Amazon Fire TV, the company’s streaming-based media player is coming to the UK. In fact, the set-top-box is available to order for our humble shores right now.
Having launched in the US back in April, Amazon has now confirmed the Fire TV box will launch in the UK on October 23 as a direct rival to Apple TV. Pre-orders are available to be placed now.
“Starting tonight in Germany and the UK, Fire TV is available for sale,” Peter Larson, Amazon’s Vice President of Product Marketing stated in making the announcement.
With Amazon having seen huge interest in the device since its US arrival – and with UK consumers adopting the company’s Amazon Instant Video streaming service at strong rates – Larson added: “Following this interest we accelerated our road map and doubled down to get Fire TV on sale outside the US.”
Despite acting as a tool to pump Amazon Instant Video into homes, Fire TV is not locked to the company’s own content source. The majority of the industry’s big players – including Netflix, HuluPlus and Pandora – already supporting Amazon’s hardware.
As in the US, however, the box will come with a 30-day free Amazon Prime Instant Video trial in an effort to get you signed up to the monthly plans.
Local UK content coming to Amazon Fire TV includes Demand5, Sky News and Blind (for the German users).
About more than just the software, Amazon has bestowed the Fire TV box with high-end components in order to reduce bottlenecking and latency issues.
Looking to take streaming to the next level, the Amazon Fire TV box features a quad-core Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM and a dedicated GPU chip.
Further improving the overall user experience, the Amazon Fire TV box comes with a handy remote. As well as hosting eight physical buttons, the remote hosts an integrated microphone.
This is the Fire TV’s poster feature, with impressive voice search options making it easy to navigate quickly to desired content. It is a welcome addition to the clunky, text-based, input options found on some services.
As well as offering access to near endless film, TV and music content, Fire TV boasts a variety of gaming options. To turn the set-top-box into a home console, an optional gaming controller is available.
Further features include smartphone photo syncing to a TV gallery, and multitrack audio.
The box, which costs $99 (£59) in the states will set UK owners back £79. If you're an Amazon Prime customer, however, you can snap the device for a limited time for just £49.
Read More: Amazon Fire Phone review