It also integrates with Google’s new smart-home device, Google Home, much more effectively than the Fire TV integrates with Amazon’s Echo. By offloading navigation to the apps on your phone or tablet, Chromecast enables cheap hardware without compromise. It hasn’t changed a whole lot, but it doesn’t need to. It also has some smart flourishes of its own, such as private headphone listening through your smartphone, and a dedicated “rewind 10 seconds with closed captions” button.Īnd then there’s Google’s $35 Chromecast. Although it lacks Amazon’s high-quality apps and forward-thinking interface, and it doesn’t include a voice remote, it feels a lot faster than even the new Fire TV Stick. The latest Roku Streaming Stick, for instance, is an excellent value at $50. Elevating the stick gameĪmazon’s first Fire TV Stick got a middling review the last time we checked in on it, as rival devices had raised the bar for cheap media streamers. Playing music on the Fire TV Stick is nice, but whole-home audio via Amazon Echos would be nicer. On the downside, it still doesn’t have any sort of built-in volume control, so you’ll need to keep the TV remote (or a Sideclick) handy.
Amazon fire hd 10 review 2016 upgrade#
(Amazon had been selling this as a $10 upgrade with the old Fire TV Stick.) The new remote is comfier and has a more premium feel than the previous default remote, and it enables some powerful software features that I’ll dive into later. The other big improvement is in the remote: You get a voice-enabled “Alexa” remote by default. It’s possible that this feature isn’t complete yet.
Amazon fire hd 10 review 2016 Bluetooth#
And while Amazon isn’t publicizing this, the new Fire TV Stick can support Bluetooth headphones, although I’ll qualify that by noting the volume controls didn’t work on the pair I tested. This should provide faster speeds and improved range-provided you have an 802.11ac router, of course. On the other hand, the Vue app on Fire TV is far superior to the Roku version overall.Īmazon has also upgraded the Wi-Fi to 802.11ac. Speaking of Vue, it doesn’t run at 60 frames per second on the Fire TV Stick, even though Sling TV and MLB.tv do so you won’t get the smooth motion you’d expect from live sports. PlayStation Vue is one of the bigger offenders, taking around 20 seconds to get up and running. HBO Go, for instance, seems especially stutter-prone, and app loading times as a whole can border on annoying. That said, you might notice times where the new stick struggles. An HDMI extension cable is included in case the stick blocks any nearby ports.
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