Amazon's new Fire TV box is set to take on the new Apple TV with 4K UHD video support and a much cheaper price tag.
Apple has recently launched its newest version of the Apple TV set box with a focus on casual gaming, a seemingly uncharted territory for the iPhone maker. Some users were very disappointed that it did not support 4K UHD video, which is starting to creep up on the mainstream content market.
Meanwhile, Amazon recently revealed its new Amazon Fire TV set box that will allow streaming of 4K videos from Netflix, Amazon Video and Amazon Prime Video. The 4K video support is a knock0out feature already, but Forbes reported that it only costs $99.99. The Apple TV costs $149 for the 32GB while the 64GB version is at $199.
Amazon's Fire TV already has two big advantages over the Apple TV at this point. In order to enjoy 4K videos, a viewer must also have a 4K television or a monitor. Still, it's nice to have the option to view 4K, which is set to take over as an industry standard in a couple of years.
As if that wasn't enough, The Verge also reported that Amazon also included the cloud-based assistant "Alexa" in the Fire TV. This means that users will be able to utilize Alexa with the Fire TV with commands such as queuing songs.
Amazon also says that Alexa will be able to follow more advanced voice commands in the future. Users will be able to instruct Alexa to launch a program inside Fire TV using voice commands.
The Fire TV also had its internals upgraded. Gizmodo reported that it now has a quad-core 64-bit MediaTek processor and a dedicated graphics processing unit for seamless 4K video watching. Amazon also said that the new remote is now 20 percent faster. Two AAA batteries will give the remote up to 12 months of battery life.
Apple TV chose to focus on its gaming features, while Amazon Fire TV has 4K. However, Amazon seems to win this round seeing as more are interested in 4K and it is also undeniably cheaper than the former.
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