Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote has faster SoC

by Mark Tyson on 22 February 2017, 12:01

Tags: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), MediaTek

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Amazon has announced that its all-new Fire TV Stick, with Alexa Voice Remote, will be made available soon in the UK, Germany, and Japan. The updates delivered by this HDMI streaming stick include the titular Alexa Voice Remote, plus a new quad-core processor which makes the new stick up to 30 per cent faster than the existing model.

In the press release concerning the update Marc Whitten, Vice President, Amazon Fire TV, said the all-new HDMI stick has been very well received in the US. "Since its recent launch in the US, the all-new Fire TV Stick has quickly become a best-seller on Amazon.com and received more than 35,000 five-star reviews," said Mr Whitten. He went on to claim that the new "content-forward UI and powerful voice search," helped Fire TV users find and enjoy streaming content.

One of the star attractions of the all-new Fire TV stick is Alexa. This voice assistant provides "fast and accurate voice search" with natural voice commands. For example you can just say "find suspense thrillers" or "open Netflix" and Alexa will respond. For Amazon Video content, you can also control playback with just your voice; just ask Alexa to "go back 30 seconds" or "jump ahead two minutes." Alexa's abilities go beyond TV functions so you can use this service for getting weather or news, getting sports scores, making shopping lists, playing music, ordering Just East takeaways or Uber cabs, and more.

As mentioned in the intro, Fire TV Stick hardware upgrades will also enhance your enjoyment of this device. The new stick uses a Quad-Core MediaTek ARM 1.3GHz CPU with Mali450 MP4 GPU. It's got faster networking too, as it supports 2x2 MIMO 802.11a/b/g/n/ac. Memory (1GB), and storage (8GB, no memory card slot) remain the same between versions. For a full comparison with the older Fire TV Stick I have created a table below.

 

Original Fire TV Stick

All-new Fire TV Stick

Size

84.9 mm x 25.0 mm x 11.5 mm

85.9 mm x 30.0 mm x 12.6 mm

Weight

25.1g

32g

Processor

Broadcom Capri 28155, dual-core 2xARM A9

MediaTek Quad-Core ARM 1.3 GHz

GPU

VideoCore4

Mali450 MP4

Storage

8 GB (actual formatted capacity will be less) available for apps and games

8 GB internal (actual formatted capacity will be less) available for apps and games

Memory

1 GB

1 GB

Wi-Fi Connectivity

Dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi (MIMO); supports 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi networks

Dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi supports 2x2 MIMO 802.11a/b/g/n/ac

Bluetooth

Bluetooth 3.0 with support for the following profiles: HID, HFP, SPP

Bluetooth 4.1

Voice Search Support

Yes, requires Fire TV Voice Remote (sold separately) or free Fire TV Remote App (available for download on Fire or Android OS and iOS)

Yes, with Alexa Voice Remote (included) or free Fire TV Remote App (available for download on Fire, Android, and iOS)

Game Controller Support

Yes, optimised for Amazon Fire Game Controller, compatible with Nyko PlayPad Pro and other Bluetooth controllers

Yes, optimised for Amazon Fire TV Game Controller and most games are compatible with other Bluetooth controllers

Cloud Storage

All Amazon Cloud Drive customers start with 5 GB of free storage

Free cloud storage for all Amazon content

Ports

1 Type A HDMI 1.4b output, w/HDCP 1.4
1 Micro USB for power only

HDMI output, Micro-USB for power only

Audio

Dolby Digital Plus certified, audio pass through up to 7.1

Dolby Audio, 5.1 surround sound, 2ch stereo, and HDMI audio pass-through up to 7.1

Content Formats Supported

Video: H.264
Audio: AAC-LC, AC3, eAC3 (Dolby Digital Plus), FLAC, MP3, PCM/Wave, Vorbis
Photo: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP

Video: H.264 1080p30H.265 1080p30,
Audio: AAC-LC, HE-AACv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (eAAC+), AC3 (Dolby Digital), eAC3 (Dolby Digital Plus), FLAC, MIDI, MP3, PCM/Wave, Vorbis, AMR-NB, AMR-WB
Photo: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP

Output Resolution Supported

720p and 1080p up to 60fps

720p and 1080p up to 60fps

   

 

The all-new Amazon Fire TV Stick is priced at £39.99 in the UK. It can be pre-ordered now for free delivery shortly after release on Thursday 6th April.



HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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I use a different remote for my fire TV now, but the voice search was very good when I used the bundled remote.
It's a shame it's not 4K yet, perhaps for the next gen.
Kushan
It's a shame it's not 4K yet, perhaps for the next gen.

I imagine it's not 4k at least in part because it's wireless (the Fire TV has ethernet and is 4k,) and most peoples routers simply don't have the bandwidth.
spacein_vader
Kushan
It's a shame it's not 4K yet, perhaps for the next gen.

I imagine it's not 4k at least in part because it's wireless (the Fire TV has ethernet and is 4k,) and most peoples routers simply don't have the bandwidth.
My Samsung TV is perfectly capable of streaming 4K content from Amazon Prime wirelessly, and 802.11n at that.

Edit: TV is 802.11ac, but my router is only 802.11n.