Amazon Fire TV Stick with the Alexa voice remote control review

In the article that was about my Favorite apps on my smartphone I briefly mentioned that I started to watch more series. So I don't have to watch all the series on my smartphone or laptop, I bought the Fire TV Stick with the voice remote control from Amazon for Christmas. My test report.

Appearance

As the name suggests, the Fire TV Stick looks like a real stick. The logo of the company itself is on the top, while the bottom is blank. Apart from a microUSB connection for power, there is nothing else on the sides. Unfortunately, the Fire TV Stick does not have a built-in battery, so it must always be connected to the aforementioned connection together with the supplied power cable and a socket.

In my case, the design of the stick had one disadvantage: My HDMI port, which is used to connect the device to the television, is on the back. Therefore I had to use an HDMI extension supplied by Amazon to connect the stick without spaceproto be able to infect.

Remote Control

The Fire TV Stick comes with a remote control for use. In this generation of the stick, it is the Alexa voice remote control. To call up Alexa, you have to hold down the button at the top of the remote control. Then you can search for things like apps, films or series. You can also use the Alexa app on your smartphone to add smart home products and control them via the TV. I couldn't test this because I don't have any Alexa-compatible products at home. Unfortunately, the microphones built into the remote control left nothing to be desired for me; Alexa always understood my instructions without any problems.

This is the Alexa voice remote control (Image: © TechnikNews 2018)

In my opinion, the remote control itself lies very comfortably in the hand thanks to its rounded design. Unfortunately, the keys are not made that well, which is mainly noticeable in the fact that they do not really feel comfortable when pressed. I also missed a button for a multitasking menu.

You don't necessarily need the remote control to operate the Fire TV Stick. You can also easily send content to the stick using the cast function. The only requirement: smartphone and stick must be connected to the same WLAN. With the Prime Video app from Amazon itself, the whole thing worked for me proflawless, but I can't say the same about trying to stream series via the Netflix app in my case.

Remote app

I often find that I simply can't find the remote control for my TV. The Amazon Remote App solves this problem. The app is available for free in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. When you open it for the first time, the app immediately searches for Fire TV Sticks that are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

As soon as both devices have found each other, the connection only takes a few seconds. Then you can control your Fire TV Stick via your smartphone. The app has an additional function compared to the normal remote control: You can start all apps installed on the stick directly via a menu item without going through menus. This benefited me a few times during my test period. It is also possible to use the smartphone's keyboard via the app to enter text in search fields or password fields.

Offal and software

A Mediatek 8127D with a Mali 450 GPU works in the Fire TV Stick. The internal memory on which apps can be installed is 8GB and cannot be expanded. The RAM is equipped with 1GB, so it's pretty small. Bluetooth 4.1 was also installed. This can be used to connect wireless headphones, for example. But you have to note that if you are connected to a 2,4Ghz WLAN during this time, the resolution of the videos can decrease. You can work around this by connecting the stick to a 5Ghz WLAN.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick can play videos up to a resolution of 1080p. That was enough for me. However, if you own a television that supports a higher resolution, you should invest in something newer Fire TV think that supports 4K playback.

Fire OS 5 was installed as software. This should be based on Android, but there are no things like the Play Store. In my opinion, the UI hardly resembles Android. In general, the operating system is very confusing for my taste at the beginning, but you can find your way around pretty quickly. In my opinion, the performance was sufficiently okay in most situations. Apps and videos all started at a comfortable pace. Quite often I noticed stuttering during operation. These didn't affect the experience very much, but it's still unpleasant. Gaming is basically possible with the stick, but larger titles like Asphalt 8 should be played on your smartphone or tablet.

Apps

Apps and games are a big part of Fire OS. Amazon's entertainment apps, such as Prime Video or Music Unlimited, are already installed from the factory. In the store you can also find things like Spotify, Netflix, the PRO7 app, Zattoo and games such as Hill Climb Racing or Asphalt 8. The YouTube app is unfortunately missing due to the dispute between Google and Amazon, but you can still access the service via the Firefox browser or the Silk browser. Nevertheless, I think that most people, like me, will be fine with this selection.

Opinion and conclusion

Let's start with one category that is most likely to start evaluating the Fire TV Stick: Video Streaming. In my opinion, the stick can do that pretty well. Playback of videos worked for me at any time without delays or crashes. As for the video quality, I always saw the full 1080p. And that even though my WLAN is positioned quite far away. As already mentioned, the quality of the stream usually only decreases if you use Bluetooth headphones while connected to a 2,4GHz WLAN.

There is no shortage of apps for streaming on Fire OS, and the range is even broader than with a Chromecast - the latter does not support Prime Video. For people who only use Netflix anyway, this is of course not a problem. The only thing that really bothered me in the video streaming category is that the cast function with the Netflix app did not work on my smartphone. I cannot say whether this is due to the stick or my smartphone.

Move on to the next category: Operating System and Performance. When I bought the Fire TV Stick, I only had a rough idea of ​​what to expect from the Fire OS operating system. My first real impression of the OS was unfortunately not really the best, as everything looked pretty chaotic at first glance. But over time I found my way around well. I found the performance just okay now, as there were small stutters quite often. But I was not massively affected by it.

The penultimate category with which I rate the stick are apps. There are more than enough of them, at least it was like that in my case. There are apps from pretty much every provider for streaming videos: From Netflix to Hulu to Kodi to Plex, everything is included. There are also games like Hill Climb Racing or Asphalt 8, but I would keep my hands off Asphalt 8 because you can't play it properly with the Fire TV Stick. By far the thing that bothered me the most was that the YouTube app is no longer available for the stick because of the dispute between Google and Amazon. I really don't understand that.

And now to the last category: accessories. This includes the remote control and the associated remote app. I was very satisfied with the remote control and the built-in microphones for Alexa, except for the processing of the buttons. I have also come to appreciate the Remote App very much: simple setup and easy handling, that's the best way to do it with all apps.

Prices, availability and alternatives

The Amazon Fire TV Stick costs only 40 € in most cases, which in my opinion is really not much for such a device. You can buy it at Amazon directly and in electronics stores such as MediaMarkt and Saturn. As an alternative, there is the Chromecast from Google, but, as already mentioned, this does not support the Prime Video app.