The video streaming wars are clearly heating up. Below are Amazon’s latest efforts in this arena. We are going to talk about three different devices today.
- Fire TV Stick
- Fire TV Box
- Kindle Fire TV Gaming Edition
Can these compete with Apple? Amazon seems to think so.
Amazon Fire TV Stick Review
At first glance you might not think it looks like anything new and in truth it’s not. It’s the same hardware. But now it’s going to have a software update. Alexa which is Amazon’s cloud-based personal assistant has been added to the Fire TV Stick, and the Fire TV Stick now comes bundled with a remote. Before that, you had to buy the Fire TV stick and a remote separately. Now they’re coming together for $50 Dollars. People who have the current Fire TV Stick will also get these updates later this year.
Fire TV Box (2nd Generation) Review
Fired TV Box, which has both performance upgrades and improvements in video quality. Amazon says this is been redesigned from the inside out completely. It has 75% faster performance. The remote, which by the way looks a lot like the remote from last year has up to 20% lower latency which is really important when it comes to things like voice search and has a 40% longer battery life.
Like the Fire TV Stick, the remote for Amazon’s Fire TV Box now comes with Alexa. Unlike the new Apple TV, the Amazon’s Fire TV Box supports 4K Ultra HD content. Now of course you have to have a 4K display or TV.
Amazon says that even if you don’t have a 4K display or 4K content you’re watching, the Box supports HEVC (high efficiency video coding). It’s supposed to be two times more efficient when it comes to encoding and distributing video. That’s a lot of mumbo jumbo. Basically it means that even if you’re not watching 4K using a 4K device, you are still supposed to have an improved video quality. The new Fire TV Box costs $100 Dollars. That’s less than the price of the new Apple TV Box.
Kindle Fire TV Gaming Edition Review
It is basically the Fire TV Box, but it comes with a couple of advanced game downloads and comes with the gaming controller. Amazon says this has been redesigned. It’s supposed to be a more precise controller. Like everything else you’ve read above, it has Alexa Voice Search built into it. The Kindle Fire TV Box Gaming Edition costs $140 dollars.
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