Home Reviews ,,,,, As soon as it arrived on Amazon.it, we were able to resist only a few days before sliding our finger on the Buy button and then doing a review of the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition from Amazon, on sale for 59.99 euros. The product is not new and it is not even the best version on the market (there is the 4K model which has not yet been marketed in our country), however the 20 euro discount for Amazon Prime subscribers combined with the new promotion it gives 10 euros of credit to those who make a top-up of at least 20 euros with the new Amazon Top-up in Cashier system have definitely convinced us, allowing us to buy it at half the list price.
Amazon Review Fire TV Stick Basic Edition, we start from the box
Contrary to what Amazon has accustomed us with the e-readers of the Kindle series, the accessories sector is really complete. In addition to the stick with HDMI socket supplied, we find the remote control for remote control and two AmazonBasics AAA batteries to power it, an HDMI extension to connect the stick with televisions where the HDMI socket is positioned in an inconvenient area, a microUSB cable and the relative 1A charger for the power supply and the user manual with the guarantee booklet.
How it's made
Aesthetically, the key is very simple, with a square body and totally in black satin plastic, the same that characterizes most of Amazon's products (to the touch it closely resembles the shell of the basic version of the Kindle). Excluding the HDMI socket, it measures 8.5 x 2.8 x 1.2 centimeters.
Below is the unboxing video which also shows you the connection possibilities.
On the other hand, the remote control is more refined, with a rounded and very manageable shell. It measures about 11.7 x 4 x 1.2 centimeters and provides two rows of buttons: the first three respectively allow you to return to the previous screen, to the Home and open the context menu of the selected object, the second row instead is dedicated to multimedia playback with the Play / Pause, Next and Back buttons. There is also a circular ring useful for moving around the menus and a large central button to give Ok to the selected items.
How does it work
First of all we specify that the key needs power supply. Probably with the latest generation TVs the integrated USB output should be sufficient to power the stick without placing it alongside the power supply, however we point out that in our test the USB socket of the TV at our disposal did not deliver enough energy (1A) to power it sufficiently, forcing us to use it in combination with the supplied power supply.
At the first connection it will be necessary to follow the short instructions on the screen to update the software and configure the stick, subsequently entering the data of the home WiFi network. Having been purchased with our account, the key asked us if we wanted to configure it with the same: in the case of a gift, however, it is possible to follow the manual procedure to configure it with another account.
The whole process takes no more than 5 minutes (a lot also depends on the speed of your network connection), after which you will be immediately in front of the main screen. On subsequent uses, booting will take no more than 15 seconds.
Inside Fire TV Stick
It goes without saying that everything revolves around Amazon Prime Video. This is in fact the first app that is reported on the main screen, which begins by showing the highlighted content with a slideshow at the top of the page. The second line of the home shows the installed applications, with Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube and other more popular video streaming services and marked with a bubble to install them in one click, without having to search for them.
The latter is in fact the first – and currently only – problem of the current version of the Fire TV: there is no “Search” option to be able to find and install new applications, which can only be found by browsing the following lines of the homepage – which offers a selection of featured apps – or by browsing the various categories through the appropriate section of the menu.
Although, as we said, the current version lacks the search from the Fire TV, it is still possible to search for applications manually using the computer browser. Just open this page and type the name of the desired app. But it is not enough because there is another problem: there is no “download” button, so until Amazon updates the page of the Italian store it will not be possible to download the apps following this path. We found the solution in the American version of the store.
By going here we will be able to search for apps and download them with a click: they will be associated with our account and automatically downloaded to the Fire TV paired with it. It is certainly not the fastest and most intuitive system but at the moment it is the only way to manually search and install applications on the stick at least for those who do not have another Android system available.
American store 
search within the store 
download a 'app
For the rest, moving around the screens is still very easy and the user experience is very close to that of any Android TV.
On the upper area of the main screen there is the Settings item which allows you to access the relevant panel with a tab for Notifications (it is perhaps located in a somewhat awkward position but the need to interact with notifications is practically non-existent … not it's not a smartphone!) and other specific sections to adjust the settings of WiFi, screen, sounds, apps, controllers (it is also possible to configure third-party controllers via Bluetooth) and other preferences, such as Parental Control, account data and little else.
Amazon Prime Video
It goes without saying that buying the new Fire TV Stick makes particular sense if you have an Amazon Prime subscription. Only with the latter is it possible to access the Amazon Prime Video app and be able to enjoy the entire catalog of Amazon films and TV series. It is not very rich in content, in reality: for subscribers just install the Prime Video app on their smartphone or tablet to be able to take a look at the catalog and get an idea of what will then be found on the TV by purchasing the stick.
