Discover The Shocking Truth About This $39.99 Dollar Amazon Fire TV Stick That 37% Of Americans Are Involved With.
AMAZON FIRE TV STICK FOR $39.99 |
Amazon Fire TV
What is Amazon Fire TV Stick? Amazon fire TV stick can mean
many things but before we discuss about the amazon fire TV stick, did you knowthat amazon fire TV gave birth to amazon Fire TV stick? if so, we will have to
know what is amazon fire TV before will can get a clear meaning of amazon fire
TV stick.
Amazon Fire TV refers to two generations of digital mediaplayers and microconsoles developed by Amazon.com. It is a small network appliance and entertainment device designed to stream digital audio/video content to a high-definition television.
The device also allows users to play
video games with the included remote, via a mobile app, or with an optional
game controller. The first-generation device featured 2 GB of RAM, MIMOdual-band Wi-Fi, and a Bluetooth remote control with a microphone for voice search.
It supported 1080p streaming and Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound but was
dependent on internet bandwidth of the user.
AMAZON FIRE TV |
Unveiled on April 2, 2014, theAmazon Fire TV (1st Generation) was made available for purchase in the US the same day for US$99 and was launched with a video game called Sev Zero. In 2015,the Amazon Fire TV (2nd Generation) was released with improved processor speedand 4K UHD support. Amazon Fire TV is also available in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.
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Design
Did you also know that the developmental code name of theFire TV was Bueller, named after the eponymous character from Ferris Bueller'sDay off.
Hardware
The Amazon Fire TV offers HDMI and optical audio, with support for Dolby Digital Plus and 7.1 surround sound pass-through, along with an Ethernet port and a USB 2.0 port. According to Amazon, the Fire TV isdesigned to outpace competitors like the Apple TV and Roku in performance: The 0.7-inch-thick box features a 1.7 GHz quad-core CPU, 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage, along with a dual-band wireless radio for 1080p streaming over 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. The Fire TV now supports 4K Ultra High Definitionstreaming quality when used with compatible 4K Ultra HD TVs. The company said that it does not intend the Fire TV to compete with gaming consoles; instead, its gaming capabilities are geared toward people who don't already own a console but may play games on a smartphone or tablet. It has a dedicated controller accessory.
AMAZON FIRE STICK DESIGN |
As i said earlier,
amazon fire TV gave birth to amazon fire tv stick and this is when it came
about. On November 19, 2014, Amazon released a smaller version of the Fire TVcalled the Fire TV Stick. It is a HDMI-port plug-in device that replicates much
of the functionality of the larger Fire TV. Its hardware is slightly different,
it has 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, weighs 0.9 oz. (25.1g) and it uses a
BCM28145 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 processor. The Fire TV Stick is bundled with a TV
remote, a model with voice search on the remote and one without.
Amazon Fire TV Stick Software
This device initially ran on Fire OS 3.0, based on Android Jelly Bean 4.2. According to Amazon, that made it "simple for developers to port their services and games over to Fire TV.
2015 UPDATES
On March 24, 2015, Amazon announced an update to the Fire TVsoftware to provide the following additional features which address some of the
concerns raised in early reviews:
2016 UPDATES
The Amazon Fire TV Stick is even better in 2016, with a more
powerful internal processor for faster streaming and less time buffering, and
an upgraded 802.11a/b/g/n Dual-Band Wi-Fi antenna.
1. Both models support 1080p HD
resolution. The Fire TV box also supports 4K Ultra HD.
2. The Fire TV box connects to your TVwith an HDMI cable and plugs into the wall with a standard A/C adapter. TheFire TV Stick plugs directly into an HDMI port on your TV, which makes it great
for wall-mounted TVs. The power comes from a USB cable that you can plug into a
USB port on your TV or into the wall with the included adapter.
3. The box is faster and has more
memory. It also has a port for connecting it to your router with an Ethernet
cable and a USB port and microSD slot to provide additional storage, none of
which the stick has.
