Amazon is set to release a refreshed Fire TV Stick HD on April 29 for $35. For the first time ever, a Fire TV Stick is ditching Micro-USB for a USB-C port. That change prompted Amazon to release a new USB-C Ethernet Adapter for $20, and buried in the product listing is something interesting.
It claims speeds of “up to 480 Mbps,” which means the adapter is technically Gigabit-capable. However, there is no Ethernet standard between 100 Mbps and Gigabit, so the only way to hit 480 Mbps is with a Gigabit adapter. But Amazon just isn’t advertising it that way.
Why can’t the new Fire TV Stick HD reach full Gigabit Ethernet speeds?
Amazon
According to AFTV News, despite the USB-C upgrade, the new Fire TV Stick HD is believed to be running a USB 2.0 port underneath. USB 2.0 caps out at 480 Mbps, and with real-world overhead factored in, you are realistically looking at closer to 350 Mbps. So while the adapter is Gigabit-capable, the stick itself is the bottleneck.
Amazon has not published hardware specs for the new model yet, which is unusual and telling. The report also suggests that the hardware may be nearly identical to the six-year-old model it replaces.
Is the new Fire TV Stick HD still worth buying?
Amazon
The new stick is Amazon’s slimmest streaming device yet, which no longer needs a wall plug, and it can draw power directly from your TV’s USB port. It also supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3.
However, the big sticking point is Vega OS, Amazon’s new Linux-based operating system that does not support sideloading apps. Still, the Gigabit-capable adapter could become far more useful if future Fire TV models like a new 4K Max arrive with proper USB 3.0 support. For now, you are getting half the potential.
It is worth noting that for most streaming needs, 350Mbps is more than enough. A 4K stream typically needs around 25Mbps. But if you’re running a Plex server or rely on fast local network transfers, you’ll feel the gap.