Using the app is still a pleasure: it's snappy, fluid, looking for a movie and starting it is a matter of a few clicks. The streaming is good and in our tests we only suffered a couple of times with slight buffering, with a few seconds freezing when playing a movie. It must be said that this is not attributable to the stick but depends on the connection in use and in our case, in addition to not having a very fast connection, at that time we had four other devices connected to the network that were surfing the Internet.
Install third party applications? You can!
For those wondering: yes, you can install third party applications. However, it is necessary to access the Settings, go to Developer Options and allow the installation of external software. Amazon does not allow this by default to avoid malfunctions and in what we are about to tell you we do not take responsibility for any damage to the TV stick.
Despite being based on Android, the Fire TV Stick does not have the Play Store but it is still possible to visit the site of any .apk and install them manually. An example is RaiPlay, one of our most desired apps to finally be able to go home on Saturday night and postpone the viewing of the episodes of “Ulysses: The Pleasure of Discovery” on the big screen to another day. As our screenshots show we can confirm that the app works and also very well, offering the same user interface that we find in any Android TV.
On the Internet there are also dozens of guides that explain how to install alternative App Stores and which in fact allow you to manually search and install any application that we find on the Play Store in a flash. It is fair to point out that the latter method is not supported by Amazon and, although it works (we tried it) it could lead to some malfunction of the stick, therefore we are not responsible for any failure or damage of the same in case you decide to follow one of the many methods mentioned on the net.
Games
There are also several games that can be played directly with the remote control. We tried Asphalt, one of the most popular, and that we were most interested in trying as it has rather demanding graphics and allowed us to squeeze the processor of the stick well. Moving around the menu is actually a bit tricky, with pretty noticeable latency, but as soon as you start a race everything becomes very smooth and apparently optimized for the Fire TV Stick's processor.
For those aiming at gaming with this stick, however, we recommend combining a Bluetooth joypad compatible with Android: the remote control can certainly work but the experience of using a dedicated controller will certainly give greater satisfaction.
Mirroring of iPhone, iPad and Mac on Fire TV Stick
With the method to search and download apps via your computer's browser described above, type “airplay” and download the AirPlay Mirror Receiver app. There is both the trial version (here the direct link to the American store), which can be used free of charge for 15 minutes, and the paid version (here the link) which will guarantee you unlimited use of the app.
There are several applications that allow you to mirror the iPhone and iPad screen via AirPlay on the Fire TV but the one just mentioned (we have tried several) is actually the only one that works really well and with a minimum delay (a few milliseconds) between two devices. Below we show you some photos of our test:
You can watch on the big screen practically everything that appears on the display of iOS and Mac devices: from the main screen to the photos in the roll of film, to the videos to the music, with the transfer of the audio stream directly to the TV (or to the stereo system connected to it ). Given the reasonable but evident lag, the system is not on par with the response speed and versatility of Apple TV but will still be able to help you when you need to make a presentation, even of a professional type from iOS or Mac.
Remote control on iPhone with an app
Can't find the remote control? Don't worry, you can get a copy at no cost thanks to the iPhone app, available for free on the App Store (click here). In addition to faithfully replicating the same buttons as the remote, it offers a few more virtual buttons for quick access to installed apps on the Fire TV and on-screen keyboard, much more convenient if you want to type a search without scrolling, letter by letter, on the keyboard printed on the TV with the original remote.
The remote control app also has an additional feature that will come in handy when Alexa arrives in our country. You can also use your smartphone as a voice input system to access the contents of the Fire Stick TV on the screen and control the connected Alexa devices.
Conclusions
Buy Amazon's Fire TV Stick? Yes, especially if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, it's the logical choice to have all of Amazon's movies and TV series on the big screen. Even for those who have Netflix it can be an economical solution, especially if you take advantage of the discount mentioned at the beginning of the article and which we will mention again in the following paragraph.
We personally believe that there are better products to play, but if your main goal is to enjoy streaming video content on your TV, then this stick can be a worthy competitor to the Google Chromecast, both in price and performance.
Retail price
Amazon Fire TV Stick Basic Edition is on sale on Amazon.it at a price of 59.99 euros. For Prime subscribers there is currently the offer that allows you to buy it with a discount of 20 euros, so for only 39.99 euros. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, by taking advantage of the current promotion “10 euros free to those who top up at least 20 euros with Top-up in Cashier” you can save an additional 10 euros and pay practically half: only 29.99 euros.
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