As a UK resident, it’s been interesting to see how on demand TV or “catch up” as it’s often called over here has taken off. While there are still gaps here and there, it’s easier than ever to watch TV online in the UK. Folks like Roku, Samsung and LG have caught on to this and their range of boxes and Smart TVs offer a range of online services for you to get even more content onto your favorite screen in the house. Now, Amazon is launching the Fire TV in the UK for the attractive price of just £79. The Fire TV was launched earlier this year in the US and if you’ve ever spent any time with a Kindle Fire, the Fire TV is exactly what you think it is.
Fire TV features all the services you’d want in such a device like BBC’s iPlayer, Demand 5, Netflix, BBC Sport, Sky News as well as a whole host of music services, too. For £79 the Fire TV is already a great deal, but when you factor in that you can also play games using a separately available controller, then the Fire TV looks even more attractive at its price tag of just £79. It’s a decent deal and as we found out during our review of the Fire TV, the quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM under the hood really help keep things chugging along. The remote is designed to be as simple as possible and there’s voice search included that works really quite well making it easier than ever to search for something.
If you’re already invested in Amazon’s ecosystem, then the Fire TV slots in nicely, but even if you’re not at £79 this is a great addition to your existing TV setup and can really help you get the content you want without the hassle. With the Chromecast costing just £35 however, there’s some stiff competition and with the Nexus Player (hopefully) heading to the UK with Android TV, it looks like this Holiday season will be tough for those competing for the living room.