Amazon Fire TV Stick

The Amazon Fire TV Stick is a very affordable streaming media device.

IMO it is currently the best streaming device in market.

Its immediate competitor, The Google Chromecast, is good no doubt, but gets beaten by the FTS in almost all areas. If you have Amazon Prime subscription, its a must have device.

Better Video quality:

The FTS has a quad-core processor and 1GB of memory. This enables it to play even H.265 (HEVC) files, which only the more expensive Chromecast Ultra is capable of doing. With this capability, Amazon can deliver your videos quicker – H.265 is heavily compressed and requires less bandwidth than H.264.

User Interface:

The FTS has an Android based OS built into it called the Fire OS. It basically gives the device its own UI, which enables you to control the device through your TV screen itself apart from controlling it via a phone. The Voice remote helps in this regard and is tremendously helpful I must say. 

It has its own app store, which has all the major video streaming apps, plus a few small games and utility apps.

They have recently added a separate tab for Live TV. It basially shows Live TV channels ffrom apps which supports it. Currently best apps for this are Zee5, Voot and Sony Liv. In the Home tab you can now see realtime current playing content of some of the live channels. This is a very thoughtful addition. As more mainstream channels start streming live through their apps in streaming devices or smart TVs, it will slowly negate the requirement of getting an additional Cable or Sattelite TV subscription all together.

The Voice Remote:

The voice search funtionality is based on Amazons voice assistant "Alexa". This is a wonderful addition and is really helpful in searching content. 

Bluetooth Devices connectivity:

This is another addition which helps in inter device connectivity. You can basically connect any bluetooth device like headphones , speakers or controllers. The bluetooth headphone connectivity is very helpful when you want to enjoy a content alone without disturbing others.

Music Streaming:

There are quite a few music streaming services available such as TuneIn, Musixmatch, Raaga, Hungama. But the best are Gaana, Spotify and Amazon Prime Music.

Cons:

1. Currently both the Chromecast and the FTS requires external power source. The extra wire feels like an eye sore if not hidden properly. They should try and get power supply from the HDMI itself.

2. You cannot search for in-app contents apart from Prime videos, Youtube, Netflix and to some extent for some apps like Hotstar and MX Player. This makes searching a content very tiresome, launching each app and searching manually by typing with the voice remote. They need to add support for universal search using the Voice remote itself.