Amazon has just released the Amazon Fire TV ($99) and like most of these boxes only time will tell whether or not it’ll be an Apple TV killer. But for now we can take a look at the specs and see how things stack up.
The Amazon Fire TV comes with a video resolution of 1080p, a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor, 2GB memory, screen mirroring via Kindle Fire HDX, a remote with voice search, and an optional Amazon Fire Game Controller ($40).
Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon Instant Video are available, but if you like HBO programming you might be out of luck as HBO Go isn’t currently on the menu. It also comes installed with Plex for streaming local content, but if you’re like me you’re waiting to see what the forums come up with for XBMC support. Because it’s an Android based OS there shouldn’t be a reason why XBMC won’t eventually be functional on this unit.
As I mentioned earlier Fire TV has an optional game controller and Amazon is working with game developers to bring in game content. Right now they have about 100 available with a price of about $1.85 for each game. They hope to have thousands in the near future. Time will tell how Fire TV stacks up, but right now the hardware specs and programming offerings looks pretty, except for HBO Go. That would’ve seemed like a now brainer.
