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Fire TV Stick: First Impressions

22K views 88 replies 21 participants last post by  CegAbq 
#1 ·
Opened up. It has a sleeve (upper left), the Fire TV Stick and remote in a little tray, and underneath the quick start guide, the USB cable, batteries and HDMI port extender.

 
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#3 ·
SeymourKopath said:
Thanks for that peek inside the box. ;) I have a quick question (to start): How long is the USB cable? Thanks again.
The USB cable, which plugs into the provided power adapter (updated my OP to include that), is just shy of 5 ft (60 inches) long by my measuring, including ends.

Betsy
 
#4 ·
OK, the Stick comes with an HDMI extender if your HDMI port is hard to reach.  I didn't use mine, but it's a handy thing to have.  I may plug my extended into a different TV down in the studio that may be more difficult to reach so that I can move the Fire TV between the two TVs if I need to.

You plug the Stick into the port and then, using the USB cable and adapter, into a power source.  Change to the input for the HDMI port you used.  The Stick is 2 1/4" long and 1 5/8" wide.

Install the batteries in the remote.  (These steps are in the Quick Start guide that comes with your device.)  The remote has a five-way controller (circle for selecting up, down, left, right and an OK/select button in the middle.  It also has a back, home and menu button and rewind, play/pause and fast forward buttons.  It's similar to the Roku remote I have.  It's about 4 1/4 inches long, 1 1/8 inches wide.

On screen, you should see the Fire TV Stick splash screen.  Then, it will look for the remote and ask you to press the play/pause button on the remote to be connected.

Next, you will need to connect to your WiFi network using the onscreen keyboard.  You use the five-way controller ring to move among the letters and press button in the center of the ring to say "OK" and select the letters.  Pretty straightforward.

Once it connects to the network it will tell you it needs to update the software.  After a bit, I got a message that it could not install the software and to unplug the USB power cable for a few seconds. 

I unplugged, counted to ten, plugged it in again and started over.  Splash screen, press button on remote, it connected to my network.

Finished download, installed, device restarted (you get messages onscreen telling you all this), software finished installing.  It asked me to select my network again and enter the password again.  Except that this time, I didn't finish entering the password before it connected, so perhaps I could have just waited to see if it connected to the network.  I did notice that the onscreen keyboard was slightly different than the first time, so that's part of the new firmware.

A cute video giving you the overview of the Fire TV Stick options plays.

So, you get to the home screen.  Along the left side is a column with various categories of content--video (you can watch the introductory video again from here), games, music, photos (that's a summary, it's more detailed).  Once you select a category, you can see the content under that category.  There's a separate menu item for Prime Video and then various categories of video available on Amazon--TV, movies, etc.  You can rent video, or buy it using the device.

I don't know if this is the same menu/home screen you get on Fire TV.  Perhaps Leslie or someone else that has both can weigh in.

The only thing so far that I can see that allows a download is games.  Some of the games apparently require the Amazon game controller.  I haven't tried any games yet, after the one I tried last night required the game controller.

The music works quite well; it shows the music in your Amazon library, Prime Music or purchased and you can select individual songs or start an album playing at the beginning. The music will keep playing if you go back to home to look at other options.  On the songs I tried, the lyrics would appear on the screen when I had the music in full screen mode.  When it finished the song, it automatically advanced to

I'm very happy with my Stick so far---very easy to use.  I fell asleep last night playing with it so I haven't done much with the games (other than try one that it said I needed the controller for).  I'm playing some Dylan music while I explore, in prep for the concert we're going to next Tuesday.  Did I mention he's from Hibbing, my mom's hometown?

So, if I can get the voice remote for my Fire tablet so I don't have to have two more remotes in addition to my tablets that are on the table anyway (one for changing the input and the Stick remote).

More as I play with it.

Looking forward to hearing others' first impressions!

Betsy
 
#5 ·
Betsy, thanks for the first impressions report. It's going to be tough waiting till mid-January for mine to come. Maybe they'll show up in stores for the holidays.

Would you mind doing a quick experiment for me to confirm the lack of downloading capability on the Stick?

First, on your Fire tablet, go to Prime Instant Videos and find a movie or tv show that has the download icon. No need to download it. Just make sure it can be downloaded.
Then, on your TV with the Stick installed, find the same movie or tv show and see if it has the download icon. If it does, select that icon and see if it does, in fact, download. If it doesn't have the download icon, then that pretty much confirms that we can't download videos to the Stick, even though the same video can be downloaded to a Fire tablet.

