Don’t let the status of Amazon’s Fire Phone fool you. The e-commerce giant just created another electronic device for consumers. It’s called the Fire TV Stick and it’s a new streaming adapter for HDTVs.
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick is comparable to Google’s Chromecast in price and entertainment options. The $39 price tag is just a few bucks more than the $35 Chromecast and once consumers plug the device into their TV’s HDMI port, the device provides a similar experience. Stick users will have access to multiple music, photo, and video apps, such as Amazon Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Twitch, YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora, as well as be able to rent or purchase over 200,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video (which isn’t included on Chromecast and could be a nice boost to Amazon considering how popular its studios’ video efforts have been).
The Fire TV Stick differs from its Google competitor in terms of hardware and accessories, too. It powers all the streaming goodness mentioned above with a dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of memory, 8 GB of storage, and both dual-band and dual-antenna Wi-Fi. The Stick also utilizes a service called ASAP, which remembers your favorite movies and TV shows so they load faster and avoid unnecessary buffer. The device includes a voice search app and a remote control for easy browsing, unlike Google’s Chromecast where consumers’ must only use their mobile devices as remotes.
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“The team has packed an unbelievable amount of power and selection into an incredible price point,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO, as reported by Variety.
The Fire TV Stick is available for pre-order and will ship on November 19, 2014. If you decide to try out Amazon’s not-so-subtle rival to the Chromecast, the company will give you a free 30-day trial of both Netflix and Amazon Prime. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for only $39.
