Amazon Fire TV Stick HD (2026) - More Amazony Than Ever

When it comes to streaming on a budget, it's hard to go past a Fire TV Stick.

Access to all the major streaming apps and control of your smart home for under $100? It's hard to argue with that.

This year, Amazon has made some significant changes to the device; some great... some slightly confounding.

But in terms of sheer value for money, you've come to the right place.

The 2026 Fire TV Stick HD is so small, it's hardly there at all.

It's slimmer, it's lighter and most importantly, it no longer requires its own wall-charger and cable with the hopelessly outdated microUSB connecter on the end.

The benefit of all this is it's likely to fit just about any modern TV out there - even if you've mounted it flush against the wall. Accordingly. unlike some previous designs, there's now no HDMI adapter cable in the box - the reasoning being you should be now able to plug in directly, without blocking any adjacent HDMI ports. The new USB-C charging slot also means you can charge directly from that random USB port on the back of your TV you never really knew what to do with. No wall charger means one less power socket required. 

I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of stuff plugged in back there. Any less plugs and cables floating around is always a win as far as I'm concerned.

The remote is a familiar shape and size, although it too has shrunk a bit and is extraordinarily light, even once you've inserted the included pair of AAA batteries. There are now four shortcut buttons on the remote, for Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube. Given I only subscribe to one of those services, I wish these buttons were customisable - at least some previous remotes had an "Apps" button which would bypass the home screen and just take you straight to your personalised library of streamers.

Ah yes, the home screen. And more generally, the new operating system; Vega.

Until now, Fire TV Sticks were Android-based. This meant you basically had access to over 40,000 apps right from your TV. How useful the vast majority of those would be is a moot point - but at least they were there if you really wanted them.

Another advantage of the previous, Android-based OS was the ability to sideload (install apps from other sources than the official app store).

Now, because of the move to Amazon's proprietary system, Vega, you only have your pick of apps in the Amazon Appstore, end of story. To be fair, at this point that means around 3,000 apps, but there are some rather glaring exceptions.

For example, want a web browser? Amazon's own Silk Browser seems to be your only option and while it works okay, building browsers has never been Amazon's specialist area. You know what I mean?

Jellyfin is a popular self-hosting media streaming app, that lets you access your own videos stored on your private network. That's nowhere to be seen on this year's Fire TV Stick HD. Thankfully, the alternative I use, Plex, is. More on that in a moment.

Casting from a phone, tablet or laptop to this Fire TV Stick has got a lot harder too. Although you can still mirror your screen from an Android device, iPhones have been left out in the cold. There are apps you can download to both the Stick and the source device to make casting work... except with Vega, they no longer do. So for someone like me who likes to stream live sport from the SkyGo app, I simply can't anymore because while it supports casting, SkyGo doesn't work over a mere mirrored screen. I've also tried logging into SkyGo via the Silk Browser - sometimes that works, sometimes not.

Amazon claims the 2026 HD Stick is more than 30% faster than the previous HD version from two years ago and from my testing, that appears to be the case, particularly when it comes to powering on and apps loading. However, as you'll see me demonstrate in the video below, once an app is up and running, there's no guarantee things will continue to speed along.

So back to my favourite app, Plex, which, if you're not familiar, essentially lets you access your own files in a format that looks and feels similar to any other streaming service. When I first fired up Plex on the Fire TV Stick HD, I could immediately see the Vega-version of the app had a slightly different look to what I was used to but didn't seem to be dramtically different in the way it worked - until I actually tried to play something. Then, after a very long wait for my file to start playing, I encountered regular buffering stutters - something I haven't had to deal with for a long time.

This surprised me, because the new HD stick connects to your local network via WiFi-6. Not 6e or 7, unfortunately, but even WiFi-6 should be ample to decode and stream a 1080p file through a private router. Alas, apparently not. So I got frustrated enough to connect an ethernet dongle to the stick, hardwiring it into my router instead. Interestingly, this did indeed cure my buffering problems, although my Plex files still take almost a minute to start once I hit Play.

There are a few other bits of weirdness - I've had both Netflix and Apple TV episodes fail to save their progress when I stopped them partway through. Is there anything more frustrating than having to restart an episode of something from the beginning, then fast-forwarding through to the last scene you remember watching? Arrrgh!

If I were a suspicious man, I might start to wonder if the only thing Amazon is really wanting you to watch on this device is Prime Video. You know? AMAZON Prime Video?

That I can't confirm - I don't have a Prime subscription so I don't know if the native Prime Video app works any more smoothly or consistently than the others I've been using.

I guess it's also possible the various app developers are still coming to terms with the new Vega platform and future updates will streamline things dramatically.

What I do know is - and this is nothing new for Fire TV devices - although Amazon claims the redesigned Vega-based experience learns about your preferred viewing habits the more you use it, I'm still being recommended an awful lot of content I can't watch because I'm not subscribed to it. Rows and rows and rows of it on a home screen that can only be customised in a very limited way, shuffling the order of downloaded apps in the third row, below a row of unhelpful recommendation tiles, that row itself below a preview of recommended content I'm generally not interested in or have already watched.

This kind of brand-specific internal on-screen marketing isn't unique to Amazon - I just wish there was a way to turn it off, or at least jump straight back into the last-used app whenever you turn the TV on.

Despite all of that, there's one thing the Fire TV Stick HD does really well, that almost makes up for all those other niggles; what you're watching looks and sounds fantastic.

Admittedly, I've got it plugged into a very nice, 75-inch TV that does a pretty decent job of upscaling HD content to 4K, but the HDR10+ video feed really pops and any Dolby-encoded content passes through to my home theatre system in all its surround sound glory.

And remember, this thing retails for just NZ$89. At that price, I think I can put up with a slightly more restrictive app store, some pushy Prime Video marketing and some content taking a little while to load.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the Amazon Fire TV STick HD (2026).