Thanks. I really appreciate it.
 
#6 ·
OK, will check.  Didn't see any download icons in Video though they were prominent in apps. And there was no mention of download capability of anything but apps in the user guide.

Doesn't mean it won't be added at some point in the future.

I'll do the specific check you've asked for in a little bit.
 
#7 ·
Seymour - I'm supposed to get my Stick today and I'm wondering the exact same thing.
I only have the original Fire so cannot d'l any Prime content that I haven't rented or purchases, so I'm really hoping I can d'l to the Stick.
 
#8 ·
While I'm looking at the possibilities of downloads on my Fire HDX for Carol and SeymourKopath, I noticed that it now says on Movie pages "Watch on TV Stick"  below the Watch Now (which would allow watching on the current device).  If you tap on the main part of the "Watch on TV Stick" button, it'll start playing immediately on the TV Stick.  And there's a dropdown menu button on the right that gives you options to Buy and watch on a device or Fire TV.

Back in a bit with more...

Betsy
 
#9 ·
CegAbq said:
Seymour - I'm supposed to get my Stick today and I'm wondering the exact same thing.
I only have the original Fire so cannot d'l any Prime content that I haven't rented or purchases, so I'm really hoping I can d'l to the Stick.
CeqAbq, The X Files tv show episodes can be downloaded to my Fire HD. That would be an example to check to see if it can be downloaded to the Stick. Thanks for testing this.
 
#10 ·
SeymourKopath said:
CeqAbq, The X Files tv show episodes can be downloaded to my Fire HD. That would be an example to check to see if it can be downloaded to the Stick. Thanks for testing this.
I tried downloading a movie I own, Gladiator. These are the screens on my Fire HDX and on the TV screen using Fire TV:

The first one clearly shows I can download the movie I own to my HDX.



The second one has no download options, though it clearly recognizes I own it (see upper right hand corner). Tapping "Watch Now" starts the video onscreen.



I also checked some TV shows that I downloaded to my HDX to take to England with me in September, so I know they worked. (And I checked, I can still download them to the HDX.)

Here's the screen for one of the episodes on Fire TV:



There were more watch options shown in the above pic. Selecting that brings up this screen, still no download options:



Since last night, I've been looking through all the information online and all of the screens on the Stick and the only thing I've seen any mention of downloading are games. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think so. :(

Now, if one can download to a Fire, presumably one could then mirror them to the Stick.

Betsy
 
#11 ·
To mirror, (menu options as on my Fire HDX):

Go to settings (swipe down from top to get menu bar)

Select Display and Sounds (down a little ways on the menu)

Select Display Mirroring.

If your Fire TV is plugged in and connected to your network, you should see it listed under Devices.  Tap on that and you'll get a message that it is connecting and the TV screen will say that mirroring is about to start.

Betsy
 
#12 ·
Betsy the Quilter said:
I tried downloading a movie I own, Gladiator. These are the screens on my Fire HDX and on the TV screen using Fire TV:

The first one clearly shows I can download the movie I own to my HDX

The second one has no download options, though it clearly recognizes I own it (see upper right hand corner).

I also checked some TV shows that I downloaded to my HDX to take to England with me in September, so I know they worked.

Here's the screen for one of the episodes on Fire TV:

There were more watch options shown in the above pic. Selecting that brings up this screen, still no download options:

Since last night, I've been looking through all the information online and all of the screens on the Stick and the only thing I've seen any mention of downloading are games. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think so. :(
Bummer. Thank you very much for checking that out. Maybe down the road, a future firmware update will add the downloading capability. One can always hope.

Now, if one can download to a Fire, presumably one could then mirror them to the Stick.
True. But my hope was with downloading to the Stick I could free up space on my Fire for other stuff, like Spotify music downloads. ;)
 
#13 ·
SeymourKopath said:
Bummer. Thank you very much for checking that out. Maybe down the road, a future firmware update will add the downloading capability. One can always hope.
True. But my hope was with downloading to the Stick I could free up space on my Fire for other stuff, like Spotify music downloads. ;)
Yeah, real bummer. I was hoping to be able to travel with Prime movies on the Stick that I hadn't purchased.

