Amazon Fire TV 55" Omni Series 4K UHD smart TV, hands-free with Alexa

***UPDATE - 6 Months: Original Review UnderneathI've come back around for an update for my Amazon fireTV experience to say it is still a wonderful TV. The two that I purchased both are. I understand in other reviews that farther down the line it seems that they might just "stop working" but so far they have been working flawlessly. I am the type of person that upgrades my TV's every 3 years or so anyway, so if they stop working around then I will just take at as a sign to get a new one. But that's just me. I take things in stride and for a smart TV that I got on sale for less than $400, I mean, come on. If you math that out that's less than most people pay monthly on ONE streaming service. Even if you paid full price, calm down.I have still have no graphical errors, the colors are strong, there is no tearing or dead pixels in either unit. They both get daily use, hours of daily use. I have a soundbar on one unit and which obviously increases the sound quality. The audio on the unit without the soundbar still produces decent sound, slightly above standard TV quality, unremarkable but nothing to complain about. They get plenty loud, so that's never been an issue. I have one unit named "Alexa" and one named "Echo". You can go into the menu and change the settings to rename the voice recognition options. So I can speak to the TV's independently. Speaking of, you still have to use the remote people. Voice control only goes so far, it goes very far actually, you can do most everything by voice, but selecting things with the remote is still required on occasion. (I like setting my sleep timer by voice at night, "Alexa, set sleep timer 20 minutes", when I'm laying in bed with my Pandora/Hulu app running.)ALSO, for everyone talking about slowdowns. Every time you open an app, it stays running in the background. It's like a phone or tablet. You open Disney+ then finish what you're watching, then go to the homescreen, Disney+ is still open in the background. Then you open Paramount+, then go to the homescreen, now Disney+ and Paramount+ are running in the background and so on and so forth, to infinity and beyond. I have never experienced a slow down to that degree yet but I would try doing a TV restart every night/morning (takes 90 seconds). I restart my TV's about once a week just as a preventative measure anyway.The only caveat I cannot speak to is the customer service problem, the frustration and pure exasperation I see is real. So I empathize with everyone who has had to deal with all of their issues. My TV's have worked flawlessly since purchase so I have never needed to contact any service reps.***ORIGINAL REVIEWSo I've been waiting a while to write this review to get a decent feel. Honest opinion, AWESOME television. Amazing value, picture quality was great. Color/contrast didn't need adjusting right out of the box (personal opinion obviously) but you can tweak to your hearts desire.Alexa listened and responded promptly. I could just step through my front door and ask her to turn the TV on and within seconds I was at the main screen. Speaking of the interface, I found it quite intuitive. Not to disparage anyone but if you have a general understanding of how computers and/or other smart devices like smart phones work you shouldn't have a problem (QR codes might be the most difficult for those with less experience).Easy to setup and connect. Easy to connect to all your subscriptions and apps.To be honest, my TV came preinstalled with someone else's amazon account loaded, but luckily there are steps involved that make it impossible for someone to just log straight in. I just removed their account and had to take a few extra steps to add mine, again, fairly straight forward.The only issues I've run into are on a rare occasion there is a very slight lag when scrolling through apps. But if you just go into settings and do a TV restart it clears right up. All in all, at the price with the quality. A must buy.Addendum: I will concede I do not connect external hard drives or any other devices as of yet but my XBOX connects flawlessly. Great TV!Edit: For those worried about Alexa listening all the time, there is a hard flip switch directly underneath the "firetv" symbol under the center of the screen. Once you flip that the only way to control the TV is through the remote and Alexa no longer responds to voice commands and "allegedly" no longer receives any input. You can still speak to the remote as you would to Alexa while holding down the blue Alexa button as usual. In fact you don't even need to use the "Alexa" prompt, you can just say "Netflix" or "Bob's Burger's".P.S. A TV so nice I bought it twice.

My wife sent me the listing for this TV when she received it as a special sale item and even though my current old TV was still working fine, I decided that it was a good enough deal that I would upgrade to 4K finally. I liked that it had a lot of potentially beneficial connectivity between other devices, like cameras and other smart home stuff. I already had a TV wall mount from my old TV. The only problem was the mounting holes on the back of this TV were different and I didn't have the leftovers from the mounting hardware, so I had to wait until the next morning to run to the hardware store and get what I needed. After that, it was up on the wall within minutes. Another problem: the mounting of the bracket on the back on the TV is much lower than my old one, so the TV sits about 8-10" higher than before. I will need to take down the TV and move the entire wall bracket down so it sits at the right height.Setup is pretty easy, getting through the general stuff, the WiFi connection, updates, and scanning through the TV channels...yes, I still use antenna for a couple local channels I can't get through streaming. That all went fine. I connected my existing in-wall HDMI cable to the ARC port and set my receiver to the Roku input. I had great picture and audio. I decided that I should also try using the TV with its built-in Fire TV capabilities.That's where things went off the rails. The ARC was working fine for all of a few minutes, and then after changing a couple unrelated settings and rebooting the TV, I had no more sound over ARC. I messed with settings on the TV and my receiver for 10-15 minutes before turning to the internet for help. I found an answer that said to unplug the TV for a few minutes and then it should work again. Great. Did that and I did indeed have sound over the ARC channel, but it would cut out every 5-7 seconds. I tried messing with all sorts of settings but eventually gave up and just connected an optical cable between the TV and receiver to get sound working properly. I might have to try a newer HDMI cable to see if that makes any difference.With that working, I was able to use the native Fire TV apps. I've been using the native Fire TV system now for a couple months and I have to say, it needs work. When the apps work, they work. But every once in a while, and it's happening almost daily now, I'll load an app and it won't respond. I'll have to reboot the TV and then the apps will start working most of the time. Sometimes even a reboot won't work and I just have to wait for the app to eventually load. I don't think its an internet or WiFi issue, since nothing else seems to have any problems. I just think the Fire TV environment is slow. I don't know if it's because of the hardware or the software, but the instant I started using it, I could tell how much slower it was to respond to anything compared to the Roku box I have.Needless to say, as a display, this thing works great. The picture is clear and bright, the details are amazing. I haven't played much with the picture settings, as out-of-box, it was already good. I like that it integrates the OTA TV channels right into the menu so I don't have to change the input. I also like the on-screen notifications from Alexa for specific things that I have set up. I haven't played much with the integration of the Ring doorbell and the picture-in-picture display for it. I also plugged a web camera into the USB port on the TV and it recognized it, but I haven't tried to use Zoom yet with it.I gave it 5 stars, despite the issues with ARC, as that may not necessarily be the fault of the manufacturer, but more an issue with my cable, or the setup between the TV and my receiver...maybe they just don't work well together. I've read that Yamaha's receivers all tend to be finicky with ARC, so it may just be that. I'm also not dropping any stars, despite the speed issues, as it could potentially be related to my network, or might work fine after an update. Either way, I could use it as just a display with my Roku and it would be a 5-star display at that point. But then I'd lose any capabilities with the integrated Alexa and smart features.