As more and more people begin watching TV series online and cable or satellite subscriptions becoming increasingly more expensive, the question is asked: “Is there a suitable substitute for a cable or satellite subscription?”
As I enjoy watching popular TV series like Person of Interest, The Walking Dead, Stargate, Intelligence, etc., if I were to drop my cable subscription I would be left with not being able to watch these shows. Sure I would be saving a lot of money per month, but the loss of the series would have a bigger impact.
So what is left to choose from? I wish to watch my TV shows, but not pay an outrageous amount for a cable subscription. This is where internet TV may come into play, for both myself and many others.
With internet TV services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, and Hulu, there is a possibility for continuing your TV series. However, we have now reached a new issue in that I have this outstanding living room media center, yet these internet services can only be watched on a PC.
Now we need to kill two birds with one stone. Find a media solution that holds thousands of internet TV and movie series, but maintain a lower cost than what I would pay for a cable subscription.
Introducing the cable subscription conqueror and internet TV provider, Amazon Fire TV. In its attractive compact black box, the Fire TV offers an alternative service that gives any user access to thousands of different movies, TV shows, and internet content.
Throughout my review of the Amazon Fire TV, I will be covering the following topics: the unboxing, design, available content, features, and my overall thoughts. I would like to thank Amazon for providing me with the Fire TV for this review.
The Unboxing
Before you even consider purchasing the Amazon Fire TV, you have to think twice about where you are going to buy it. I know what you’re thinking, why would choosing to buy it from a different site make a difference?
Well, as the Amazon Fire TV is connected to your Amazon account, if you choose to purchase the unit from Amazon directly the unit is ready to go out of the box. No need to sign in or setup an account; it’s all done for you. As you can setup or change accounts on the Fire TV, this just makes everything so much easier.
Once you receive your Amazon Fire TV in the mail, the unboxing is a “certified frustration-free packing” and they mean that! With the box having an outer sleeve explaining available content and features, inside you’ll find the Fire TV itself, the easy to use remote, power adapter and two AAA batteries.
Just like the frustration-free packaging, Amazon offers a frustration-free setup. Just connect a HDMI input, an optional optical sound cable, the power cable, and the Fire TV comes to life.
You are brought through an easy setup guide that automatically connects your Amazon account (if you bought the unit through Amazon), and asks for an available Wi-Fi connection. Afterwards, a short friendly video explains how to use your Fire TV and explains all the different functions. It should be noted when I setup my Fire TV unit, my video froze while playing; the audio continued to play, yet the picture remained frozen until the end. This was a one time occurrence, and never happened with any movie, show, or app.
Finally, after the video finishes playing you are brought to the user friendly interface where you can choose which content you wish to watch, play, or listen to.
The Design
The design of the Fire TV is unlike any other media box on the market. With competing internet media boxes like the Roku 3 or Apple TV having a cube box design as well as having a thick design structure, the Fire TV takes a better approach by being compact in size and having a square shape.
At a thickness of 0.7 inches, length of 4.5 inches, and width of 4.5 inches, the Fire TV sits proudly and looks premium on your TV stand. Likewise, the Fire TV remote follows with its compact size of 0.5 inches thick, 5.5 inches long, and 1.5 inches in width.
Both the Fire TV and remote have an all-black matte finish. The box has a glossy front face and a single white LED whilst the remote has glossy buttons.
Focusing on the Fire TV for the moment, the box provides a single HDMI output, optical audio out, an Ethernet jack for users who do not have Wi-Fi, and a full size USB input. On top you find the Amazon logo, and some product information on the bottom.
As I was using the Fire TV, I found that the top face did become hot. This is not uncommon due to the outstanding hardware inside, but it is something to keep in mind. Ensure the Fire TV has nothing resting on top of the unit.
Next we take a look at the remote. Having a curved bottom that you can see in the picture above, the remote unfortunately does move side to side if place on an unsettled table. The downsides stop there, as the remote is a joy to use with icons reminding you of an Android phone, like back, home, and settings, whilst the bottom row offers a rewind, play/pause, and fast forward button. Towards the top you find a navigation wheel and a center select. The navigation wheel is nice to use, however, I wish it would act in the same way as the old iPod Nanos did with the wheel being a touch pad.
The remote really comes into play with the function of having a built in microphone. By holding down the voice search button, users can speak the name of any TV show, series, movie, or application and the search will display the results. With the voice search being nearly spot on, this is an excellent and quick way of finding content. More on this later.
Finally, we have the design of the friendly user interface. Seen in the picture below, users will find a left hand menu that sorts content into different categories. Whilst on the right displays submenus that show genres, recommended for you, recently added, and more. The user interface is so easy to use, a user with little to no technology related background could navigate through the menu.
Available Content
Over 200,000 TV episodes and moves, millions of songs, and hundreds of games, the Fire TV provides an experience that is like no other.
Being an Amazon product, you would expect that the device may be useless without Amazon Prime Instant Video. This is quite the contrary, as Amazon has many different internet providers to keep users happy. Instead of making the Fire TV only about Amazon, they instead took an approach that allows for other services to be offered.