I think I remember that when the Fire HDs were first released, one could not download Prime content and then when the HDXs were released, Amazon allowed dl to the HDs as well but not to the original Fires.
So maybe they could decide to let movies be dl'd to the Stick eventually.

Ah well. Overall, it remains to be seen what use I'll have for this. As someone else said (maybe Ann) - the 2 that I ordered could well wind up being presents.
 
#14 ·
Bear in mind, at 8GB, there's not much storage for videos, even if you use SD quality.  Maybe enough for a few videos at SD.

Betsy
 
#16 ·
Totally think I have too many gadgets  :eek:.
Got my Fire Stick today and set it up this evening. (And yes, thank goodness for the Android Remote app).
To be honest  I haven't done a lot with it - just initial intro and looking around a bit, checked out my AIV watchlist, list of new Prime video content, etc.
Everything worked great and was easy to set up. (Still a bit bummed that I can't d'l some video content.)

BUT … my home has 2 smart TVs and a TiVo. I get all of the content from the Smart TVs that is available on the Stick. The TiVo has a partnership with Xfinity/Comcast (which is my ISP) and I can get everything that Xfinity offers on the smart TV that is connected to my TiVo box.

Now that one can also access Prime videos on Android tablets (of which I have too many), then I'm having to think about what the Stick gives me over the other "thingys". One thing I can think of is if I'm travelling somewhere & am with other people who also want to watch something, I could connect the Stick to their TV and access the content while away from home. … However, one of my high-resolution tablets has an HDMI-out port, so that could just be connected up instead of the Stick.

But I've got 2 daughters who might be able make some use of the Stick (Son already has a Chromecast).

We'll just have to see. But, again, I do think I have too many gadgets  :-\.
 
#17 ·
CegAbq said:
Totally think I have too many gadgets :eek:.
Got my Fire Stick today and set it up this evening. (And yes, thank goodness for the Android Remote app).
To be honest I haven't done a lot with it - just initial intro and looking around a bit, checked out my AIV watchlist, list of new Prime video content, etc.
Everything worked great and was easy to set up. (Still a bit bummed that I can't d'l some video content.)

BUT ... my home has 2 smart TVs and a TiVo. I get all of the content from the Smart TVs that is available on the Stick. The TiVo has a partnership with Xfinity/Comcast (which is my ISP) and I can get everything that Xfinity offers on the smart TV that is connected to my TiVo box.

Now that one can also access Prime videos on Android tablets (of which I have too many), then I'm having to think about what the Stick gives me over the other "thingys". One thing I can think of is if I'm travelling somewhere & am with other people who also want to watch something, I could connect the Stick to their TV and access the content while away from home. ... However, one of my high-resolution tablets has an HDMI-out port, so that could just be connected up instead of the Stick.

But I've got 2 daughters who might be able make some use of the Stick (Son already has a Chromecast).

We'll just have to see. But, again, I do think I have too many gadgets :-\.
You can also access Prime videos via the TiVo -- I've done so. So, like you, I'm not sure what good, really, the stick will be. I've not even taken it out of the box yet, actually. I'm thinking of giving it to the Boy for Christmas -- but he's got an old TV so I'm not sure it would even work. I don't know that he does much movie watching and I know he's got hundreds of thousands of songs on his iThings and via Pandora and Spotify. :(

Ah well. . . . it was only $20. I'd actually be amenable to selling it -- call it $25 to cover what it costs to mail it to you -- if anyone would prefer NOT to wait until January.
 
#20 ·
Daniel Cane said:
I like it, but there's one big flaw. The remote. It is so small that I have a hard time with it. I thought it was just me, but my wife has trouble too and her hands are small.

Anyone use the other remote with it? Is it bigger? Think it would be worth buying?
I'm not one of The Elect who has a Fire Stick (sounds like a black powder rifle!). But my understanding is that you can use an app on most recent Kindle Fires to control it. And probably some smart phones, but I don't know specifics.
 
#21 ·
I finally had time today to set mine up and I like it!  :) I added PBS and the History Channel apps-- I only subscribe to very basic cable with just the network stations, so it's great to have access to more channels for free. I haven't looked yet to see what all others are available as they are mixed in with a bunch of games. Might be easier to search Amazon with the browser on my computer than to keep scrolling through everything on the TV.

As for the size of the remote, it's fine for my hands (average sized).  I haven't looked into getting the Fire remote app yet. If someone gets it, please post if it's worth getting.
 
