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Amazon's Fire TV Stick: A Nice, Affordable Media Center Option

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  • Amazon's Fire TV Stick: A Nice, Affordable Media Center Option

    Phoronix: Amazon's Fire TV Stick: A Nice, Affordable Media Center Option

    Last week Amazon started shipping their new Fire TV Stick device to compete with the likes of Google's Chromecast. I've been trying out the Fire TV Stick since its launch date last week and have been happy with the device, especially considering its low cost...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    I could not test the FireTV stick myself, it is not sold in germany, but I tested the FireTV and a Chromecast. The FireTV can be used with other apps like Kodi as well, when you use adb to install it, most likely this could work on the stick as well, but the stick is much slower. From the features you can say that Amazon really enforces you to buy Amazon hardware (or a compatible TV/bluray player) to use Prime Instant Video as they seem to hate Google/Android devices. You can not watch the adult only movies with the Android app also it has no direct support for Chromecast like Netflix has got. Netflix on Android can use a FireTV or a Chromecast to show it on the TV. For my Nexus 7 tablet i needed a resultion changer to 1920x1080, then i could of course use the screen mirror for the Android Instant Video app, but thats the most stupid way to watch movies when you compare it to other streaming apps. From usage the FireTV was really snappy, no idea how fast the stick responds but it lacks the audio search feature on the remote. Generally sticks can be problematic for some TV tuners, my Chromecast interfered with the integrated DVB-C on a Philips tuner on some channels, the 10 cm extension cable did not help, i will get a 50 cm one soon. One last thing that i found out is that a 24" LG monitor with TV had no CEC support for the FireTV but CEC worked with a Raspberry PI and Kodi/XBMC. It worked with Philips and Toshiba TVs.

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    • #3
      I stopped reading at the word amazon

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      • #4
        Nice! And since Amazon sells things, its main source of income hopefully isn't personal information.

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        • #5
          I got one, too. There isn't such a thing a a good on screen keyboard with a little remote, but they seem to have spent a lot of time to make sure theirs is worse than others. So far, I have counted three different keyboards in use. Oh, the WiFi passphrase field is broken--it won't take long passphrases. Not that you'd want to enter one in with an average of 7 clicks of the remote per character.

          The wall wart is horribly designed. The plugs come out of the largest side so that it can interfere with ajacent devices on a power strip and the USB cord comes off the side where it can also interfere with ajacent plugs. If they had turned the plugs 90 degrees so that they came out of the short side, it would be way better.

          The UI is okay and it's nice and responsive. So, that's nice. It'll take more time to decide more.

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          • #6
            Michael writes...
            it's a nice low-end companion to the Amazon Fire TV.
            I have a Fire TV and rather like it. So why would I need a Fire TV Stick as a companion?

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