Amazon Launches Android-Powered 'Fire TV' For Streaming and Gaming 180
Today Amazon launched 'Fire TV,' a new video streaming box designed to compete with devices like the Roku and Apple TV. The Fire TV runs Android on a quad-core Qualcomm 1.7 GHz processor with 8GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM. It supports 1080p video output at 60fps and measures 4.5" x 4.5" x 0.7". The Fire TV is also explicitly designed to support gaming, and Amazon has concurrently launched their own game controller. The Fire TV's remote control includes a microphone and a button that lets you search TV show and movies by voice.
Side-loading channels? (Score:4, Insightful)
My Roku 3 will let me side-load channels. If this won't, not interested. No pron, no go!
Odd Market. (Score:4, Insightful)
These TV devices seems likes a fairly odd market.
We have game consoles with Apps that do all these things. or you can hook up an old PC that you have around.
On the other end you got the Chromecast which is very cheap for your streaming from your PC.
This middle ground I don't think really fits a lot of peoples needs, Either Pay more and get more out of your purchase, such as gaming, and perhaps a Blu-Ray player. Or pay a lot less and get something good enough.
Re:Just get a Smart TV (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather replace/upgrade a $49 widget than a $500 TV.
Re:Just get a Smart TV (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't pretend to give you a generalized answer, but rather answer it for myself and my household:
(Context: I work at Netflix, which may make a difference so it's worth noting. That said, I'm back-end cloud systems, with nothing to do with consumer devices).
I consume my media from several sources, including iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go.
I could get a SmartTV that lets me access them, but IME, smart TV manufacturers move pretty slowly; I also think of my TV as just a large display, and imbuing it with more smarts makes it more painful and expensive to upgrade to something else. By focusing on modularity -- this TV is just a bunch of HDMI ports with a big screen -- it lets me optimize the TV for display, and use another device for content access.
Which is why I prefer the AppleTV rather than a SmartTV.
(We could have another conversation about AppleTV vs Roku or the Fire TV, but that's outside the scope of this particular comment thread).
Chromecast mystery solved (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess this solves the mystery as to why Amazon never batted any eyelashes towards Chromecast.
Re:Just get a Smart TV (Score:5, Insightful)
turning tvs into smart tv's might make sense but eventually...everyone will just have a smart tv.
That might work on the low end, but if you buy a $1000+ TV, you probably don't want to have to buy another one to replace it in a few years when the company stops updating the firmware or the SoC can't handle the latest video codec or whatever. Much better to use the expensive TV as a video monitor alone, and keep the fast-obsoleting stuff on a cheap external box.