#23 ·
The Hooded Claw said:
I'm not one of The Elect who has a Fire Stick (sounds like a black powder rifle!). But my understanding is that you can use an app on most recent Kindle Fires to control it. And probably some smart phones, but I don't know specifics.
Yes there's a 'remote Fire Stick' app . . . . .different one for Fires and for android phones. App for iThings coming, apparently.
 
#24 ·
My FireTV Stick arrived today. I am sitting here and looking at the unopened box.

I have a Fire TV that I like, and use quite a bit. Is there anything the Stick can do different from the TV?

I will admit, I was one of the impulse $19 buyers and now I am wondering what I am going to do with this. At the moment, we only have one TV set up in the house. However, my daughter will be coming home from college soon and it might be worth it to set up a second TV with the Stick for her to use (and not take over our space all the time).

Comments and thoughts are welcome!

L
 
#25 ·
I picked up the Fire TV Stick from Best Buy this morning. Interesting experience there. I had ordered it last night for pick-up at the store today. I went to the designated service counter and the gentleman took my info and handed me my order. Nice and easy, right? As I'm walking around the store, I took a closer look at the package and realized I had been given an Amazon Fire TV (the separate box device)! I'm sure I could've walked out the store with it, but I wasn't going to do that, so I went back to the counter and ended up with the Stick I had ordered and paid for.

Next, I wanted to see where the Sticks were stocked. Found them near the wall display of TVs. In a stand-alone cardboard display with Amazon Fire TV Stick all over it were almost 50 units (I counted them). Then I got to thinking ... suppose every Best Buy in the US got 50 Sticks. I just checked and Best Buy has just over 1000 stores in the US

(http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MjYwMDUyfENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1).

That means Amazon sent Best Buy about 50,000 Sticks to sell from Day 1, while making individual customers wait almost 2 months if they wanted to get it directly from Amazon. That doesn't sit well with me.

On to the device itself. My wife and I found the battery compartment on the remote incredibly difficult to open so we could put the batteries in. We pushed and pulled and squeezed and prodded and finally got it open when she stuck a fingernail into the seam on the back of the remote while simultaneously pressing in both sides. I think I know my way around electronics pretty well, but this was ridiculous. Maybe we got a bad piece.

Got home, plugged it into the tv, plugged in the usb cable and the ac adapter, turned on the tv and voila. The remote was recognized immediately. Our home network was identified immediately and after entering our network password, it started downloading a software update. When that was done, it automagically rebooted and after entering our network password again, played a silly orientation video. Once that was done, it was time to get down to some serious testing.

First thing was registering the device. A simple matter of entering our Amazon login credentials.

Downloaded the PBS and Crackle apps and played a few videos from them with no issues. Went to Prime Instant Videos next. I'm not crazy about how the Watchlist is not separated between Movies and TV the way it is on my Fire HD. It's all one jumble. That got me looking into the two ways to start a video on my Fire and watch it on my TV.

The first method is called Mirroring. The instructions in the User Guide tell me to look in my Fire HD's settings > Display & Sounds and tap on Display Mirroring. Well, my Fire HD doesn't have a Display Mirroring for me to tap on, so this method won't work for me. At least for now. Seems like this technology is not supported on my old dinosaur. ;)

The second method is called Second Screen. This method is limited to displaying Amazon Instant Video movies or TV shows or photos and personal videos. This method worked well.

I would prefer to use Mirroring since it sounds like anything on the Fire's display can be mirrored on the TV, not just AIVs, photos and personal videos. Oh well.

Music played with no issues. Both Prime Music and my personal selections that I had uploaded to the cloud.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with it so far, despite some early hiccups. It's nice that our dumb tv has now been upgraded to a smart tv with the addition of the Stick.

I'll try to answer any questions about the user experience that are posted here.
 
#26 ·
A couple things---

Perhaps you got a bad remote--I was able to open mine to put batteries in by just pushing on the battery case back with my thumb and it opened quite easily.

And for those that buy from Amazon, the Stick comes pre-registered to your account, so I didn't have to register it, though it seems to me it might have asked me if I was me. :D

I'm glad to see the remote app is now available--downloading it now!

And yes, Mirroring shows anything on the Fire's screen.  In fact, once the device connects via Mirroring, you see the settings screen on your TV.

Oh, and I enjoyed the video. :D

Betsy
 
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