Gadgetory

this is the new Amazon fire TV box Amazon video streamer is designed to compete against devices like Roku Apple TV chromecast and even your Smart TV unlike those devices its main focuses on delivering Amazon own streaming content sure it has apps for Netflix Hulu and many others but Amazon TV shows and movies take center stage but let's start with the hardware the box is slim and tiny designed to hide on your AV system it has an HDMI output an Ethernet jack and of course supports the latest 802 dot 11ac Wi-Fi standard the new version drops the optical port but adds an SD card slot for expandable storage it also has a more powerful processor legend though as any real-world improvement in response times which for excellent their mode is small and sleek - and it's the main way you'll talk to the new fire TV press this button and fire TV starts listening new for this year is Alexa a voice assistant that replies to your commands and questions much like Siri on Apple's iPhones here's a taste Alexa what's the weather in New York at 60 degrees with clear skies and Sun today you can look for partly sunny weather with a high of 69 and a low of 50 add a baby monitor my shopping list I add a baby monitor to your shopping list when is the Mets game tonight the Mets will play tonight at 8:07 p.m. away against the Cubs elects is a cool feature but not as useful on a device like this as the ability to search for TV shows and movies voice search works well on fire TV but the results again favor Amazon content that's fine if he only subscribe to prime but if you subscribe to other services too like Netflix Hulu Plus HBO GO or others Roku and chromecast have better search and as you can see here most of the categories on the main interface go to Amazon content despite the fact that fire TV supports three thousand other apps and games speaking of games fire TV is also available in a gaming edition it trades a standard remote for a game controller a 32 gig SD card and a couple of free games if you're really into the kind of casual games amazon offers most of which were originally designed to play on phones it might be worth the extra money both versions of the new fire TV box support 4k video 2 from Netflix and Amazon currently with more 4k apps like YouTube coming soon 4k video looked very good in our test but not that much better than Amazon's regular 1080p streams and of course most 4k TVs have streaming apps of their own built in all told the new fire TV has some decent improvements over the old version but unless your primary streaming source is Amazon Prime it's not as good as the alternatives I'm David Katz my resina