prefer.
Blowfish –
The picture is good.
The sound is good.
The quality is good.
But the important feature is how it integrates into your voice-command home. First, you can do functions without the remote present. You can tell the TV to do TV functions, like look for shows, adjust volume, etc. But you can also set alarms, turn off lights that tied to your voice command devices, etc.
This makes our lives simpler, and that is always a good thing.
I’ve done a lot of reviews over the years, so I will start to add this footnote: I am not paid to review products, I am a pure enduser who does reviews to help others.
Kelly –
I read other reviews that had issues with their TVs, but my experience with this TV so far has been extremely positive.
1. Did not see a single ad that I had to click through to access anything that did not exist outside an app that I installed.
2. The user interface is one of the simplest most streamlined and intuitive UIs that I have come across on a smart TV so far. I had no Amazon products, (echo, Alexa or fire Firesticks, or anything) before buying this TV. And I was not interested in getting a Fire TV. I actually wanted a Google TV. But I got it anyway and couldn’t be happier so far.
The UI is user-friendly and much easier to see and navigate than the one on my Samsung smart TV.
I find that when I turn the TV on it usually automatically selects the last fire tv profile that I had open. At any point, I can easily switch to another Fire TV profile if I want to.
Fire TV UI has large apps, that are easy to access and with a single click. I can easily access the quick menu settings anywhere to change the picture, sound settings, etc., with a simple click of the correct button on the remote. The same goes for accessing the full settings menu from anywhere. I click the settings button on the remote and it immediately takes me there.
3. So far I have experienced zero hardware lag. The TV responds immediately to the click of the remote. I also upgraded to the voice remote after buying the TV, and I’ve not had any response issues using either remote.
I haven’t experienced any buffering issues that were not the cause of my sometimes sluggish Xfinity internet connection. Which has seemed to be getting slower and slower, but that started way before buying this TV so is therefore unrelated. We don’t use it for gaming or anything like that, so I cannot speak to how it performs in that sense.
I’ve had only a couple of issues with this TV since buying it. The first was installing the widgets on the ambient screen so we could use those. But that issue magically fixed itself the other day. The second was trying to figure out how to best install and control our JBL soundbar and Subwoofer, so it does not automatically come in every time the TV is turned on which I was also able to resolve. But so far the TV itself has never crashed or rebooted not even once.
4. As I said this is our first Amazon product, and therefore our first experience with using Alexa. And it has been a fun and interesting learning experience, to say the least. We love being able to ask her to show us the security cameras that we have up. It’s much easier and quicker than finding my phone to open the app to see the camera when we need to. Alexa has quickly become the third resident of our household and she’s a more than welcome guest. She does get a little attitude with us from time to time, but who wouldn’t?
5. Setup was a breeze, didn’t take long at all to get the cable connected and rearrange the apps in the UI to have our favorites upfront. Used the quick settings sidebar screen to determine which picture setting we wanted. And there was a lot to choose from. We ultimately just went with the energy-saving option which looks just as great as all the other choices available.
If you are in the market for a new tv would recommend giving this TV a look. I will say that I did end up buying this TV for two reasons. First the price, the price for a TV of this size and features was hard to ignore. The second was because I knew we could use it to easily view our Blink cameras. Which I LOVE! There are other features that I Love as well like the use of the widgets on the ambient screen allows us to keep track of events, set reminders, check the weather, and track our Amazon orders. And of course Alexa😉
Jeffrey Barney –
I bought this TV back in June of 2023. It’s not December 2023. I have to say I’m pretty disappointed with the product. The screen is pretty and bright, the interface is a little odd (especially with the ads) and takes some getting used to. However, my biggest problem is how slow/responsive the remote to TV is.
For instance, I’m watching a show on Netflix. I get it connected, we are in the middle of the show and I get a call on my phone. I pick up the remote and I press pause. It takes almost 15 seconds before the show charges. Often, I push it a few times because I’m not sure if the remote was awake and saw my button press, so then they all catch up and it pauses, unpauses, pauses, unpauses, etc. It drives me crazy.
I’m going to use an external Roku just to avoid these problems, but of course that means my integration will suffer. I won’t have Alexa as easily but overall it’ll be a better experience (I hope).
D Brooks –
Amazon online desk-help was great in getting this tv to me as the first one ordered and shipped via USPS got lost. They shipped via UPS instead and was here in 4 days. Thanks Amazon!
