Amazon’s Chromecast competitor, the Fire TV Stick, has now begun to ship.
According to Amazon, the pre-order buzz for the new device was the most impressive the company has ever seen.
“Fire TV Stick has been our most successful device launch ever,” said Dave Limp, Senior Vice President, Amazon Devices. “We built a ton of these, but customer demand still outpaced our supply. We’re excited by the overwhelming customer response and the team is working hard to build more as quickly as possible.”
Amazon first announced the Fire TV Stick late last month, It’s a few dollars more than Google’s Chromecast ($39 vs $35) – but Amazon sold it at a lower price point to Prime subscribers. Once you plug it in to your TV, It’s controlled by a separate remote or by the Fire TV remote smartphone app.
Like its competitors, the Fire TV stick offers access to all the most popular content providers – Netflix, Hulu Plus, Watch ESPN, etc. It isn’t launching with HBO Go access, however, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s followed Amazon product launches of the past few months. April saw Amazon launch its original Fire TV (set-top box) without an HBO Go app.
Image via Amazon