AmazonFire TV 50-inch Omni QLED series 4K (Newest gen) | UHD smart TV, Dolby Vision IQ, local dimming, hands free with Alexa

The picture quality is good as the defaults as delivered. It has profiles which you can choose or modify.There are video US reviews by Digital Trends and a write up by Rtings. A plethora of settings against each encoding standard which there are a few applied by apps and HDMI port. More details on a Google of Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series Calibration Settings. Basically the UK model is similar to the US one but set up differently on calibration. A good read is available on the web but reality you probably won't want to change much except the pre-configured profiles but you do need to know the complexity to get the best out of it.The US full manual can be found online, UK ones aren't out yet. A USB 128gb can be put in the back to add additional memory. This can be used to give either additional app memory or file memory for videos. Note fat32 4gb limit will limit the copying of big 4k files.Hdmi4 is used for a sound bar but full Dolby digital plus or an external AV amp. The BBC UHD pictures looked great.Coming the other way I use a Humax Freesat ($) box this worked well with the TV upscaling this to UHD from 1080i. The Nvidia Shield I use also worked well. Dont have Freeview in the rural setting, just Freesat, can't comment on that. The Freeview Play app works without a TV aerial.People have commented on the side viewing of the screen on the US model. Good for up to 45°. The colours are very good. Presets were set to warm where they should be. Coming from plasma the reds are excellent. Panasonic plasma reds were not so good.The TV is believed to be made by TCL, 5 series.Technical side:All picture formats are relative to the app and HDMI port. You hold the Home button when playing a video and select picture. After a period you can start making adjustments to the many preset proforma picture setting or set up a custom profile under that option. To get the best out of it you do need to understand the settings. In the normal picture mode for SDR ie. Not any of the HDR versions, the energy saving mode as delivered is fine. Action smoothing can be adjusted up to 10. Its a controversial setting, it smooths out judder by interpolating where the next image on a moving image will fall. It stops strobing on hand movement, head movement and ticker news headlines. Setting to 10 smooths this out. Other than that normal TV viewing seems fine least using a Humax Freesat connected via HDMI. Auto brightness across the screen works well.Turning attention to the HDR side The BBC iPlayer side is a candidate for action smoothing set to 10 on the Standard picture mode. In the US digital artefacts have been identified on the HDR side where shadows appear on the screen. I have spotted some effects so opted to take the recommendations you see based on US experience of setting the Edge Enhancer to Off, ditto MPEG NR, Noise Reduction, Banding Reduction all off.Colour balance and other attributes seem fine.For HDR you are recommended to select film bright or normal if it's a film. Then you can apply the adjustments above. Smoothing. You need to turn natural cinema off to adjust action smoothing.I have not watched too much Dolby Vision (DV) on it. The presets are the DV recommended ones. DV uses adaptive brightness whilst the picture modes in HDR don't. The advantage of Dolby Vision is the screen settings are twigged in real time during the play out by the meta data as the originator dictated whilst HDR10 / HDR is not. DV evolved from digital cinema.Anybody connecting a sound bar or A/V amp may hit issues in ironing out pass thru, ARC, EARC possibly more so with an A/V amp dependent on what's connected. Signal format setting on my Sony A/V amp needed changing to EARC so the connected Nvidia Shield reliably connected using EARC on auto ARC / EARC. A seperate Firestick and Google Chrome didn't have these issues. That is all bedded in now with CEC control. The weak link / the one forgotten about was the signal format setting in the A/V, it's described as that in other A/Vs so something to look out for if the connection appears illusive with a flashing picture noise screen (the flashing picture noise is when the TV can't lock onto the definition selected either scanning on automatic but cant manage it on the current settings). That's the A/V amp setting not the TV or will be the wrong HDMI cabling. The candidates are the cabling or the A/V amp creating this. Failure not to get the highest definition e.g.. 4k / 60 Hz is likely around the connection / setting, the extreme is the no picture noise but locking in under lower definition is another indication. You are only like to hit these with an A/V amp linked via HDMI since you have pushed the connection through another device and cabling. Great when sorted.You can extend memory with a USB drive. There are two slots. The TV uses OS7 so the Firestick memory extensions you find on the net are the OS7 one. You can either use the drive for app memory extension or file extension for media, not both on the same device. The media format is Fat32 so you are limited to 4gb media files on each. Like a Firestick you can side load third party apps for odd things not in the app store.Ethernet connection will give you better picture stability than WiFi. The TV itself did create some WiFi issues in the house on a weaker location area for reception of a smart plug and camera. That was sorted by another node but an un intended consequence of the TV. The TV was generating interference sufficient to knock out reception in the utility room.A wireless mouse can be attached to the TV using one of the two USB ports. You may want to do this if using a sideloaded app designed for a tablet to give cursor and click positioing. The Mouse Toggle program which is the normal way on a Firestick does not currently work on a Fire TV (probably the specific key presses are different). Just putting an ordinary wireless mouse on it is a quick easy solution.The other trick if you want to listen to music with no picture is to put the screen in ambient mode then ask Alexa to "turn off the screen". Very useful if you have a sound system connected and you have no use for the picture.----($) Footnote for the Arris Freesat box on a Fire TVI originally had the 1100 Humax Freesat box connected to it. Worked excellently. The Humax does have an over heating issue where the circuit board warps and causes the box to fail. Having had it repaired once bought a Freesat Arris PVR box to replace it with (Freesat latest box been out several years now). This one does have an inbuilt design fault where all output on an HDR enabled screen gets turned on to manipulate the SDR input to HDR. All broadcast UK channels are in SDR so it wrecks the picture quality with skin tones pastel and an AI generated feel to the image. A/V Forums are full of this complaint.With the Fire TV there is a simple fix for this and that to change the HDMI setting for the port it uses:On the HDMI port select Input Mode: Mode1 (1.4)Keep the setting on the Freesat box to output 4k. The upscaling is done within the Freesat box to 4k so the graphics are native but this option disables the SDR to HDR processing. Picture quality is preserved. The image looks the same as the one produced by the Humax box. This fault is a Freesat Arris box design fault not Fire TV but is easily corrected when you know how. For other makes of TV the enhanced setting needs turning off. HDMI 2.0 is the standard that supports HDR, 1.4 is the old one which doesn't so that removes trigger in the Arris box to see the screen as HDR and generates the design fault. One of the things you can do with the many settings in the Fire TV.

