Amazon’s Fire TV Stick has been a popular device when it comes to dongles for streaming media content. Now, the company has announced another device — Amazon Fire TV Stick Basic Edition.
This Fire TV Stick Basic Edition appears to be the renamed version of Fire TV Stick with Alexa Remote that is currently being sold in the US for $40. Nothing has changed about the Basic Edition from its predecessor, not even the physic dimensions.
The only difference is the Basic Edition’s remote, which no longer supports Alexa voice control integration. Another difference could be the operating system. The Fire TV Stick that was launched last year runs Fire OS 5 based on Android Lollipop, but it is yet unknown what Fire OS version the Basic Edition runs.
The new Amazon Fire TV Stick Basic Edition is a HDMI-dongle which plugs into the television. It allows users to access variety of media and streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc.
It is powered by a MediaTek Quad-core ARM processor clocked at 1.3GHz, coupled with Mali 450 MP4 GPU. The dongle has dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi that supports 2×2 MIMO 802.11a/b/g/n/ac.
Coming to the memory, it packs 8GB of internal storage and 1GB of RAM for fluid and smooth operations of apps and games, says the company. The Fire TV Stick Basic Edition also comes with a dedicated remote.
Since this is a “basic” edition, it does not have voice support for Alexa or other voice-based search functionalities that are available with the original Fire TV. The device also has support for 1080p Full HD video streaming with the High Efficiency Video Codec, as well as Dolby Audio for a higher-quality audio experience.
Read More: Amazon Takes Alexa To India, Launches Echo, Echo Plus & Echo Dot
Priced at $49.99, the product seems to be aimed at getting more users for the Fire TV Stick dongle and dominate the market. Amazon would also be hoping that more folks will be motivated to subscribe to Prime or Prime Video. The device will be available in more than 100 countries worldwide.
