Google's Nexus Player is currently on sale at Amazon, with a price of only $77 compared to its original price of $100.
Purchasing the Nexus Player from Amazon also entitles the customer to a credit of $20 that can be used on the Google Play Store. Customers can use their credit to purchase games, applications or movies.
The Android TV-powered Nexus Player, manufactured in partnership with Asus, is a great option for a streaming content device and is a challenger in the market against Apple's version of the device, Apple TV.
The $77 Nexus Player package in Amazon, however, is only the basic model which comes with the streaming set top box's remote. For customers that wish to purchase the Nexus Player along with its official Gamepad, they will have to shell out an extra $40.
Customers that have been looking to acquire a streaming set top box or the Nexus Player in particular should grab this opportunity to purchase the device. The additional Google Play credit is an added bonus to allow the user to get into using the Nexus Player right away.
Google recently uploaded the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop factory image for the Nexus Player onto the Nexus factory images page of the Google Developers website. Customers can choose to install the most recent version of Google's operating system to the Nexus Player through the factory images or wait for Google to push out Android 5.1.1 Lollipop through an over-the-air update, which is much easier and simpler than installing using factory images.
A comparison between the Nexus Player and the Apple TV reveals that both devices are very simple in their designs, allowing them to be inconspicuously placed near the user's TV. Both devices also feature 8GB of storage and an HDMI output.
The Nexus Player packs a 1.8 GHz Intel Atom processor with 1GB of RAM, compared to the outdated A5 processor and 512MB of RAM of the Apple TV. However, it should be noted that the next-generation Apple TV device is expected to be released later this year, which could mean that Apple's offering would receive an upgrade to these specifications soon.
One of the major draws of the Nexus Player compared to the Apple TV is its gaming capabilities, with the streaming set top box featuring a dedicated controller for games. This means that all games on Google Play that can support controller input can be launched on the Nexus Player. The Apple TV, on the other hand, can only stream games from an iPhone or iPad.
