absurdly smart for how cheap it is

In Spain we have more options to turn your television into smart. On the one hand we have premium options such as the Apple TV or Nvidia Shield, while on the other hand we find excessively cheap products, such as Amazon’s Fire TV Stick Lite, the latest device from the company on the way.

After trying the Amazon Echo, it’s time to try the Fire TV Stick Lite, the new generation of Amazon devices that can turn your old TV into a smart TV. It is now much faster and even cheaper. What does it promise?

An unchanged design, but it works

The first thing we discover when we open the Fire TV Stick box is a remote control, a power supply, some kind of HDMI extension cable and the device that we will connect to the TV. If you already knew the Fire TV, you will realize that it is exactly the same as the previous generation. If you’ve never seen this device before, it will look like a file USB pendrive very big.

Inside this device is everything you need to make your TV smart, integrating a quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal memory, enough to install most video applications in streaming.

As we see in the image, the device in addition to being connected to the TV needs power through a microUSB port. We can connect it to the power charger that came with the device or to your TV’s USB port if available. In case you bet on this mode, remember that when the TV is off the Fire TV also turns off, so you will have to wait for the system to boot up every time you turn on the TV.

More powerful, faster and better

Once the device is connected, we will find our Amazon system. It is based on Android, although it has been fully customized by Amazon to offer its television experience.

As in the rest of Amazon products, we do not have the Google Play Store, but the Amazon application store. Although the device includes several pre-installed applications, we can download virtually any application available in the store. Most streaming services are available, such as YouTube, Netflix, Disney + or Spotify, as well as TV channels such as Spanish television and other channels like Atres Player. In our daily life we ​​have not found a service among the most used that is on Android TV and not on Fire TV.

One of the biggest added values ​​in the Fire TV Stick Lite is, like the rest of the devices in its family, the integration with the Amazon Echo. Although the remote is ready to work with Alexa, with a dedicated button and microphone, we also have the option of using the Amazon Echo you have in your room (if you have one).

What is it for? Well, it offers us the possibility to use the TV hands-free, to be able to turn it on, off, ask you to turn the volume up or down or to open a certain series on Netflix. Voice control can be improved, but it can be useful for those times when you can’t find the remote. Or why make fun of us when you know exactly where it is but don’t want to get off the couch.

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The software is designed to get the most out of Amazon Prime Video, being a great recommendation for having the Amazon subscription. The company is not only betting on its own content, but has gradually added local content to its catalog, with more Spanish series. There are new ones, others that have been around for a while and I don’t deny that my biggest use of Prime Video is watching No One Live Here or Aida, the series are a lot of fun (no matter when you read this).

And what about Lite?

But let’s get to the heart of the matter. If it is a Lite product Should it be worse than the regular Fire TV Stick?

Well, curiously not, and it is that like its big brother, this model includes the new hardware that offers 50% more performance than the previous generation, both are ready to work at a maximum resolution of 1080p FullHD and are compatible with Dolby Atmos and are compatible with HDR, HDR 10+ and HLG content. After analyzing both next generation Fire TV Sticks, they are exactly the same devices.

Reading the remote control the only difference.

The standard model remote control includes buttons to control the volume and turn the TV on or off. This allows that if the TV will be used exclusively for Fire TV, we only have to use the Amazon remote control, while in the Lite model we will have to do these two actions with the traditional television remote control (or by asking Alexa).

I buy?

While we’ve mostly mentioned the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite, the truth is that most aspects can apply to the standard Fire TV as well. Both models are exactly the same except for the differences we mentioned in the command, the rest of the experience is exactly the same.

The difference between one model and another is 10 euros, so it’s very easy to assess how valuable it is to be able to control the volume and turn the TV on and off from the Fire TV Stick’s remote. 10 euros is not something that weighs a lot, so if in doubt you can always opt for the cheaper model. You pay almost 10 euros to have one remote control around instead of two.

But in the end it is not that it is of great importance, especially considering that in these days of Black Friday, the Fire TV Stick Lite has dropped to 19.99 euros. For less than 20 euros you have a device very complete. It is not that it is a crazy reduction (its official price is 29.99 euros) but it breaks the psychological barrier of 20 euros, becoming a purchase that does not have much to increase. Whether it’s for you or as a gift, it’s great.