Amazon has updated its Fire TV Stick just in time for the holidays, adding a few welcome features to the already excellent media streamer. It's the same hardware as the original Fire TV Stick, but it now includes a microphone-equipped remote so you can use Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, just like you can with the new Fire TV box. It's a bit pricier than the original (which is available with a standard, microphone-less remote), but at $49.99, it still won't break the bank. It's not quite as smooth as the Fire TV, and it doesn't feature 4K video support, but the Fire TV Stick gets you access to the same wide selection of apps and services for half the price. It easily earns our Editors' Choice for budget media streamers.
Design
The Fire TV Stick itself is identical to the original version. It's a simple, black USB drive-like device that measures 3.4 by 1 by 0.5 inches (HWD). There's an HDMI connector on top of the stick, and a micro USB port for power on the side. Amazon includes a small female-to-female HDMI adapter, so you can hook it up with an HDMI cable if it won't fit directly into one of the ports on your HDTV. An included wall adapter and micro USB cable keep the stick running; Amazon recommends using the adapter rather than relying on your HDTV's USB ports.
The remote is a significant upgrade from the squat little bar that comes with original Fire TV Stick. It's identical to the remote included with the current Fire TV—a 6-inch, matte-black wand with only seven buttons and a prominent, circular, glossy-black navigation pad. A pinhole microphone on the end lets you use the Fire TV Stick's voice search and Alexa voice assistant with a press of a button.
Fire TV
Amazon uses a heavily skinned version of Google's Android operating system for its Fire TV products, and the interface has remained mostly unchanged from the first Fire TV. The menu is built around a column of categories on the left side of the screen and a series of large, colorful tiles displaying apps and media on the right side. Different categories like Apps, Movies, and Prime Video broadly sort available media and software, and more granular categories of media and apps like New, Popular, and Recently Viewed are arranged in rows that can expand further into sub-menus.
The interface is built around a curated, Amazon-centric experience that uses Amazon's Prime Video, Prime Music, App Store, and on-demand video selection as the primary sources for whatever you want to watch or listen to. Fortunately, Amazon's Fire TV App Store is fairly large, and you'll likely be able to find whatever non-Amazon streaming service you want with it (Google Play and Apple Music/iTunes are notable exceptions). Searches for movies and shows will bring up anything available on Amazon, but Hulu, Netflix, and other options will also appear if you have the apps installed and your accounts registered on the Fire TV Stick.
Design
The Fire TV Stick itself is identical to the original version. It's a simple, black USB drive-like device that measures 3.4 by 1 by 0.5 inches (HWD). There's an HDMI connector on top of the stick, and a micro USB port for power on the side. Amazon includes a small female-to-female HDMI adapter, so you can hook it up with an HDMI cable if it won't fit directly into one of the ports on your HDTV. An included wall adapter and micro USB cable keep the stick running; Amazon recommends using the adapter rather than relying on your HDTV's USB ports.
The remote is a significant upgrade from the squat little bar that comes with original Fire TV Stick. It's identical to the remote included with the current Fire TV—a 6-inch, matte-black wand with only seven buttons and a prominent, circular, glossy-black navigation pad. A pinhole microphone on the end lets you use the Fire TV Stick's voice search and Alexa voice assistant with a press of a button.
Fire TV
Amazon uses a heavily skinned version of Google's Android operating system for its Fire TV products, and the interface has remained mostly unchanged from the first Fire TV. The menu is built around a column of categories on the left side of the screen and a series of large, colorful tiles displaying apps and media on the right side. Different categories like Apps, Movies, and Prime Video broadly sort available media and software, and more granular categories of media and apps like New, Popular, and Recently Viewed are arranged in rows that can expand further into sub-menus.
The interface is built around a curated, Amazon-centric experience that uses Amazon's Prime Video, Prime Music, App Store, and on-demand video selection as the primary sources for whatever you want to watch or listen to. Fortunately, Amazon's Fire TV App Store is fairly large, and you'll likely be able to find whatever non-Amazon streaming service you want with it (Google Play and Apple Music/iTunes are notable exceptions). Searches for movies and shows will bring up anything available on Amazon, but Hulu, Netflix, and other options will also appear if you have the apps installed and your accounts registered on the Fire TV Stick.
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