Hisense Now Offers Its Own Fire TV Starting at $530

    
    Hisense 4K Fire TV
    Hisense
    

    Hisense now makes a Fire TV. Today the manufacturer announced a partnership with Amazon to produce Hisense’s first television featuring the Fire TV platform.?
    The 50-inch, 4K LED TV has better picture quality specifications than many current Fire TVs made by Toshiba, Insignia and Amazon itself. It will include quantum dot technology and, according to the company, reach up to 600 nits of brightness. It also features Dolby Vision HDR, a 60Hz refresh rate and HDMI 2.1 connectivity. The TV costs $530 and will be available starting today exclusively on Amazon. A 58-inch model will be released sometime this fall for $600.
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    Fire TVs offer deep integration with the Amazon ecosystem, including Alexa, Amazon’s smart assistant. The new Hisense TVs come with an Alexa Voice Remote, which can be used to search for content while controlling the TV, as well as for other compatible smart home devices.?
    The Fire TV platform allows users to download apps from Prime Video and other popular streaming services, but in CNET’s reviews we prefer?the Roku and Google TV systems. One reason is that Fire TV prominently displays too many ads and promotions for Amazon content throughout the OS — for example, its screensaver mode can seem like the TV turns into a giant rotating billboard. Fire TV’s search results are also less accurate in our experience than the other two.
    Hisense joins a growing list of TV manufacturers that have partnered with Amazon to produce Fire TVs, most of which are less-expensive and lack picture-enhancing extras like quantum dots and high brightness.?Toshiba’s M-Series of Fire TVs?is a recent exception, however. It features a 120Hz refresh rate as well as full-array local dimming, which helps to improve contrast — two features the Hisense lacks.?
    Meanwhile, Amazon’s Fire TV Omni comes with its own distinctive feature: It doesn’t require a remote at all, though one is included. The Omni comes with its own built-in, far-field mic, meaning that it works like an Echo speaker and can be completely controlled through voice commands alone.?
    Of course, you can always add an Amazon Fire Stick to any TV. For example you could buy a similarly priced non-Fire TV with better features — like the Vizio M-Series Quantum, which features full-array local dimming — and add a Fire stick to get the same experience.