Amazon picks a fight with Google, unveils $39 Fire TV Stick

[Shawn Knight]

Amazon’s second major play for the living room aims to do battle with an established contender, Google’s Chromecast. The e-commerce giant has announced the Fire TV Stick with enough power and storage that could give Google’s solution a run for its money.

The Fire TV Stick connects to any television with an HDMI port and offers access to movies, TV shows, music, photos, apps and games. All of the usual players – Netflix, Hulu Plus, Twitch, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube and of course, Amazon Instant Video – are along for the ride.

Amazon’s latest streaming device features a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and dual-band (and dual-antenna) Wi-Fi. In a press release on the matter, Amazon is quick to point out that this is 50 percent more processing power and two times the memory of Chromecast. Additionally, it’s six times the processing power of the Roku Streaming Stick.

It comes with its own remote control and 30-day free trials of both Amazon Prime and Netflix. The standard remote doesn’t include voice search although you can upgrade to that capability for $29.99 or simply download the mobile app to use voice search through your smartphone or tablet.

The Fire Stick is priced at $39 although Amazon Prime members can pick it up for just $19 if they pre-order within the next two days. The HDMI stick is expected to ship on November 19 but we’re already hearing that high demand has pushed that date back to early December.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/58585-amazon-picks-fight-google-unveils-39-fire-tv.html

 

[cmbjive]

I bought two. After gift card, I got two Fire Sticks for $20.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Gonna wait for reviews before I get one. Not sure if it is a justifiable upgrade from the Chromecast.

 

[Guest]

Prime members can get this for $19 for the next 2 days.

 

[Guest]

I'm sold because the remote.

 

[Guest]

Not sure if it is a justifiable upgrade from the Chromecast.

Anything is a justifiable upgrade over Chromecast, but then again that could just be my prejudice against anything Google. Can't remember when I started disliking Google so strongly, but the thought of using even one of their services for too long, or even at all, is upsetting to say the least. Maybe its just that when people say the will search the internet the say they will 'Google' that, or Google is the first thing most people think of when talking about the internet. Google isn't the internet, and there are alternatives that are as good or even better, but people fail to realise that instead being content with whatever Google feels like serving up to you. Maybe that's why I choose to consciously use something else instead of unconsciously following them as a default, oh and I most definitely HATE advertising and by extension Google's business model.

PS, its also ironic that the question posed to me to actually post this comment reads as follows: "Who develops the Android operating system?"