This morning, Amazon revealed its own-brand gadgets, the ones it hopes will supplant iPads and Apple TV boxes as the must-have Christmas presents this year.
Amazon’s Fire tablets have traditionally been very
high quality and competitively priced. They use a special version of Android
designed to be amazingly user-friendly. It also only permits apps to be
installed that it’s tested to make sure they work well. Amazon’s tablets are a
compelling alternative to Apple’s iPads and at much lower prices.
But before the tablets appeared, today’s reveal got
off to a cracking start with the announcement of the new Amazon Fire TV a tiny,
flattish box that streams movies, TV programmes and games to your telly. It
includes a redesigned remote which has a microphone button for search. Apple
announced the same feature last week, though Amazon has had it for a year.
But the big news about the gadget is that it’s
4K-compatible. This was a noted omission from Apple’s new box. This means that
if you have a suitable TV, that is one with the 4K resolution, four times that
of full HD, then you can play the hundreds of movies and shows available now,
with more to follow.
Some are to be rented, others come as part of a
Prime Video subscription (£79 a year). Netflix has a 4K service and this will
be available on the Fire TV box soon.
Incidentally, Netflix charges a little extra per
month if you want to get the super-high-resolution 4K stuff, though Amazon is
not charging a higher Prime subscription fee.
The box looks the same pretty much as the current
one but is faster (movies and shows start playing amazingly quickly) and more
powerful. It also has a memory card slot so you can save games and stuff to it.
It’s available to order from today and costs £79.99, going on sale on 5
October.
Incidentally, if you don’t need 4K capabilities,
the cheaper Fire TV Stick is still available. It costs £34.99 with a regular
remote or, now, £44.99 with the voice remote included – this is good value as
it sells separately for £24.99.
There were tablets announced today, as well. The
most eye-catching is the Fire which is a seven-inch tablet that costs just
£49.99. Amazon boasted that it was twice as powerful as rivals costing over
£100 and a better quality screen than most budget tablets. It certainly looked
and felt good. It has a memory card slot, too. And there’s also a curious bulk
buying offer: buy five, get one free. Handy for big families or if you’re just
very forgetful.
Although this is a low-price gadget it includes
Mayday, the brilliant Amazon live help service which can sort your problems
with working the tablet. It’s pretty straightforward, not least thanks to an
updated operating system, called Bellini, which is a good name for an OS.
Bellini looks peachy (sorry) with a carousel of
latest purchases, then recommendations and more to guide you through all your
stuff. It’s backward compatible with Fire tablets from last year, too.
And Amazon Underground, which is not such a good
name but is an interesting feature. It gathers together lots of apps which were
paid-for and are now free, including in-app purchases.
Mayday, Bellini and Underground are all to be found
on the two Fire HD tablets announced today. Design was notably improved:
slimmer and lighter than previous Fire HD machines, even though screen size was
increased.
Fire HD 8 has an eight-inch screen and Fire HD 10 a
10.1-inch display. Both can be ordered now for delivery at the end of the
month. And both are very strong value: £129.99 and £169.99 respectively, though
you can choose higher storage options than the entry 8GB model, though both
have memory card slots so you can increase storage massively.
And there were extra features you won’t find
elsewhere. Like On Deck which automatically downloads popular movies and TV
shows to your device (internal or microSD card memory) so when you plonk
yourself down on the train you have something to watch. This feature is only
for Prime subscribers. It’ll only put stuff on your tablet if there’s room,
deleting it automatically if you add your own stuff and space gets tight.
There was also an update to the Kids
Edition Fire tablet with a browser configured to suit littl’uns and lots of
parental controls. It comes with an unconditional replacement guarantee in case
Junior breaks it.
We’ll be looking at the new devices in due
course, but Amazon’s strongest line-up yet looks both impressive and
comprehensive. And amazing value.
No comments:
Post a Comment