The fourth-generation Apple TV - the last to top out at HD resolution and which is now referred to only as "Apple TV HD" - released in 2015 is still supported on tvOS. Between that it having double the on-board storage capacity (and to be fair, 64GB is almost certainly too much, but nobody ever regretted having too much storage), this is the model you should consider.Īnd that's all followed up by software updates that will span years in the future. You might not care about that now, but it's the future of smart home tech. Those latter bits are new standards for smart-home connectivity, which allow devices to talk to each other directly. What you should really look at is the one that costs $20 more and includes Ethernet (of the super-fast Gigabit variety), as well as support for Thread and Matter. One has 32GB of storage and only uses Wi-Fi for connectivity. There also now are two models from which to choose. And there's now support for HDR 10+, which is important if you own a Samsung TV. It's now powered by the A15 Bionic processor, which provides plenty of headroom. And the internals have been spruced up, too. The box itself is a little smaller, having gotten rid of the fan that you probably never heard anyway. And that's mostly true, insofar as what the end user sees. It's tempting to say that the third-generation model is nearly identical to what was released with Gen 2 in 2021. (Just ask anyone who's still happily using the original Apple TV 4K, released in 2017.) What you get for that extra money is hardware that should darn near last forever. But what it does do, it tends to do better - and with fewer headaches. In fact, you can make the argument that it does a little less. And to be clear, Apple TV 4K doesn't do three or four or five times as much as its competitors. And those in the Apple ecosystem can make use of some of the extra features, it's not just for those with iPhones and iPads.In the world of $50 streaming sticks that absolutely can get the job done and get it done well, it's perhaps a little hard to recommend something that costs three or four or five times as much. It's still the simplest, most consistent experience you can get, with a relatively open-ended shelf life, and the late 2022 model has gotten that much better. So without further ado, let’s get into it. We get paid to make some tough decisions here, though. And at that level, it’s really more about ecosystem and personal choice than anything else. Elsewhere, we’ll get into picks that are more comparable in price and function. They’re also the most expensive - by quite a good bit. Our top two picks are in a class of their own. And that's not even counting features like Chromecast or AirPlay 2, which make it simple to stream any sort of content you want from any Android, iOS, Chrome, or Mac device. The major players in the streaming device game - Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Google TV, Roku - are all fighting for your money, so we're here to make sure you throw it at the right streaming device for you and your budget, which typically ranges from as low as $30 to as high as $200.įurther compounding the issue is that if you have a smart TV from the past several years from any of the big TV brands, there's a pretty good chance that you might not even need to plug in any other sort of smart streaming device, thanks to the built-in operating system and a plethora of available streaming apps. But there are plenty of reasons to use an external streaming device, too. That could be one of the more popular streaming platforms, like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, or Google TV. For many, using whatever is built into to your TV is just fine. There now are so many ways for you to get all the shows and movies you want on all your favorite streaming services, be it Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+.
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