Solid review from Apple Insider. My concerns are about functionality and price.
On functionality:
If you want a set-it-and-forget-it box for your 4K television, HDR or not, and you have at least one other Apple device, get the new Apple TV 4K. There is little to not like about it. Even if you don’t have 4K, you’re future-proofed for a few years at least and the power of the A10X is nice.
The review goes through a few complaints, all relatively minor. Read it for details.
As to price:
The Apple TV 4K is an expensive streamer, for sure. A starting price of $179 is nothing to sneeze at. A 4K Roku can be had for less than that, and the very recent Amazon Fire HD box is even cheaper —assuming you tolerate the ads and data mining associated with the company.
But, a better way to look at is as an upgrade charge for your existing iTunes content, if you have any. The deal that Apple made with Hollywood to upgrade past HD purchases to 4K is unprecedented, and a great boon for consumers.
The Amazon Fire HD is $69.99. Add to that another $15 for an ethernet dongle if your WiFi is not up to the task of streaming 4K video. All in, $85. Compared to $179, that’s a huge difference.
If you already own iTunes content, the free 4K upgrade will make a difference. My personal experience with the Fire TV interface is that the Apple TV design is much friendlier, much easier to use.
If you are on the fence, I’d wait for a head to head comparison between the Apple TV 4K and the Amazon Fire TV 4K. The latter is due to ship on October 25th.
I think it’s an obvious purchase if you’re in the iTunes eco-system. It’s a brilliant update from the last iteration & I’m very happy with the quality and speed of my 4K Apple TV, to be honest. Netflix looks amazing for the content we’re watching as does the updated iTunes library of mine. Narcos in 4K is a little too real at times and took us a little while to adjust to the quality & 60fps.
It’s expensive but it’s got more to it than just 4K – the App Store is great and perfect for games when you’ve got friends around with iPhones/iPads as controllers!
I wonder if Amazon’s aggressive pricing on this device is based on competitive manufacturing costs or do they factor in ad revenue & tracking as a subsidy for a more expensive product.
Dave, I love the typo in your final paragraph.
It is funny. Almost left it in!
We just bought a new TCL 4K TV this weekend with Roku installed. Now, we are a all Apple family. I have a couple hundred movies from iTunes, so there is no going without an AppleTV. However, I’ve had a Roku HD, and have a FireTV. All are okay, but nothing was as good as the Apple TV 4. Until yesterday. The Roku built into the TV is brilliant. We don’t have cable, when the TV goes on it is to stream something or play PS4. After just an hour of having this I completely changed my thinking on Apple getting into the TV market. On one hand no they shouldn’t, but on the other hand, complete integration is wonderful and so easy.
Dang it!
Unlike TV, none of the under $100 devices (Roku, Fire etc) claim to work with Dolby Vision HDR. Only HDR 10.
Apple’s pricing on this product is predatory.
One thing that keeps getting left out of the comparisons between Apple TV and other streaming boxes is the fact that the ATV is also a decent gaming machine. Serious gamers will probably take issue with that comment, but for my family, it’s excellent. The difference in processing power compared to other streamers is what makes that possible.
Non-starter for me. I totally get the appeal if you have a large library of purchased iTunes videos. You get those in 4K for the price of a new ATV. If I had a 4K TV (later this winter, finally…) and 50+ purchased movies on iTunes, I’d buy this. And I get that you can play some games on it.
But I stream, I don’t have much purchased content so that’s not relevant to me. 4k HDR? Nice, but I can get that for 1/3 to 1/2 the price. Hell, I need a new TV and the TCL 55″ has Roku built in. For under $700. And it’s Wirecutter’s recommendation for best TV. Even if you think that’s a stretch, it’s a pretty damn nice set with streaming for a very good price.
There’s simply no reason for a streaming box to cost this much. It does because of all the other stuff it can do and because of margin requirements from Apple. I get all that but I think they’re ceding a huge chunk of the market by making it start at $179.
I’d like to see two models of ATV:
1) The ATV with the App Store sans games. For people who really just want to stream content. Target price $99-129. Does 4k, HDR. Maybe not Atmos, etc. No higher than $129.
2) The ATV Pro – this model, basically. Push what a streamer can do. Lead, don’t follow. Ships with things like HDR, Atmos, etc early on so that it’s one of the best choices for streaming. Push the power and add games and other apps that require more power and which work well on TVs.
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This. I use my ATV when friends are over to play games. It’s a good gaming machine like the Wii was for me. I’ve also got a PS4 as well as a new SNES mini and we still use the ATV as a gaming machine for more than 2 people – we’ve got an iPad for the non iPhone users & they’re then pretty much converted to getting an iPhone because you realise just how good the eco-system is within Apple ??