Costco Wholesale has for their
Members: 32GB Apple TV 4K Streaming Media Player (2021, MXGY2LL/A) for
$149.99.
Shipping is free.
Thanks to Community Member
seahawks for sharing this deal.
Note: A Costco Membership is required to purchase this item.
Features: - Dolby Atmos for immersive, room-filling sound
- A12 Bionic chip gives a big boost to audio, video, and graphics, for even better game and app experiences
- 4K High Frame Rate HDR with Dolby Vision for fluid, crisp video
- Apple Original shows and movies from Apple TV+
- The latest hits from Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and more
- More ways to enjoy your TV with Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, and Apple Music
- The new Siri Remote with touch-enabled clickpad
- Private listening with up to two sets of AirPods
- Use AirPlay to share photos, videos, and more from your iPhone, iPad, and Mac on your TV
- Get a live view of your HomeKit-enabled cameras and control your smart home accessories
Top Comments
Personally I think the last gen 4k is the sweet spot except the touchpad remote is a little wonky for most.
114 Comments
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The positives: the Apple TV's UI, UX, and remote feel ages better than the Shield's for me. Not to mention the seamless ios integration that makes setup and searching for stuff a breeze with your phone. If I have to stream anything, I'm likely turning to the Apple TV. Also, being an Apple Music subscriber, the Apple Music experience on Apple TV is basically everything I wanted. Dolby Atmos-encoded tracks, being able to easily browse music on the tv, viewing timed lyrics, and controlling it from my iPhone are all nice features.
The negatives: the Apple TV isn't remotely as useful for Plex compared to my Nvidia Shield. It's basically unable to decode my Dolby Vision (without a disgusting green/purple hue) or Atmos movie soundtracks, as well as forcing transcoding on a bunch of audio formats I've tested that my Shield's been able to direct play fine: e.g. DTS and Dolby TrueHD. The Apple TV works fine for DV/Atmos content served through streaming platforms though, afaik.
All in all, still not sure if I want to return the Apple TV. Still deliberating, but it's a solid device unless you're looking to play back DV/Atmos content through Plex. I hear Infuse (3rd party app to access Plex) can solve all these problems, and might try a short subscription to see if it works for me.
Hoping the Apple TV will work as well so I can stop jumping apps for different content.
I choose:
- more streamlined, clean UI, free of all and any ads
- customizable home screen with ability to group apps in folders
- multi-tasking - ability to jump from app to app or quit apps to clear memory/if needed
- more up to date apps - streaming services always provide the best apps to Apple TV
- easier navigation/scrubbing
- faster processor allowing for quicker RW/FF, zero lag from pause/unpause, zero lag exiting out of shows / browsing through content
- superior bluetooth connection and spatial audio with Airpods
- native Airplay (works better than any built in Airplay that comes with TVs)
Like I mentioned the only device that comes close is the NVidia Shield Pro and that is just as expensive if not more expensive.
If you stream an hour or less per week I could see why a $30 Firestick seems like the best option, but I have subscriptions to 6+ streaming services so it makes sense to pay $100 more for a much better experience.
At $150 this is a steal.
I choose:
- more streamlined, clean UI, free of all and any ads
- customizable home screen with ability to group apps in folders
- multi-tasking - ability to jump from app to app or quit apps to clear memory/if needed
- more up to date apps - streaming services always provide the best apps to Apple TV
- easier navigation/scrubbing
- faster processor allowing for quicker RW/FF, zero lag from pause/unpause, zero lag exiting out of shows / browsing through content
- superior bluetooth connection and spatial audio with Airpods
- native Airplay (works better than any built in Airplay that comes with TVs)
Like I mentioned the only device that comes close is the NVidia Shield Pro and that is just as expensive if not more expensive.
If you stream an hour or less per week I could see why a $30 Firestick seems like the best option, but I have subscriptions to 6+ streaming services so it makes sense to pay $100 more for a much better experience.
At $150 this is a steal.
That said I don't think spending $150 compared to $30 is out of line if you like the experience better. This is something you'll probably use every day for at least two years, that's like $5 a month. People put up with way too much friction in their lives, do the little things that make your life more enjoyable.
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HOWEVER! You cannot watch ripped movies off a Plex server or anything else with Dolby Atmos sound. Real dumb limitation they haven't fixed in almost a year. If they ever fix that, I will probably buy one again.
That said I don't think spending $150 compared to $30 is out of line if you like the experience better. This is something you'll probably use every day for at least two years, that's like $5 a month. People put up with way too much friction in their lives, do the little things that make your life more enjoyable.
HOWEVER! You cannot watch ripped movies off a Plex server or anything else with Dolby Atmos sound. Real dumb limitation they haven't fixed in almost a year. If they ever fix that, I will probably buy one again.
Apple will be happy to charge you another $200 when they announce a new and improved Apple 4K Max with AV1 support. The lack of AV1 support proves one more time that Apple only cares about profits.
BTW, if you care about power and want to use your streaming device for weather calculations/modeling and rocket science, there is Fire TV Cube 2nd Gen, which is very comparable to Nvidia Shield in terms of raw performance. And the cost is around $80 as of now. Again, being a fanboy and loyal to certain brands makes you blind. Good luck!
Are you trying to say regular iPhone user know what Dolby Vision recoding is? I think consumers would have benefited more from AV1 ( Netflix already enabled it in some Fire TV devices ) and HDR10 Plus than Gimmicky Dolby Vision on iPhone with Profile 8, which Apple TV doesn't even support.
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