We take a closer look at the latest streaming dongle for your TV.
Amazon is launching the Fire TV Stick in the UK.
It’s the latest streaming dongle that enables you to turn your HD TV into a Smart TV without breaking the bank.
The thumb-sized gadget will allow you to enjoy things like YouTube, Netflix and BBC iPlayer away from tablets and smartphones on the biggest screen in your home.
The Fire TV Stick will cost £35 and goes on sale on 15th April, but you can pre-order online from Amazon now.
How it works
The Fire TV Stick is pretty simple to use and arrives pre-registered to your Amazon account.
You just need to plug the device into a spare HDMI port on your HD TV (there’s an adaptor to use if it’s in a hard to reach place) and connect it to your Wi-Fi.
You'll then be ready to stream content in up to 1080p HD.
The Fire TV Stick supports a wide range of popular music and entertainment apps like Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Instant Video, BBC iPlayer and Netflix.
You can control what happens on your screen with the remote control which comes free, or by using the Fire TV Remote App on your phone or tablet.
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Main features
The Fire TV Stick comes with a dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, dual band and dual antenna Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity, remote control and voice search with the remote control app.
You can ‘fling’ movies and TV shows from your Amazon Fire phone or tablet, as well as apps that use DIAL like YouTube and Spotify from your Android phone or iPhone, onto your TV.
The device also allows you to wirelessly mirror your display to your TV via the Fire TV Stick from Fire OS devices and Android devices made by Motorola, Samsung, LG and Google, without any additional apps or software.
Another feature is X-ray. This allows you see information about the TV show or movie on your Fire tablet or Fire phone while you are watching it on your TV. The feature is exclusive to Amazon and powered by IMDb.
The gadget also comes with Amazon’s Whispersync technology, which saves and synchronizes your video and music library across all of your devices and Advanced Streaming and Prediction (ASAP), which automatically downloads what Amazon thinks you might like watching based on previous behaviour, cutting out the buffering time.
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How it compares
[SPOTLIGHT]The Amazon Fire TV Stick’s main rivals in the UK are the Google Chromecast and Roku Streaming Stick.
The Google Chromecast is the cheapest on the market at £30. Like the Fire TV Stick it works by plugging into an HD TV through a spare HDMI port and comes with a special adaptor if the only one free is in a hard to reach place. However, there is no physical remote included for the price. Instead you have to use your smartphone or tablet to ‘cast’ compatible apps to the screen and control what you do.
You can use the Chromecast with an Android phone or tablet, iPhone and iPad as well as a Mac, Windows laptop or Chromebook, which is the widest compatibility range of the three, perfect if you have a mix of devices at home.
However, the Chromecast only has a limited range of supported apps and doesn’t come with Amazon Instant Video. That said it includes the Google Chrome browser which opens up possibilities. Using a laptop you can cast from the Google Chrome browser onto your TV or you can mirror the screen from your Android phone or tablet.
The Roku Streaming Stick is the most expensive of the three at £49.99. Like the Fire TV Stick it also comes with a physical remote in addition to the free app remote. It also works by plugging into a spare HDMI port on your HD TV and linking it to your Wi-Fi, but it may be a tight squeeze depending on where it’s located as the device is slightly bulkier than its rivals and doesn’t come with an adaptor.
The Roku Streaming Stick is more expensive than both the Fire TV Stick and Google Chromecast, but it has a lot more supported apps or ‘channels’, with over 1,000 to pick from. Importantly it includes the Amazon Instant Video app, which Google’s Chromecast doesn’t. However, although it's compatible with Android and Apple devices through an app, it has limited functionionality. It can only cast certain apps like Netflix and YouTube and is unable to mirror content from a device like the Chromecast and Fire TV Stick can.
Amazon claims the Fire TV Stick is the most powerful media streaming stick out there. Its dual core processor makes it six times faster than the Roku Streaming Stick and twice as fast as the Chromecast. And with 8GB of storage it’s got 32 times more memory than Roku’s device and four times that of the Chromecast. It's also the only device to include Bluetooth technology.
So from a price perspective you really do get more with the Fire TV Stick. However, to get the most out of it you need to be using Fire OS devices and have an Amazon Prime subscription, which gives you access to Amazon’s TV and film library for £79 a year.
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