With the ability to view Netflix, ESPN, Hulu Plus, Vevo, Twitch, YouTube, Flixster, and Crackle, just to name a few, users have literally thousands of options for TV and movie content. It gets even better with Amazon offering their own TV service through Amazon Prime Instant Video.
As Amazon Prime does unlock many TV shows and movies at no extra cost, there is always the option to either buy or rent movies that are not available on Prime. These movies can be anything from brand new releases, to poplar TV shows. With many of the prices being under $19.99 to buy or $5.99 to rent movies, users will find that something in this list of content will satisfy their desires.
The available content grows in that the Fire TV has more to offer than just TV and movies. Amazon offers apps for iHeart Radio, Spotify, and Pandora just to name three big radio services offered on the Fire TV. In the other room doing something or just in the mood for some music? Play your favorite radio station or play your collection of Pandora stations and enjoy the music.
But wait, there’s more! The content extends into the gaming world as well! If you don’t feel like watching TV or a movie, but wish to get some good gaming content, the Fire TV has popular games like Grand Theft Auto III, SEV Zero, Asphalt Airborne 8, Minecraft Pocket Edition and more. They are also working with well known gaming companies like EA, Sega, Gameloft, Ubisoft, and 2K to expand the Fire TV gaming world. This is available on the Fire TV, but will require you purchasing an additional $39 Fire game controller.
You do, however, have to remember our main goal here, to cut back on our monthly bill by removing the cable subscription. We have seen that the Amazon’s available content is excellent in that there are many services to choose from and having the ability to play music or games adds to the experience. Yet these internet TV services like Prime, Netflix, Hulu, etc., are not free; they require monthly payments.
Ignoring the fact that you still need to pay for an internet connection, let’s say you pay $59.99 per month for a TV service. For the first year of owning a Fire TV you will have to factor in a $99 price as it is the cost of the unit. I’ll use myself as an example here, I have Amazon Prime and Netflix. After the first year has passed, I will be spending $5.99 per month for Netflix and $99 per year for Amazon Prime. In total I will be paying $171 per year to watch all the content I would be watching if I were to stay on a cable subscription. That price is a lot better than the $720 per year it would be for a cable subscription. I could also signup for Hulu Plus and still be far under the price of cable.
Here’s a little tip for Hulu Plus subscribers. If you happen to choose a video that is available on both Amazon and Hulu, the Fire TV will display both options giving you the lowest price.
As for me, this solution is a great one. The available content is more than I would need and it has thousands of popular TV shows and series. Is the service perfect? No. It doesn’t have top exclusives you would find on ABC, CBS, or NBC like Survivor, NCIS, The Amazing Race, etc. Yet it still provides popular movies, and other series that may spark your interest.
Features
A feature I loved right from the beginning, is the fact that the remote functions via Bluetooth. This voids the reason of pointing the remote directly at the Fire TV. You can be in a different room or have the remote under a pillow and it will still function. What’s also great is the fact that the remote will automatically turn on your TV if it happens to be off.
Next, we have the video playback. With a strong internet connection to your wireless router, the Fire TV has a 1080p Full HD playback. The video does not stutter, pixelate, nor distort at any point while watching. Granted my home network is greater than most, but I can ensure users who have a router nearby to the Fire TV and have at least 5mb/s download speeds will see a perfect picture. If not, an Ethernet cable can always be used.
Placed in the living room, I attempted to use the optical audio output of the Fire TV, and with built in Dolby surround sound, the Fire TV not only provides a great picture, but clear and crisp sound as well.
We now look into the Amazon Cloud Drive. By logging into your Amazon account, you can upload photos and personal videos which can then be played back on your Fire TV.
As we move into the hardware side of things, you find that the Fire TV is a powerhouse and can outperform competitors, like the Apple TV, by having a quad-core processor with three times the processing power. Having an Adreno 320 graphics engine, and 2GB of memory, the Fire TV is fluid and performs well above other media boxes.
Following, we have the second screen feature. This is where your phone or tablet comes into play. Watching a TV show on your tablet or phone? Send it to the big screen TV on the Fire TV, freeing up your device to act as a media controller. You can also choose to activate X-Ray, which will display cast and crew, name of songs as they’re played in the show, trivia, and additional show facts as you watch. This is all powered by the popular website IMDb.
Finally, we have the voice search function of the remote. As I said earlier in the review, by holding down the front microphone button, users can speak the name of a certain show they wish to find. No longer do you need to scroll through different shows, or spend time typing a show on a virtual keyboard. By simply speaking the name of a movie, TV show, actor, director, or genre into the remote the Fire TV responds by displaying the information you requested. The voice search is spot on, and not once did it misunderstand what I was saying.
My Final Thoughts
The Amazon Fire TV is an outstanding little internet media provider. It offers a low, low cost service with thousands of different media options to satisfy any user. The Fire TV provides you with a great alternative to a cable subscription and the applications are growing every day with new content. At a onetime price of $99 for the unit, I feel like it’s worth the investment. In the end, I have zero complaints about the Fire TV and find it to be a device that I would be recommending to others as well.
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