Amazon announced the next generation of its Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick Thursday. The main feature of this new Amazon Fire TV is that it will now support 4K Ultra HD. The Fire TV Stick now has a voice remote that allows users to search for content as well as receive general information from Alexa.
With support for 4K content from Prime Video, Amazon Video and Netflix, Amazon says the new Fire TV will provide access to more 4K Ultra HD movies than any other streaming media player. The new Fire TV also comes with 75 percent more processing power than the first generation of the device launched last year. It also includes a MediaTek 64-bit quad-core processor, dedicated GPU and four times the memory of the latest generation Chromecast and Roku, according to Amazon. The new Amazon Fire TV will also now offer more storage through a microSD card slot for up to 128 GB in addition to the 8 GB of storage on the device.
If you're feeling a bit of deja vu about the new voice remote feature for the Fire TV Stick, that's probably because its unveiling comes just a week after Apple announced a new Apple TV remote with Siri integration at its special event on Sept. 9. The new voice remote is very similar in that it allows users to speak the name of a movie, TV show, actor, director or genre. Users can also ask Alexa for information about the weather, sports scores, traffic, music and more using the voice remote. The Fire TV Stick is the only streaming stick with a built-in voice remote, according to Amazon. The new Fire TV will also come with this built-in support for Alexa.
The new Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick are both available for preorder now. The new Fire TV will retail for $99.99 and begin shipping Oct. 5. The new Fire TV Stick will retail for $49.99 and start shipping Oct. 22.
