I'm a big fan of the Chromecast so I'm interested to see how this works, maybe some Prime exclusives will win me over. Apparently it will be $19 for Prime members for the next 2 days
Chromecast currently has a basic API and potentially a V2 in the works. The biggest thing I love about it is mirroring my Chrome tab but my biggest gripe is that it's not super easy to send pictures from my iPhone to the TV, not sure where the Fire TV Stick lands on these two features
The remote, while gaudy, strikes me as a smart addition. This is astutely aimed at non-tech folk and along with the 'app' UX probably makes more intuitive sense to normals than Chromecast does out of the box.
There's also the Matchstick (https://www.kickstarter.com/proj...) looking to enter this space soon(ish).
Will be interesting to see how these go; Fire and Matchstick are competitive on features, but Chromecast has pretty much become the name of the category at this point.
The ASAP feature sounds great for those with slower connections. However, Chromecast/Other GoogleCast devices are both cheaper and have an open API for tons of future apps to support. This really only makes sense for Prime customers. Better effort than the FirePhone, but thats not saying much :)
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As a big Plex user, and a Prime member, I have a hard time passing up this up for $20, simply for the portability (have no need in my home at the moment). I prefer the interface of Fire TV to the competitors, and while I didn't think the power behind it would matter, it does. Playback in all apps is smoother at higher quality, but that usually doesn't matter with the sticks as much as this does: wifi strength.
For anyone wanting any of these and wanting to watch anything in HD: make sure your wifi signal is solid, that matters more than anything in the charts.
The standard app offerings are very similar. Fire TV doesn't have HBO GO, but does have some HBO programs and HBO GO could be on the device soon (didn't search, second-hand from someone at Amazon). Roku has the best native sports offerings.
I wonder why they released it with a different remote.
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