Amazon’s 2nd-gen Fire TV box is 75 percent faster, adds support for 4K video playback, and includes support for Alexa voice assistant features. And just like last year’s model, the new Amazon Fire TV sells for $100.
The new Fire TV is available for pre-order immediately and it starts shipping on October 5th.
The new model features a MediaTek 64-bit quad-core processor with support for HEVC video playback at 1080p or 4K resolutions.
Other features include 802.11ac WiFi, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage for apps, games and other data, and a microSD card slot for up to 128GB of removable storage.
Like the original Fire TV, the new box ships with a Voice Remote, allowing you to control media playback with buttons or to tap the mic button to search by voice. But you can also now use the same Alexa voice assistant features available for the Amazon Echo.
Among other things, you can ask Alexa to play music, check sports scores or schedules, provide weather forecasts, or find or control media playback.
Alexa isn’t exclusive to the new Fire TV: the feature is baked into Fire OS 5, which will roll out to 1st-gen Fire TV and Fire TV Stick devices soon.
Amazon is also introducing a new $140 Fire TV Gaming Edition bundle. For $140 you get a 2nd-gen Fire TV, a game controller, a 32GB microSD card, and two games; Shovel Knight and Disney’s DuckTales.
Want something a bit cheaper? You can still buy a Fire TV Stick for $40 or pay $50 for a Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote.
Up until now Amazon had sold the Stick for $39 and the Voice Remote was an optional $30 accessory. Now you can save some money when buying the bundle… but if you’ve already got an original Fire TV Stick there’s no reason to buy a new one. Amazon hasn’t updated the hardware and you can still buy a Voice Remote separately.
I wonder if they bundled a game other than DuckTales if they’d see even better sales?
Amazon’s devices haven’t been selling well recently, which is probably why
Amazon has finally installed microSD card slots on them. This device’s
microSD support tops out at 128 GB. A USB port could support much
higher capacity storage than 128 GB, and has been a staple for media
players since…forever. Guess I’ll just have to wait for Amazon device
sales to keep dropping. Maybe the 2017 iteration will include a USB 3.0
port (hopefully not in lieu of a microSD card slot).
For the same capacity, a USB flash drive is currently a fraction of the
price of a comparable microSD card.
A ripped Blu-Ray (1080p aka ~2K) is 25 GB. A 4K movie could conceivably
fill up that 128 GB mcroSDXC pronto. Most external hard disks are already
using USB 3.0. Amazon probably intended the SD card for saving downloaded
Amazon content anyway. Don’t know how 4K video will transfer over that
USB 2.0 connection. Add gigabit wired Ethernet to my checklist, no gigabit,
no sale.
There’s a USB 2.0 port on the Fire TV (but not the Stick)
I know tons of people with Fire TV sticks, I work in a small company and I know for sure of 8 coworkers that have the sticks, and to a person they all like them. Two of them I know have more than one even. My coworkers are not tech people other than one of them either.
They seem to be selling quite well to people I know, I have another person my wife knows that is getting ready to cut the cord at home and plans I purchasing 7 of the Fire TVs to get them started.
USB works fine on the full size devices too, but I run plex and don’t care about the USB port in the slightest.
Fire TVs are pretty popular and definitely outselling the Apple TV even before this upgrade cycle.
They list the GPU and that makes it clear it’s the MT8173. The first device not only with that SoC but with the A72 core.
Is this the first 4k video streamer from the major players? As far as I’m aware it is, there is the Nvidia Shield that does 4k but it is far from mainstream in the set top box arena. The new Apple TV does not seem to support 4k and I know Roku and the like do not either. Not bad Amazon, good upgrade.
I have three fire TV sticks and they are okay and I use them daily and they are my primary media streamers (full cordcutter here) but performance is lacking just a little bit at times. Might get one of the new full size devices to compare against the sticks. Still like them better than the Rokus they replaced.
Not a huge Amazon fan generally (had the early Fire tablet — really didn’t like it), but the Fire TV stuff seems impressive.
Yeah, I prefer stock Android to Fire OS for tablets… but the Fire TV Stick has largely replaced the Chromecast in my media center setup.
That’s a pretty big win for MediaTek.