Amazon Fire TV refers to two generations of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon.com. It is a small network appliance and entertainment device designed to stream digital audio/video content to a high-definition television. The device also allows users to play video games with the included remote, via a mobile app, or with an optional game controller.
The first-generation device featured 2 GB of RAM, MIMO dual-band Wi-Fi, and a Bluetooth remote control with a microphone for voice search. It supported 1080p streaming and Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound but was dependent on internet bandwidth of the user. Unveiled on April 2, 2014, the Amazon Fire TV (1st Generation) was made available for purchase in the US the same day for US$99 and was launched with a video game called Sev Zero.
In 2015, the Amazon Fire TV (2nd Generation) was released with improved processor speed and 4K UHD support. Amazon Fire TV is also available in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.
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Design
The developmental code name of the Fire TV was Bueller, named after the eponymous character from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
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Hardware
First generation
The Fire TV offers HDMI and optical audio, with support for Dolby Digital Plus and 7.1 surround sound pass-through, along with an Ethernet port and a USB 2.0 port. According to Amazon, the Fire TV is designed to outpace competitors like the Apple TV and Roku in performance: The 0.7-inch-thick box features a 1.7 GHz quad-core CPU (Qualcomm Snapdragon 8064), 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage, along with a dual-band wireless radio for 1080p streaming over 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and a 10/100 ethernet connection. The company said that it does not intend the Fire TV to compete with gaming consoles; instead, its gaming capabilities are geared toward people who do not already own a console but may play games on a smartphone or tablet. It has a dedicated controller accessory.
Second Generation
Amazon released a 2nd-generation Fire TV in late 2015. The 2nd generation features 4K Ultra High Definition support, improved processor performance, and a MediaTek 8173C chipset to support H.265 (HEVC), VP8, and VP9 codecs. Wireless hardware upgrades includes a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.1.
Fire TV Stick
First generation
On November 19, 2014, Amazon released a smaller version of the Fire TV called the Fire TV Stick. It is an HDMI-port plug-in device that replicates much of the functionality of the larger Fire TV. Its hardware is slightly different, it has 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, weighs 0.9 oz. (25.1 g) and it uses a Broadcom BCM28155 dual-core 1.0 GHz Cortex-A9 processor and a Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU. Wireless hardware includes a dual-band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 3.0 The Fire TV Stick is bundled with a TV remote, a model with voice search on the remote and one without.
Second generation
On October 20, 2016, Amazon released Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote. Other than the new remote, the updates include Mediatek 8127D Quad-core ARM 1.3 GHz processor with a Mali-450 MP4 GPU, and support for the H.265 (HEVC) codec. Wireless hardware upgrades includes a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.1. It retains the 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage and weighs slightly more at 1.1 oz. (32.0 g).
Software
The device initially ran Fire OS 3.0, based on Android Jelly Bean 4.2. According to Amazon, that made it "simple for developers to port their services and games over to Fire TV."
Updates
On March 24, 2015, Amazon announced an update to the Fire TV software to provide the following additional features which address some of the concerns raised in early reviews:
- Expandable USB storage on Amazon Fire TV; the user can connect a USB mass storage device to expand the Fire TV storage.
- Connect to the user's hotel or dorm room Wi-Fi with captive portal support, which enables the user to connect to Wi-Fi that requires web authentication--this includes Wi-Fi at most major hotels, as well as some universities.
- Private listening on Fire TV, adds support for wireless Bluetooth headphones to Fire TV.
- Browse and search Prime Playlists: Prime members can now take advantage of Prime Music playlists from Fire TV with hundreds of expertly curated Prime Playlists to pick from.
- Hidden PIN entry, the PIN entry screen hides the numbers selected.
- New shortcuts put the user's Fire TV to sleep or enable display mirroring by pressing and holding the Home button on the remote.
Models
Reception
Dan Seifert from The Verge reviewed Fire TV on April 4, 2014, giving it an 8.8/10 and largely praising its current functionality and future potential. Dave Smith from ReadWrite wrote: "Fire TV aims to be the cure for what ails TV set-top boxes." GeekWire editor Andy Liu's review is headlined "Amazon's Fire TV sets a new bar for streaming boxes." Ars Technica praised the device specs that are better than the competition, the build quality was high, and if you use Amazon content, the microphone works very well. However, the reviewer did not like that media browsing puts Amazon content in the front thus making other apps less convenient, the game selection is limited and many games are unoptimized, and its free space is only 5.16GB, limiting the amount of games that can be installed.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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