When the Fire TV was launched, it seemed that Amazon had just gone a step ahead of Apple in the streaming box department.
However, both the set-top box had various shortcomings. The Fire TV set top box had officially made a transition to an app streaming set top box. The Amazon Fire TV gave a tough challenge to the Apple TV ecosystem. The Fire TV is the last to be released in the set top box arena. The established Apple TV along with other few streaming boxes have been updated a couple of times already. The Amazon Fire TV has to do a lot of work in order to catch up with Apple TV.
Let us see how Fire TV stacks up against the already established Apple TV.
Features
- Design â Streaming media players are available in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The best part about these products is they all come in relatively small sizes that blend easily with black televisions. The Amazon Fire TV streaming box is a little wider and longer. The Fire TV has a low profile of 0.07 inches. The box is square with 4.5 inches x 4.5 inches of length and breadth respectively. The Apple TV has dimensions measuring 0.91 inches high and 3.9 inches x 3.9 inches of length and breadth respectively. Both are small boxes and can easily fit into the media cabinet.
- Remote â Amazon Fire TV caters the users with a state of the art remote that incorporates a microphone for voice exploration. Searching for a movie, show title, your favorite actor or a genre you wish to explore on the Amazonâs Fire TV is much easier in comparison to the Apple TV. It is more or less like talking to your remote. There is difference in the location of buttons on the remote. The Fire TV has more buttons on the remote than the Apple TV. The Apple TV remote is small and a nightmare. You can lose it easily. However, the problem can be rectified with a Bluetooth keyboard. The Apple TV remote has to be pointed directly in line with the set top box, in order to communicate with the box. However, the Fire TV remote does not need to be lined up against the set top box to communicate.
- Apps â The streaming media player without a huge collection of apps is of no use to its users. The Amazon Fire TV was launched with just 5 apps. However, the updated version of Fire TV has around two dozen apps, some of which overlap with its counterparts. The Apple TV has around 100 apps.
Specs
The Amazon TV has three times the processing power in comparison to the Apple TV. The Amazon Fire TV has four times the memory in comparison to the 512MB memory of the Apple TV. The Fire TV has 2GB RAM. The Apple TV runs on iOS operating system with interface similar to its predecessors.
Price
Both the Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV are priced at $99 each.
Those who are planning to purchase a set top box should consider Fire TV. However, there is not much about the Amazonâs ecosystem to stand out against its competitors.
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