Sam Oliver
Online retail behemoth Amazon on Monday unveiled the Fire TV Stick, a dongle variant of its Fire TV set-top box that eschews the separate hardware in favor of an all-in-one form factor that plugs into and is powered by a television's HDMI port.
The $39 Fire TV Stick adds access to all of the same content as its larger sibling. That includes Amazon's Prime Instant Video service, alongside Amazon Music and popular content providers like Netflix and Spotify.
Buyers will also be able to play a selection of popular games, an option that was brought to the Fire TV earlier this year. It is unclear whether the Fire TV's dedicated gamepad will be compatible with the more diminutive streamer, though it appears unlikely.
A secondary remote that adds voice search capability is available as well; the bundled remote control does not include a microphone.
Amazon is positioning the Fire TV Stick as a direct competitor to Google's Chromecast. The retailer touts the Fire TV Stick as having "4x the storage and 2x the memory of Chromecast," with a dual-core processor and 1 gigabyte of built-in memory.
Amazon's Fire TV Stick is available now for pre-order through Amazon's website. Amazon Prime members will receive a $20 discount for the next 48 hours, cutting the device's cost to just $19.
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68 Comments
$19? Yup, bought it! One for me, and one as a stocking stuff for a family member.
You mean "drawer stuffer".
You mean "drawer stuffer".
Whatever :)
This would have been perfect for my father-in-law, but we ended up getting him a Roku 2 LT (I think that's that one) for Father's Day. Amazon had it for $35 or so a few months back. He only uses it to watch Amazon Prime Instant Video stuff (he loves old movies and documentaries).
I mean, for what it is, I don't think there's much to complain about here.
Won't work for me since I route everything through my sound system. Plugging directly into the TV means I can only use the TV speakers not my surround sound system. Plus it's from Amazon and all it would be good for is ordering garbage from them.
I like how it’s competing with Chromecast and not Apple TV.
They know they don’t even remotely have a real solution here, so they’re going with what they figure they can beat.