Amazon Fire TV 2-Series 32"

A cheap, small TV with a good smart platform and a bad screen. Buy it for the kitchen, not the living room.

What surprised us most is how sluggish the whole experience can be. The Fire TV interface itself is well above average for a budget set, landing in the 71st percentile for smart features in our database. But the processor running the show is a real weak spot. Navigating menus can feel like wading through molasses, and we've seen reports of it taking literal minutes to fully boot up. The 720p display is one of the worst we've seen, sitting near the bottom of the pack, and the audio is even more disappointing. You'll want a soundbar, which kind of defeats the purpose of a cheap all-in-one TV.

The Fire TV 2-Series's most direct rival is any cheap Roku TV from TCL or Hisense. A comparable Roku set will feel much snappier and less ad-heavy, though you lose the deep Alexa integration. If you're even considering this for any kind of gaming, stop. The gaming score in our database is a dismal 17th percentile. For a slightly bigger and vastly better picture, stepping up to a TCL Q6-Series is a night-and-day difference, but it will cost you significantly more. This Amazon set is purely about hitting the lowest possible price.

For the price of a nice dinner out, it's hard to call this a bad deal. If you need a small, secondary screen for a kitchen or a guest room and can find it at the low end of its $90 to $150 range, it's a perfectly acceptable purchase. Just know that every dollar you save is a dollar not spent on picture quality or speed.

The Amazon Fire TV 2-Series is the TV you buy when you just need a screen that works, and you don't want to spend real money. It's a 32-inch 720p set that lives and dies by its price tag, often hovering around a hundred bucks. The one thing to know is that the built-in Fire TV smarts are surprisingly decent for the cost, but the actual picture and sound quality are a harsh reminder that you get what you pay for. This is a bedroom TV for falling asleep to The Office, not a centerpiece for movie night.

If you're looking for a primary TV for daily use, this isn't it. Go get a TCL 4-Series or 5-Series instead. The jump to 4K and a faster processor is massive, and the price difference isn't as big as you might think. Gamers should also run far away from this set due to its terrible motion handling and input lag.

The Amazon Fire TV 2-Series is a functional, ultra-budget smart TV that makes a lot of compromises to hit its price. It's best suited as a secondary screen where picture quality doesn't matter. If this is destined for your main living room, save up a little longer and get something, anything, with a 4K panel. You'll thank yourself every time you turn it on.