Amazon Fire TV Stick

Best Buy has it on sale for $24.99. You don't even have to be a Prime member to get that $15 discount:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/amazon-fire-tv-stick/9999119.p?id=1219460752591&skuId=9999119
 
well it was a $20 PRIME discount, bringing it to $19 + tax.  I might cancel my Amazon order though, got some BB reward points to burn.
 
Played around with the Fire stick over the weekend. Here are my initial thoughts.

Great little device if you are an Amazon household. It has your Amazon account auto-linked so you can start streaming Prime videos immediately. The remote is a nice little add-on so that you do not need any other device if you wish to just browse content already available on the device. We do not have any other Fire devices, so could not really test the "flinging' feature and compare it to Chromecast. The app selection is decent and I'm sure that you can side load Android apps if you are savvy enough. The performance is good enough with Amazon videos, but noticed a slight lag when opening apps such as Netflix or Youtube. Haven't really tested any games, but would be interesting to see what kind of performance one might get when playing games.

I'm still not fully sold on the device for $39 as it does not support iOS for "flinging" yet. If one does not have Roku and is looking for a cheap device that has apps and capabilities for streaming content, this could be a good compromise for the price. I don't think I would spend more than $20 (what I spent) for this device yet due to certain limitations.

I'm still keeping the Chromecast for "casting" videos from the web and any device (mobile or desktop) as we do that more often than we thought we did. If I was to choose between the Chromecast vs the Fire TV stick, I'd pick the Chromecast for sure.
 
Getting mine today... a day early.

I don't imagine this replacing my Chromecast, just giving the kids a cheap option with a remote so they can Netflix/Youtube in the other room. At $20, it's a better deal.

Have you tried any games with the remote?
 
Haven't tried the games yet, but not sure how much fire power this one has for a smooth experience. I'd think basic games should work fine, but games with intense graphics might not be truly "playable".

You are right on, with this being a cheap option with remote for Netflix / Youtube at $20. At $39, I'm not sure if I'd buy this.
 
Setup was a little more involved than the Chromecast but at least you didn't need a PC to do it.

I do like having an on-screen UI with a remote vs having to use an external device to get content on it.

Performance was actually decent for me. Much better than my "smart" TV and my BluRay player which has apps on it too. It's actually close to my PS3 in regards to fluidity  of the UI and the playback of both Amazon video and Netflix.

I do find it interesting they chose an alphabetical format for their on-screen keyboard than qwerchete but I guess that's so kids can also use it. I did try playing Tetris (there was a free trial version) and it was fine. Not sure what level of games it could handle where you would buy/use the Fire game controller but that's available if you are ps9.

I like that has a parental lock feature so I can make sure my kids don't go crazy buying movies and games but they didn't include the kid interface FreeTime (although I expect them to in a future update). You also can sync it with your Amazon cloud drive to display all your photos.

All in all a great streamer/smart app/media player for only $19... at $39, not so sure.
 
"Setup is a little more involved". Hmm. I got mine too but it's still in the box. I may return it.  Wish "hey Siri" can set it up for me.
 
bones said:
"Setup is a little more involved". Hmm. I got mine too but it's still in the box. I may return it.  Wish "hey Siri" can set it up for me.
Click to expand...
Well, it's basically choosing your WiFi network and entering your password with the remote (if you have a complicated password it could take some time).

The Chromecast used a PC app and it could retrieve the password from your computer's settings.

One other thing is it kept recommending Amazon's included power adapter but it was more convenient for me to use the TV's USB port for power.
 
Interestingly enough, the YouTube app wasn't pre-installed. Had to search for it in the Apps section, download and install it. It's similar to the YouTube app on the PS3.

And some of the apps on my iPhone do recognize the Fire TV stick as a device I can fling the output to (YouTube and Netflix).

And although the Chromecast claims to go to sleep after non-use, the Fire stick seems to sleep more noticeably has it's not has hot and it is dark when I switch to its HDMI input.
 
You are right about the flinging. It seems to work on YouTube and Netflix because you have to pair the device. Once that is done, you can fling things to the Fire Stick.

Ditto on the sleep, I am noticing it more on the Fire Stick v/s the Chromecast.
 
i have the regular amazon firetv and i love it... according to the specs its supposed to have all the same hardware as the firetv stick but i still feel the stick is a bit laggy n the regular firetv is much smoother... but both gets the job done pretty well if ur looking for a set top box...

right now amazon firetv doesnt support xbmc, so ull need to sideload it... it works great on my regular firetv but i prefer to use plex since i feel like its smoother n a bit more powerful for streaming movies (granted i feel xmbc has a better UI)... xbmc is also ahead of plex in the streaming live-tv arena, but the problem with xbmc on the firetv is each time u launch xbmc to watch tv, it requires to update the entire uPNP database, which can take like 3 minutes and for me thats a bit painful... so with all that, i rarely launch xmbc on my firetv and always default to plex

as for casting ur pc/mac, i use splashtop which i sideload onto the firetv... that way i can cast both mac n pc shit instead of having to rely solely on miracast for pc and airplay for macs... only problem so far is splashtop doesnt do mobile devices (so ipad n android r out of luck although interestingly enough those devices can be the "receiver" of the cast and act as an additional monitor to ur pc/mac... but not that other way around... )... guess just gotta wait till this whole miracast vs airplay to sorta play its royal proprietary dumbness out...

u cant really compare the chromecast with the firetv/roku/apple tv... the chromecast requires a computer/devices cpu... the other 3 dont... makes all the different if ur doing anything 1080p... but if ur doing like 420p or 720p, then the chromecast is probably suffice (i found it dumb that u need the chromecast beta extension in order to hack n do 1080p initially... but after i tried it and the source computer/device significantly lagged, i understood why they capped it at 720p)...

i was able to try out the miracast (microsoft wireless adapter) too... it is probably the best caster out there for PCs right now with almost zero lag for normal purposes (while every other alternative out there including the splashtop or chromecast i was talking about has some sorta lag)... but i didnt get it because i have a few macs around that i might wanna cast... also want to be able to control the resolution being streamed (higher resolution when there is low internet/router activity... or lower resolution when i do need the bandwidth) when i watch movies (casting doesnt really allow that much modification), so i default to plex again...
 
oh n dont buy the firetv msrp... it constantly goes on sale every few months (both the stick n regular firetv)... so just wait... just check amazon, bestbuy, or staples every now n then (or slickdeals... someones bound to post)...
 
update- been playing around with the firetv a bit more (seems more and more to me as just a better version of the xiao-mi box)... i been able to sideload almost all the android apps that are on the xiao mi box and they run on the firetv just as well (just not officially supported on the firetv so u gotta launch that app via settings>apps instead of from the firetv home)... has all the same problems with the xiao-mi box though (slow or inconsistent streaming) when using these asian apps... oh well... still watching asian movies for free is always great lol...
 
update- been playing around with the firetv a bit more (seems more and more to me as just a better version of the xiao-mi box)... i been able to sideload almost all the android apps that are on the xiao mi box and they run on the firetv just as well (just not officially supported on the firetv so u gotta launch that app via settings>apps instead of from the firetv home)... has all the same problems with the xiao-mi box though (slow or inconsistent streaming, n gotta keep searching until u find a stream that is steady) when using these asian apps... oh well... still watching asian movies for free is always great lol...
 
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