Almost a week after rumors suggested that Amazon was preparing to enter the television market, the e-commerce giant announced its new line of 4K Fire TVs that will launch in October.
The new ‘Omni’ and ‘Series 4’ TVs are described as ‘Amazon-made TVs’ and will expand the company’s ‘Fire TV Edition’ collaborations, which are only third-party TVs preloaded with Amazon’s streaming software. Nevertheless, The edge points out that despite what Amazon says, these new televisions almost certainly were built by a television manufacturer. Specifically, Amazon TVs look a lot like TCL TVs, and the Fire TV Omni has a nearly identical port layout to the TCL 6-series TV.
However, if Amazon leverages TCL to make the TVs, you won’t get the latest or greatest from TCL. Amazon’s Fire TVs don’t have HDMI 2.1, which means they don’t have 4K 120Hz. Amazon also didn’t provide details on features like full-array local dimming.
Amazon’s Omni TVs are the high-end options, and the main selling points are better picture quality and hands-free voice control. Each Omni TV model has far-field microphones for voice control with Alexa technology. Amazon said The edge that customers who used voice functions interacted with the content twice as much as those who did not. In addition to getting people to interact with content more using voice, Amazon built its own televisions to create a smoother Fire TV experience.
Omni TVs come in 43-, 50-, 55-, 65-, and 75-inch models, and 65- and 75-inch TVs offer Dolby Vision (the rest only get HDR10).
Plus, the people who won the Echo speakers will get an added bonus with Amazon TVs, which can connect wirelessly to Echo speakers for better audio.
The new Amazon TVs will be available in Canada (prices can be found below). Those interested can also consult a comparison chart between the Series 4 and Omni televisions on the Amazon website. Overall, they look pretty similar, although the Omni devices do offer hands-free Alexa and a few other voice-related features that the Series 4 doesn’t.
Fire TV Omni
- 43 inches – $ 519.99
50 inch – $ 649.99 - 55 inch – $ 709.99
- 65 inches – $ 1,049.99
- 75 inch – $ 1,399.99
Fire TV Series 4
- 43 inches – $ 469.99
- 50 inch – $ 599.99
- 55 inch – $ 659.99
You can learn more about the Fire TV Omni line here and Fire TV Series 4 here.
Image Credit: Amazon