4. The remote for the box has
voice-search capability; the latest version of the stick, released in the fall
of 2015, comes with a voice remote as well, but you can also get it with a
non-voice remote for $10 less.
5. The Fire TV box has a bigger library
of supported apps.
AMAZON FIRE TV STICK AND AMAZON FIRE TV |
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Design
Like most stick-shaped media devices, the Fire TV Stick$39.99at Amazon is nondescript and unobtrusive. It's a matte black bar the approximate size and shape of a pack of gum that plugs directly into your HDTV's HDMI port. If there isn't enough room around the port, Amazon includes a short extender cable to add some wiggle room. A micro USB port on the side of the stick powers everything through the included lengthy cable and wall adapter. Don't count on your HDTV's USB ports to provide enough juice for theFire Stick; you'll probably have to plug it into the wall for it toconsistently work.
The included remote is chunkier than the Fire TV's microphone-equippedremote. It's still a relatively slim matte black bar a bit larger than the
stick itself, with a circular direction pad and six buttons for controlling
playback and menu navigation. It lacks a Voice Search button, and you can't
simply talk into it to search for content like you can with the Fire TV remote.
Amazon offers an optional voice search remote upgrade for $29.99 thateffectively gives the Fire Stick the Fire TV's remote.
You can also use voice search with your iOS or Android
smartphone or tablet if you install the free Fire TV Remote app. It adds full
control over the Fire TV Stick, including text input and menu navigation.
Setup
After you've got the stick firmly seated in an HDMI portyou've got to provide a power solution. You'll need to connect the micro-USB poweredstick to either a USB port on the TV or, attach the adapter and plug it intothe wall.
AMAZON FIRE TV STICK SETUP |
If you choose the former, you'll get a warning when you boot
the system up for the first time. It'll tell you that it can't draw enough
power from the USB port to provide the ideal experience. I opted for the power
via a wall socket.
Performance
The Fire TV is a much more powerful device than the Fire TVStick. The Stick isn't nearly as fast as the Fire TV when jumping between
different services or browsing the various menus. Amazon Instant Video is
incredibly quick to load and resume videos because it's integrated directly
into the Fire Stick's operating systems, but during testing, I faced modest
wait times when loading YouTube or Netflix, and jumping out and back into those
services required reloading the apps completely each time. For the smaller sizeand the lower price of the Fire Stick, you have to trade off the very snappyexperience of the Fire TV for a slightly longer wait (but not nearly as long asthe Google Nexus Player).
This means you can't expect as smooth a gaming experience with
the Fire TV Stick. In tests, Sonic CD felt noticeably slower on the Fire TV
Stick than it is on the Fire TV. That said, we can't recommend relying on any
media hub for serious gaming.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick takes most of what made the Fire TV
compelling and cuts both its price and size by more than half. It's $4 morethan the Google Chromecast and can do so much more, like letting you use itwithout a mobile device at all. It's not as peppy as the Fire TV, but for its
price and size it's an excellent media hub you can pop into the back of your
HDTV and forget about. If you're not an Amazon Prime member, the Fire TV Sticksits neck-and-neck with the excellent Roku Streaming Stick, offering a morecurated experience with nearly the same functionality for $11 less. If you are
an Amazon Prime member, the Fire TV Stick is an incredibly appealing, very
affordable gateway to the plethora of content you've already paid for.
Fire OS
and Features, Apps and games
Fire OS and Features
While it's technically a version of Android, the Fire OS
software that drives both the Fire TV Stick and Fire TV is thoroughly reskinned
and restructured to be HDTV-friendly. The Fire TV Stick offers effectively the same interface as the Fire TV, with large tiles representing media and apps arranged in a series of easily navigable rows. Amazon's own movie and music
libraries take center stage, integrating directly into the Movies, TV, and
Music menus. If you have Amazon Prime (and a 30-day trial subscription isincluded with the Fire TV Stick), you can access a lot of content withoutdownloading any apps.