Why I purchased:
I replaced a very good working 5 year old Samsung 48″ tv with this Amazon Fire TV OMNI 50″, because, at the first of this year (2024), Samsung decided my tv needed their poorly written firmware that trashed the excellent, already working, network connections, and, Samsung-Plus’ online channel’s connection capabilities to less than watchable, with no recourse to reverse the firmware, or, a fix.
I had purchased a Amazon Fire 32 inch tv last month and really liked the programing features (since I was already a Prime Member everything works together). So I thought I’d try a 50″ Fire TV and so far I am pleased with “all” of the built-in features including Alexa, of which I had not used much (if ever) prior to this purchase. It had a few less inputs than the old tv, but I’ve never used them all anyway.
Pros:
Easy setup
Lightweight unit for hanging on wall (non articulating mount install)
Easy access on each side of unit to power and to HDMI/F-connector/USB inputs
Programmed all off air channels in my area my old tv found, plus 5 more. (old 64 new 69)
Allows for favorite channel line up programming (including hiding unwanted tv/app programs)
Access to all online apps I use (paid for and free).
Remote control can be updated via the tv when the tv is connected to the internet.
Remote control is intuitive to use.
** remote has 3 lower buttons I’ll never use… indirectv-nutflux-peerooster … and 1 that I’ll use, “Prime-Video”…so for me that’s waisted real-estate on the remote (I’m sure the other three are there due to a subsidy…make-em pay-i-say! 🙂 )
** Did not come with mounting screws to match the (4) 10mm mounting points on the back of the tv. Most tv’s don’t supply these anyway.
** you’ll need at least 50 inches of horizontal space minimum to set the tv on if you use the feet that mount to the bottom on the TV base (not reversible either).
HJeffK –
I have a lot of TV’S that run the full spectrum price wise. I recently am dealing with a housing change (divorce, ugh) and needed to get something quickly that I would like, but wouldn’t kill me financially as my cash flow is locked down. For reference, at my original house, I have an 65″ LG G2, a 55″ 2022 Sony Experia, and two 43″ Amazon Fire TV’S for bedrooms that are not the Omni versions.
I was very impressed with the 43″ base Fire TV. It had a solid albeit a bit dim picture, a fast responsive menu, and just generally was a good set for $300. I bought another, which is the ultimate sign if confidence. Two years later, they are still charging on. So, when I hit this current crummy reboot, I immediately looked at these again, but immediately moved on to the Omni option. I really needed a big TV. The LG C2 was what I really wanted, but the almost $3000 price tag was just beyond what I could do right now. Given all of this, I swallowed my TV snobbery, and ordered up the 75″ Omni which I believe is manufactured by TVL for Amazon. Here are my thoughts.
First off, what matters most is the picture. It is shockingly good. Mini LED tech is not generally as good as OLED. However, this picture really works. It is reasonably bright and the HDR content shines on Netflix and other high quality streams. This is a 60hz panel, so I do miss the faster processing on my higher end TV’S, but it is surprisingly close. The blacks here also surprised me. This TV can get really dark. Is it LG OLED good? No. Is it way better than one third of the price good? Heck yes! Most average eyes, will be really happy with the picture here.
In terms of menu and interface, Gire TV’S are better than many including LG. I know, blasphemy! Try an LG and you will know what I mean. Their screens are absolutely the best, but the menus are a mess. At least for me. This TV automatically recognizes when I turn on the PS5 amd everything you need is right there. I don’t notice the bloatware others have had issue with. I live in the Amazon ecosystem though so keep that in mind.
In terms of gaming, this is where you will likely feel the difference. The picture looks amazing but when a game really gets going, on the PS5, you will notice some speed issues. However, it is very marginal. I think it really works just fine for the average gamer.
So, what are you missing? First is the aforementioned screen speed. 60hz isn’t fast enough. You get a really good HDR format though, and gaming images are very detailed and high end. You don’t get Dolby Atmos but sound is OK. I really recommend a sound bar. I bought a 7.1 Vizeo with Atmos and the content sounds amazing via the HDMI Arc connection. The picture still isn’t that bright. It is way better than the base Fire TV’S but it isn’t amazing. There just isn’t that much missing for me at this price.
The bottom line is this: This is a tremendous value for the money. I can nitpick some things, but a 75″ TV makes a big statement in most rooms and this one doesn’t disappoint. Are there way better TV’s out there? Oh, yes. Are ther better values? Not that I have seen. Buy with confidence.