E-commerce giant Amazon has reportedly begun shipping its $39 Fire TV Stick to US customers on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Unfortunately those, who pre-ordered the streaming device in the last few days or want to order it now, will have to wait a little longer as Amazon has confirmed it won’t be able to provide devices for new orders until January 15, 2015.
“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.”
Just to recap, the $39 Fire TV Stick, claimed to be as “the most powerful streaming media stick,” plugs directly into a TV set’s HDMI port to stream content and play video games. Powered by a dual-core processor, the new streaming device features 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage, and dual-band/dual-antenna MIMO Wi-Fi.
Users will be able to control the device using a remote control, a smartphone, or voice control through an app. Amazon claims that the new Fire TV Stick offers 50 percent more processing power than Google’s Chromecast, along with double the memory and 32 times more storage.
According to Amazon the new device will let users access Amazon’s own video-on-demand and music services and third party apps including Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, NBA Game Time, Twitch, SHOWTIME ANYTIME, Prime Music, Spotify, Pandora, Vevo, Plex, A&E, PBS, PBS KIDS, WATCH Disney Channel, YouTube.com and more.
The Fire Stick also features the “Fling” technology, which will let users switch between viewing content on their televisions and Fire Phone or Fire tablet, as well as wireless mirroring from both compatible Amazon products and those that support Miracast.
Amazon’s Fire TV stick has a lot of rivals to compete with including Google’s Chromecast, Apple’s Apple TV, Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter and the Roku Streaming Stick.
There’s no word on the device’s UK launch yet.
