Fire TV Stick
When Google’s Chromecast appeared a little over a year ago, I thought this was a definitive game changer when it comes to accessing video content on your TV. Here was a small, inexpensive stick that you just plug into one of your TV’s HDMI ports, and you can immediately stream almost any video content from almost any device. Unfortunately, the reality turned out to be more prosaic, and Chromecast suffered from many of the same issues that plagued all the other devices that tried to make your TV “smart” – various content restrictions, inability to easily access many of your own media files, lack of third-party support, etc. Since then there have been many Chromecast imitators, but most of them turned out to be pale copies of the original. However, with fireTV Stick Amazon has probably launched the most serious challenge to Chromecast to date. fireTV Stick is a really neat little device, but unfortunately it falls short of Chromecast or any other serious contender for the full Smart TV experience.
**** Content of the Box ****
fireTV Stick is a small HDMI stick. Other contents of the box include short male-to-female HDMI extender cable, micro USB cable, USB charger (5V, 1A), remote, two AAA batteries, and a small user manual.
**** Setup ****
You’ll need a free HDMI port on your TV, and a nearby outlet for the USB charger. I ended up using one of the USB ports on my TV instead. They work fine for this purposes, and this setup helps with the cable clutter around my TV. During the software setup I got several warning messages about this, but decided to ignore them and have not had any issues with charging the fireTV Stick this way.
The remote runs on two AAA batteries. Neither the remote nor the Stick have any on/off buttons. The remote doesn’t use IR signal to communicate with the Stick, so they don’t need to be in a line of sight with each other in order to work properly.
The setup immediately recognized the remote. It searched for a network, and once it found it, it tried to get software updates. This was the most annoying part of the setup – I got fireTV Stick on the very first day that it was available and it already needed an update. I really think that any updates should have been left for a later stage. Once it was updated and ready to run it accessed my Amazon account. I did not have to provide any personal info – it was already set up for my account. This is one of my favorite things about getting Amazon branded products – they already know me! ☺
**** Navigation and Content ****
fireTV Stick has a pretty nice user interface. It is very slick, smooth, and easy to get around. I was immediately able to access my entire Prime content (saved movies to watch, etc.). Recently I also signed up for Amazons cloud photo storage, and I was pleased to see all of my uploaded photos and videos immediately available for browsing. Unfortunately, accessing them turned out to be extremely slow and cumbersome, and I quickly gave up on browsing my photo library. This is definitely one area where I hope to see a lot of improvement in the upcoming months.
fireTV Stick also offers a lot of fun little games that can be played with the remote, or with the optional (not included) Amazon game controller. Unfortunately, playing games with the remote turned out to be awkward, and the response time was really slow. Playing games where fast reflexes are essential is out of question.
**** Video ****
This is probably the best part of fireTV Stick. It offers you a pretty standard assortment of Video playing apps – Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Unsurprisingly, the Amazon Prime Video integration is very smooth and well executed. Video playback is extremely smooth and without any buffering issues that I’ve seen with the other apps. The HD picture quality is really impressive, as good as anything I’ve seen in that space.
**** The Remote ****
The remote is pretty simple and easy to use. It is fairly elegantly designed. However, it is a bit too responsive – I kept skipping two or three spaces when I just wanted a single click. As far as I know there is no way to adjust the responsiveness of the remote. Instead of the directional arrows the remote features a small clickable circle that is reminiscent of the original iPod. Unfortunately, you cannot use that circle to quickly scroll though the lists and menus.
**** The Power Supply/Charger ****
The power supply is a bit awkwardly shaped. It looks like a flattened Apple iOS device charger. It works fine, but because of its shape and the fact that the USB port is on the side it can be a bit hard to use with a power strip that already has several other devices plugged in.
**** Conclusion ****
If your current TV doesn’t support any of the online streaming options (Amazon Prime, Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, etc.) and yet it has HDMI ports than getting fireTV Stick would be a worthwhile purchase. However, if you already own a “smart” TV then you already have most if not all of the main selling points that fireTV Stick offers in its current state. Nonetheless, I am confident that Amazon will keep improving the Stick experience, and I fully expect its usefulness only to increase in the coming months and years.
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