I tried out the Amazon Fire Stick over the weekend and I have to say I'ts pretty nice.
For those that don't know it's a small device that looks like a flash drive but plugs into the HDMI input on the back of an HD TV and then uses your wireless router to connect to multiple online streaming sites.
I was a bit skeptical that I would work well but I have to say the image quality was very good. I never noticed any lad and it's pretty east to navigate the menus with the simple included remote. They have another remote you can buy if you want a bit more functionality and voice searching as well as a smart phone remote control app but i have not tried it.
The Fire Stick is pretty much the same as the Fire TV they offer but with a few less features. The Fire TV box comes with outputs for separate audio systems and includes the voice remote.
With my setup I run the sound from the TV to the receiver so I was still able to get good sound from the device.
In all honestly this device doesn't offer anything that I can't get from my computer but the ability to stream iit to the TV without having to have a PC nearby with a video up-converter is really nice.
I only paid $33 for the device at Staples and it's a one time fee. Note that some of the streaming services require a subscription (i.e. Amazon Prime and NetFlix...) but many are free. Note that I "thought" I had amazon prime because my parents added me to their account, but being an addon only gets you the free shipping, it did not grant me access to the media library, Apparently you need to be the primary on the account to get full access to all features. Fortunately my GF has an account through her Kindle so we were able to use he ID for access.
I'll give more feedback good or bad as we try it out more.
For those that don't know it's a small device that looks like a flash drive but plugs into the HDMI input on the back of an HD TV and then uses your wireless router to connect to multiple online streaming sites.
I was a bit skeptical that I would work well but I have to say the image quality was very good. I never noticed any lad and it's pretty east to navigate the menus with the simple included remote. They have another remote you can buy if you want a bit more functionality and voice searching as well as a smart phone remote control app but i have not tried it.
The Fire Stick is pretty much the same as the Fire TV they offer but with a few less features. The Fire TV box comes with outputs for separate audio systems and includes the voice remote.
With my setup I run the sound from the TV to the receiver so I was still able to get good sound from the device.
In all honestly this device doesn't offer anything that I can't get from my computer but the ability to stream iit to the TV without having to have a PC nearby with a video up-converter is really nice.
I only paid $33 for the device at Staples and it's a one time fee. Note that some of the streaming services require a subscription (i.e. Amazon Prime and NetFlix...) but many are free. Note that I "thought" I had amazon prime because my parents added me to their account, but being an addon only gets you the free shipping, it did not grant me access to the media library, Apparently you need to be the primary on the account to get full access to all features. Fortunately my GF has an account through her Kindle so we were able to use he ID for access.
I'll give more feedback good or bad as we try it out more.