Amazon has been on a hardware blitz this week. As well as new Kindle readers, the company is rejigging the Fire TV Stick video streaming line-up.
Out with the old Fire TV Stick and the Fire TV Stick Lite and in with the new Fire TV Stick HD to streamline the product offering.
So, if you’re shopping at the entry-level for a plug-in TV streamer here’s the difference between Lite version being phased out and the new Fire TV Stick HD.
Grab a tenner off the new Kindle Paperwhite
The Kindle Paperwhite (2024) is hot off the production line and Currys is offering £10 off the asking price
- Currys
- RRP: £159.99
- Sale price: £149.99
The Fire TV Stick HD raises the entry level price
With the Lite version being phased out, this does push the entry-level up slightly. The Fire TV HD costs £39.99/$34.99, which is up £5/$5 on the starting price for the Lite version.
However, that’ll likely become negligible come Black Friday when Amazon usually heavily discounts its own-branded hardware. Don’t buy this now. Wait a month. Trust us.
There’s a new Alexa Remote
That price increase is compensated for in the shape of an Alexa Voice Remote, which still enables you to control the Fire TV interface with your voice, but now includes physical controls for TVs power and volume button.
That voice support will also help you manage your Alexa-compatible smart home devices while giving you insight into the weather forecast, news and more.
Similar internals
Beyond that, there isn’t much in the way of updated tech. You’ll get up to 1080p with HDR10+ and HLG for high dynamic range (no Dolby Vision, sorry). There’s a 1.7GHz quad-core processor with 8GB of storage and Wi-Fi 5. While it plugs into your HDMI port of your TV, the bundled power cable is still microUSB rather than USB-C. Strange.
