Amazon's Fire TV Stick media streaming device, which was introduced back in 2014, has made its way to India. It is Amazon's answer to Google's Chromecast streaming device.
The Fire TV Stick is a plug and play device that can turn you normal HDTV into a smart TV, given that it has an HDMI port, and lets you stream (via WiFi) TV shows, movies and music from services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, YouYube, Gaana, Hotstar and more. The device is capable of streaming videos at 720p and 1080p.
It comes bundled with a remote control with on-board mic, that lets you search contents from Amazon Video via you voice and offers spoken language support in English as well as Hindi.
The Android based device is equipped with 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor, Mali 450 MP4 GPU, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage and Dolby Audio 5.1 surround sound. For wireless connectivity it include Bluetooth 4.1 and WiFi 802.11ac. It supports game controller, and comes with a feature called ASAP, which intelligently predicts what you want to watch and speeds up the streaming by 50 percent.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick is priced at Rs. 399 and will be available from Croma and Reliance Digiatal store and online exclusively on Amazon India. Prime members will get Rs. 499 cashback is they purchase the Fire TV Stick via Amazon Pay balance. The launch offer include 105GB free data (35 GB per month for three month) on Airtel broadband and 4G dongles, 240GB free data (80GB per month for three months) for Your Broadband users, three months of premium Eros Now subscription, six months of Gaana premium subscription and one month of ad-free streaming from Voot and Voot kids.
Amazon, apart for launching four new tablets- the $50 Amazon Fire, Amazon Fire HD 8 & 10 and Amazon Fire Kids addition also introduced updated version of Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. The company also introduced Amazon TV Gaming Edition.
The Amazon Fire TV has been granted support for 4K streaming and now lets users aaccess the 4K UHD streams of Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Video and Netflix. It has a 2GHz quad-core MediaTek SoC with Power VR GX6250, 2GB RAM and 8GB storage, expandable via microSD card up to 128GB. It includes DC Jack, HDMI out, 10/100 Ethernet and USB 2.0 ports.
The new Fire TV is equipped with Dual-band,
dual-antenna Wi-Fi (MIMO) for faster streaming and fewer dropped
connections than standard Wi-Fi, supporting 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
networks and Bluetooth 4.1. It also includes support for Alexa voice assistant features that made its debut with the Echo speakers.
Amazon Fire TV also supports High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) that delivers 1080p streams from Amazon Video, which is two times more efficient at encoding video than the current industry standard and to stream high quality videos uses less bandwith.
Amazon Fire TV Gaming Edition is a gaming-focused bundle that contains the new Amazon Fire TV, a game controller, 32GB microSD card and two free camera namely Shovel Knight and Disney's Ducktales. The gaming controller includes a microphone and headset jack.
Amazon's Fire TV stick comes with a Voice remote which supports voice action. With Voice Remote you can find all your favorite TV shows, movies by just speaking into the remote which comes with built-in mic. It also supports Alexa Voice assistant. The Fire TV Stick is equipped with Dual-core processor and packs 1GB RAM and 8GB storage. There is support for Dual-Band, Dual-Antenna,802.11a/b/g/n (MIMO).
The Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Gaming edition are priced at $99 and $140 respectively, the Fire Stick with Voice Remote costs $49.99. They are now available for pre-order and shipping for Fire TV (and Gaming Edition) starts from October 5, while the Fire TV Stick will ship starting October 22.