Amazon Instant Video stands at the front of the experience,
with Prime Video's strong-but-not-quite-Netflix-or-Hulu-Plus library making
Prime membership very appealing when used with the device. Prime membershipalso includes Prime Music, a similar service that offers over a million songsthat can be selected and played for free in custom playlists. Amazon Cloud
Driv
Amazon's own movie and musiclibraries take center stage, integrating directly into the Movies, TV, andMusic menus. |
The third-party app selection is generous for a media hub,
with dozens of online media services and a few hundred games. All of the other
major movie and music services are available, including Netflix, Hulu Plus,
YouTube, Sling TV, Twitch, and the just-added HBO Go. About half of the gameson the Fire TV Stick can work with the included remote, but the really goodtitles like Sonic CD and Terraria require the optional $39.99 Fire GameController, or another compatible Bluetooth gamepad. However, those games
aren't recommended on the Fire TV Stick, since it's notably slower than the
Fire TV.
The Fire TVStick includes an option to enable ADB debugging, which lets Android developersdirectly load their own apps onto the device outside of the Fire TV Appstore.
We have not tested this option, which isn't intended for users.
Where the full-size set-top boxes like the Nexus Player and
Apple TV struggle with too little content to choose from on their platforms,
Amazon Fire TV has an abundance of apps at your disposal. All of the primary
suspects are here and accounted for: Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Instant, Sky
News, Spotify and more. It actually feels rather strange loading up Netflix onan Amazon device - if you take Now TV as an example of a device that has itsown interests at heart, you will find neither Netflix or Amazon on board. In my
view, the more open the better.
Games are also present and accounted for on Amazon's smaller
system, and for the most part the less-intensive titles play incredibly well.
Disappointingly though, you won't find many graphically demanding games herelike The Walking Dead Season 1 or 2.
Nor are you likely to spot Grand Theft Auto here anytime
soon. That doesn't seem to be due to any fault of the hardware – the system
boasts the right specs for those higher-end games – the content simply isn't
there.
The lack of games doesn't necessarily hurt the system,
however. If you want to have a streaming system that's jam-packed with gaming
goodness, consider the full-size Amazon Fire TV or Nexus Player. Both have a
dedicated gamepad sold separately and have a great selection of titles.
Speaking of separate controllers, the full-size Amazon Firecontroller can also be paired with the Fire TV Stick. But many of the 200-plus
games available on the console don't necessarily need – or work better – with a
controller instead of the standard remote
The launch line-up of apps is as strong as it's going to be
outside of a Roku product, and though I wish it were a little more AAA
game-oriented and much more platform-agnostic (searches only return Amazon
content. Also, a shared Google Play library would more than make up for any
shortcomings in selection). That said, this is still a fairly balanced
ecosystem.
Remote
One of the biggest advantages of buying the Amazon Fire TVStick over the other guys is the remote. It weighs next to nothing and errs onthe cheap side, but on it you'll find a few sparse, but powerful, buttons:back, home, menu, rewind, play/pause and fast forward. At the top you'll find a
circular directional pad and a central button that does just about everything
else.
If you're a Fire TV owner you'll notice that this remote
doesn't come with the built-in mic and voice-search button. The functionalitystill exists if you use the accompanying Fire TV app, but it doesn't exist on
the pack-in peripheral.
One of the biggest advantages of buying the Amazon Fire TVStick over the other guys is the remote. |
The remote also works over Bluetooth, which means it won't
need direct line of sight to the Stick itself – a handy feature considering 95%
of users will want to keep the Fire TV out of sight behind the television. In
my testing, it was in the back of my television so having Bluetooth was essential.
It may not win the award for "most durable remote", but the remote is
exactly like the Stick: simple and efficient.
AMAZON FIRE TV STICK .PRICE: $39.99
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Amazon Fire TV Stick >Customer Reviews
REFERENCE:
TECHRADAR, TECHFORLUDDITES, PCMG, BESTBUY
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