Amazon has today announced a new Fire TV Stick HD which starts at $35 and can be powered by the USB port on your TV.
Oddly positioned as “Amazon’s slimmest streaming device,” the latest generation of Fire TV Stick HD is a $35 streaming stick that, as the name implies, outputs 1080p. Plugging directly into your TV, Amazon says this new device is “smaller in volume and width than previous models.”
The big news here, though, is that the new Fire TV Stick HD is “optimized for Direct Power through a TV’s USB port.” That means, in most cases, you won’t need a separate power adapter for this streamer, something that’s been a long-time headache of full-feature streaming dongles like Google’s newer (but since discontinued) Chromecast with Google TV. There have been workarounds for this, but it’s nice to finally see a device built with this use case in mind.
It’s also using USB-C, unlike some other recent releases.
Interestingly, this new Fire TV Stick appears to stick with an Android-based Fire OS, rather than switching to the in-house Vega OS that Amazon launched on the Fire TV Stick 4K Select last year. A warning on the Select’s listing about a lack of sideloading isn’t in place on the new Fire TV Stick HD, which is surprising given that Amazon says its new model is “30% faster on average than the last-generation HD stick.”
While Amazon has been heavily cracking down on sideloading, this new hardware seems to still support it. We’ll update this article if any other information comes to light.
The software on board is redesigned, with the new experience Amazon launched earlier this year that’s heavily inspired by Google TV.
More on TV:
- Amazon’s Google TV makeover for Fire TV is now rolling out in the US
- Amazon Fire TV’s redesigned Android app is rolling out now
- Walmart’s Google TV Streamer competitor starts hitting store shelves for $60 with a big downgrade
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