Amazon’s new streaming device ‘Fire TV Stick’ to take on Google’s Chromecast

Last week you might have heard that Amazon has pulled the plug on its Fire Phone -- after quarters of disappointing performance. But that dosen’t seems to deter Bezos and team from getting their hands dirty with a hardware play. Today Amazon has debuted yet another product called Fire TV Stick to directly compete with the likes of Chromecast, RokuPlayer and the Matchstick that was developed on Mozilla's open-source Firefox OS.

Here are the specs of the device. So on paper, the Fire TV Stick has plenty of bells and whistles to make it competitive in a market that is dominated by Chrome and RokuPlayer till date.

Fire TV Stick is a very ambitious attempt and bet on streaming media delivery. Will the consumers vote it with the money in their wallet is something; we need to wait and see! Amazon is launching Fire TV Stick just in time for the holiday shopping season.

In addition it also provides a voice search via a remote control that a user need to buy separately.

“Fire TV Stick is the most powerful streaming media stick available—a dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, dual-band and dual-antenna Wi-Fi, included remote control, voice search with our free mobile app, easy set-up, an open ecosystem, and exclusive features like ASAP for instant streaming,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “The team has packed an unbelievable amount of power and selection into an incredible price point—Fire TV Stick is just $39.”

Amazon is providing SDK for developers to submit apps for Fire TV stickAmazon has positioned their product as a competitor of Chromecast, but in reality the Amazon stick is more of a competitor to their own Fire TV and Apple TV, because it not merely about just casting media from your android phone.

Price wise Fire TV stick higher by $10, where as Chromecast is $35, while it's still cheaper than RokuPlay ($50). Amazon said the Fire TV Stick will ship on Nov. 19. Those of you have got relatives with Prime Membership will get it cheaper as Amazon is offering a temporary $20 discount. Currently Fire TV Stick is available to US customers.

Btw, we’ve homegrown desi Chromecast. Have you heard of Teewe? #MakeInIndia