I picked up the Amazon Fire TV 50" Omni QLED during Prime Day, and for the price, it’s honestly hard to beat. I wasn’t expecting it to be perfect, but it’s delivered way more than I hoped for.Picture QualityThe 4K QLED display looks fantastic—colors are well-balanced, details are sharp, and HDR content really pops. It supports Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+, which helps a lot with contrast and brightness depending on the room lighting. It’s not OLED-level, but for this price range, it’s impressive.GamingI mainly use it with my Xbox, and it’s been a great experience. Games look crisp and vibrant, and the detail in darker scenes is solid thanks to the local dimming. The only downside is the lack of 120Hz support—so no high frame rate gaming—but honestly, at this price point, that’s a trade-off I can live with. Assassins Creed never looked so good tbf.SoundThe built-in speakers are okay, but a bit underwhelming. Dialogue can sound a little flat, and there’s not much bass. If you care about audio, I’d recommend pairing it with a soundbar.Smart Features & AlexaSetup was super easy, and Alexa integration is a big plus. I can control the TV, launch apps, and even manage smart home stuff just by talking. It’s genuinely convenient, especially when I’m mid-game or can’t find the remote.OverallIf you’re looking for a solid 4K smart TV with good picture quality, decent gaming performance, and hands-free Alexa built in, this is a great option—especially if you can grab it on sale like I did. It’s not perfect, but the value for money is excellent.

I wanted to get a new tv & wanted to get this one for a while & i’m glad i did, its a great tv, good sound, good graphics, hands free so don't need to touch remote, alexa is responsive and works well, overall I think it’s a superb tv & I’m really glad I bought it, I will also be getting the voice remote pro to go with it shortly, this 4k fire tv is highly recommended from me

I bought this TV in the black Friday sale a year ago so it seemed like great value to upgrade from my 50" to 55". I was so excited and when I got it set up I was so excited. It was my step away from sky TV and into only streaming services. So I'll start with the positives because it won't take me long.The picture quality is good and sound from the TV itself is decent, not great, but good enough.It didn't take long before the problems started though. First I noticed how everything was so slow. Changing between apps seems to take ages and using terrestrial TV takes minutes for every command.The menu system is fairly intuitive but a bit clunky.I have it connected to my PS5 and using voice command to switch over HDMI inputs is nice but it often mishears me.I decided to buy a couple of amazon speakers as it made sense to keep it within the same ecosystem. Then the real problems started. It made more mistakes - opening the wrong app or carrying out the wrong function like playing the news when I tried to change the volume, the sound would randomly drop out (especially when using my PS5) and I learned that I had to start Netflix and play something for the sound to come back on.The Internet connection randomly drops out and I have to restart the TV to get it back on or sometimes pressure the physical power button on the TV to turn it on and connect to the network. I've had to factory reset it 4 times to solve other issues and force it to get updates - none of which helped the underlying issues.This TV has made relaxing harder work than my old TV and I'm now back with sky TV because watching something on it has become such hard work.My expensive 'smart' TV has become a dumb TV that I use more competent systems on and I'll be changing it as soon as finances allow.Please don't buy this TV.