In the early days, the smart TV market was largely dominated by Samsung, LG, and Sony and it remained a luxury for many in the subcontinent.
However, in the last few years, the Indian smart TV market, like smartphones have become increasingly crowded. The cost of smart TVs has reached a record low and if you search on any e-commerce sites, an entry-point 32-inch model can be grabbed for less than Rs 10,000 under exchange and Bank card offers. The credit has to go to the emerging players like Xiaomi, TCL, Realme, Infinix, Nokia, and the resurgence of Vu Televisions, Sanyo, Onida, and Akai.
Now, American e-commerce giant Amazon has forayed into the lucrative smart TV business with the launch of the new AmazonBasics FireTV Edition 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV series. The company is currently offering two models 50-inch (AB50U20PS) and 55-inch(AB55U20PS) -- for Rs 29,999 and Rs 36,999, respectively on the e-commerce site. It also has a plan to bring 43-inch 4K Ultra HD TV (AB43U20PS) for a much less price in the coming days.
I have been using the 55-inch AmazonBasics FireTV Edition 4K Ultra HD LED TV for a few weeks and here are my thoughts.
Design and display
AmazonBasics FireTV Edition 4K Ultra HD LED TV sports thin bezels around the edges and has a slim design language with dimensions-- 123.5 (W) x 72.4 (H) x 9.2 (D) cm. The exterior body is made of sturdy materials and weighs 10.5 Kg. The retail package comes with both wall mount set-up components and a stand.
The 55-inch TV comes with an A+ grade LED panel with 3840 x 2160p resolution and offers an ultra-wide viewing angle of 178-degree. This comes in handy for homes with seats that are far and wide from the TV stand. Also, it doesn't matter if the environment is well-lit or not, and I am happy to note, there was less glare even when viewed from far left or right sides.
The LED panel supports HDR (High Dynamic Range) 10 and Dolby Vision, which enables to stream high-resolution content on Netflix, Amazon Video Prime, other Over-The-Top apps in addition to 4K Blu-ray discs and play top-quality games on Xbox or PlayStation consoles.
Furthermore, it supports HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) and this ensures, the TV plays superior quality video when connected to a cable set-top-box or a satellite dish.
Besides the support for all three key HDR formats, it comes with dynamic contrast, dynamic backlighting, advanced picture processing and anti-aliasing technology to remove visual distortion. These ensure AmazonBasics FireTV Edition 4K TV offers brighter highlights, more immersive, and enhanced colour in the content.
FireTV Edition 4K LED TV has a screen refresh rate of 60Hz and 9.5 ms response time (a measurement of how long it takes a pixel to change colour). This is just good enough to view high-resolution content.
As far as the audio quality is concerned, it comes with 10W+10W dual in-built speakers tuned with Dolby Atmos system. It offers good immersive sound output. With just 50% volume, it was able to reach all corners of my living room without any distortion.
As far as the connectivity is concerned, it comes with LAN (RJ45) x 1 (10/100MB), RF (ATV – IEC) x 1, AV IN (CVBS) x 1, HDMI 2.0 x 3, USB 2.0 x 1, USB 3.0 x 1, IR Blaster port x 1, and digital audio out (optical) x 1 in addition to dual-band WiFi 802.11ac (2T2R) and Bluetooth
User-interface
AmazonBasics 4K UHD LED TV runs FireTV Edition OS v7.0 and is powered by Amlogic 9th Gen Imaging Engine with 1.95GHz CA55 quad-core processor, MaliG31 MP2 GPU, a 1.5GB DDR3 RAM, and 8GB storage in addition to Dolby Audio Processing.
Amazon's smart television has a familiar user-interface we love on the FireTV Stick streaming device. And also, the Alexa-enabled remote, which comes with a retail package has a simple layout with all key controls such as pause, home, settings, mute, volume, channels at the center, easily reachable for the thumb. Further down, the company has incorporated four direct shortcuts to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Amazon Music, and Apps.
Also, consumers can find Disney+Hotstar, Airtel Xtreme, and 5000 more apps on Amazon Fire Store.
If you feel tired to navigate through the multiple apps to find a particular movie or a TV series through the remote control, you can easily invoke Alexa by press-holding the mic button at the top. Just say the actor's name or a content title, it will list all the details sourced from the apps installed on the TV. It's just that simple.
However, to stream high-resolution content on OTT apps, it is advisable for the owners to have high-speed Wi-Fi, preferably more than 50Mbps to stream the content without any disruption for buffering. 25Mbps is good enough to stream 4K content, but when more devices such as phones, laptops at home are connected to the same wireless network, there will less bandwidth left for the TV.
Final thoughts
New AmazonBasics 4K Ultra HD TV makes a great debut in India, as it ticks all the key features we expect in a premium smart television and is competently priced for the crowded Indian smart television market.
What I love the most is the familiar FireTV interface makes it easy to navigate through the settings of television and switch between cable (set-top-box) and web-connected apps on the home screen.
Also, the inbuilt Alexa button further enhances the user experience in finding the content. With just voice command, the owner can ask Alexa to list movies done by a particular artist, or look for specific genres like thriller, comedy, and others.
The picture and sound quality are really good. Amazon is offering a one-year comprehensive warranty and an additional year for the display panel.
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