I was out of HDMI ports when the Amazon Fire TV Stick (affiliate link) arrived so I decided to remove our Google Chromecast temporarily while I tried out the Fire TV. That was almost two months ago. The Chromecast hasn’t left it’s box since. The Fire TV stick excels in every area the Chromecast is weak. At $40 it’s $5 more than the Chromecast, but it’s well worth the extra 5-spot. 

The Chromecast was an instant hit due to its low $35 price point, but without a dedicated remote the Chromecast makes your TV a companion device to your smartphone. It works and initially was amazing, but we’re not used to our TV’s being a secondary device. We’re used to them being a main attraction. Requiring a smartphone to queue and control content to the TV doesn’t seem quite right yet. Don’t get me wrong, controlling the TV from a smartphone is a great add-on feature, but a bad primary control mechanism. The Amazon Fire TV stick on the other other hand  includes a dedicated bluetooth remote. It’s small, easy to loose, and sometimes, in my experience, doesn’t register button presses correctly. Despite all that, it is better than my smartphone. In fact, it’s better than traditional remotes that require line of sight. The button placements are fairly easy to learn and for the most part I can navigate without thinking about what I need to press. If you do loose the remote a replacement is $14.99 or you can upgrade to one that enables voice search for $29.99. 

The FireTV stick currently has support for Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, Plex, Pandora, WatchESPN, PBS Kids, Showtime Anytime, and more. The selection is constantly growing. HBOGo is scheduled to be added soon. The apps I’ve used have great interfaces that make my AppleTV look old and out of date and unlike the Chromecast, you don’t need to own a smartphone or tablet to access any of it.

With the exception of Apple AirPlay the FireTV stick beats out my AppleTV in terms of features and beauty. It’s become my families go to device for watching Netflix. The only time I use our AppleTV now is for sharing photos or videos from my iPhone. 

The FireTV Stick hasn’t convinced me to stop using our Roku 3 yet though. The headphone jack on the Roku 3 remote is worth it’s weight in gold and continues to delight me every time I use it. The Roku devices also offer a wider range of content via it’s extensive channel selection. 

The FireTV Stick is a great device at a great price. It’s become the device I recommend to friends and family looking for a streaming box because of it’s great value and strong feature set. Even if you have another streaming box, at only $40 the FireTV Stick is worth a look.