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Updated to 4 stars. Maybe 4.5 considering the value price. Turning off HDR on both TV and Roku, plus turning off dynamic brightness on TV ended up helping a lot. Realize this TV has video profiles for each input so i had to change on each. No the picture and viewing angles don't compare to our 55" TCL QLED which has incredible viewing angles but that TV was kind 3x as expensive too. Plus apps seem to be optimizing quality as i use the TV more which helped a lot too. I debated editing my review but think it's still useful for others and Amazon to show a real world experience including the frustrations. A new issue I'm seeing is audio cutting out entirely during transitions between shows & ads that didn't happen on our old TV but thinking it's an app specific issue not the TV
So our old 1080 48" HD TV was finally on its last legs and we love our TCL Roku TV we use in the living room so i was ready to buy 55" Roku brand TV and happened upon this 55" FireTV with basically the same specs but almost 100 bucks cheaper so it was tough to justify buying the Roku TV especially since we have a Roku soundbar so don't really need a smart TV let alone built in Roku so i bit and ordered the FireTV. First impression wasn't great in that it took over an hour to do the initial setup thanks to all the updates that seemed to be in SV endless loop as they'd finish then low and behold it was doing more! eventually i got to actually try the TV.. at first it was very impressive and clearly better picture than our old HD TV. of course that was just menus as ran thru installing apps which took forever in part because they'd stick at 'installing' FOR HOURS.. i mean i only did 5 or 10 as i was finding the ones we use on Roku but it's ridiculous it should take hours to install the apps on our broadband connection. i think it was hung up because i restarted the FireTV and at first it seemed they were still stuck but then boom they all finished within seconds. no idea what the issue was but our Internet was definitely working. once apps were usable i sat down to watch a few things and things were washed out. I'd switch to other apps thinking it was just a particular one but everything was washed out. i tried adjusting video settings. i tried the Roku thru hdmi4. washed out. then i happened to stand up and the picture was better. not much but noticeable. i tried multiple apps while standing and indeed they all were better. then i stood directly in front of it dead center and the picture was incredible! if i duck down 2 feet or so and picture gets a little washed out but the big one is not being directly in front of the TV.. as i step sideways i can see tht picture wash out. and no not at 170 degrees but like 15 or 20. it reminds me of very early LCD flat panel TV's where you have to sit in front not off to side at all. i did find turning off HDR on FireTV and on the Roku it helped some (especially how dark things were) but really it depends more on what's being watched and the contrast of what's shown. I took video clip of paused Disney+ on Roku at 4k with HDR off to show an example even if it's not the worst of what I've seen in testing. Watch how the colors change even just moving a few feet to side and back to center. I do like the quick switch previous app option that Roku doesn't have though. Very handy feature I'll keep testing but honestly at the angle of my favorite chair (roughly 15 degrees down and 30 degrees left) it looks so bad trying to watch even just the news I'm not sure I'm keeping this TV..
