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Amazon’s New Fire TV Stick (?) Leaks

Fire_TV_Stick[1]Amazon may have launched this year’s new Kindle with little buildup but they’re back to their usual pattern with the new Fire TV Stick (leaks, rumors, more leaks, and a launch).

We haven’t had any rumors of a new Fire TV Stick but we do have the first leak. A device labeled the "Amazon AFTS" has shown up on the GFXBenchmarks website. Someone ran a benchmark test on this device, and it revealed that the AFTS runs Android 5.1 on a quad-core MediaTek CPU with 1.5GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage.

afts

The AFTS (for Amazon Fire TV Stick, perhaps) also has Wifi and Bluetooth,  but there’s no mention of a light sensor, cameras, GPS, compass, accelerometer,  or SIM card. These are all features you would expect to find on a tablet or smartphone, and their absence suggests that this is not your usual Android device.

That suggests that this is a replacement for the $39 Fire TV Stick, which launched last October. With a dual-core CPU and 1GB RAM, the stick is relatively under-powered compared to its more expensive sibling. It can’t run all the same games and apps, and it also lacks several features (support for Bluetooth headphones, for example) found in the Fire TV.

The new model will like make up for the lack. It would also cost $20 more, arguably defeating the original purpose of offering low-end streaming hardware to match the higher-end Fire TV.

Specs

  • CPU:  quad-core MediaTek MT8173 (two cores @ 1.9GHz, two cores @ 1.5GHz)
  • Graphics: PowerVR Rogue GX6250
  • OS: Android 5.1 (plus Amazon’s special sauce)
  • RAM: 1.5GB
  • Storage: 8GB
  • Connectivity: Wifi, Bluetooth

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Comments


fjtorres July 17, 2015 um 9:32 am

Doesn’t mean they’ll discontinue the cheaper stick, though.
And the stick isn’t all that underpowered; it runs KODI (nee XBMC) like gangbusters. That alone puts it in a league of its own for name brand streaming sticks.

Hobbyists love this thing.


Frank July 17, 2015 um 10:33 am

If the new Fire TV stick cost $20 more, it is still cheaper than a Fire TV and the fact that it is smaller and more portable are important.


jjj July 17, 2015 um 10:45 am

The price doesn’t have to go up if they sell close to cost.
The SoC is a tablet SoC with no modem and doesn’t have to be that big and costly. No idea if it will be 10 or 20$ but it will be a lot more than the previous one. BT comes almost free, most mobile wifi chips also have BT so all Amazon needs is some 3$ wifi/BT chip or 4.5$ is they want top perf/quality but that would be excessive here.. An extra 0.5 GB of RAM is some 2.5$ ,maybe a bit more depending on what they use.
If the SoC performs as expected , Amazon could use it in pretty much all the tablets it plans to launch this year since it should be great price per perf and nobody would have anything close to it. If they buy very high volumes, they would get good pricing too.


Scott Lewis July 19, 2015 um 10:44 pm

"It would also cost $20 more, arguably defeating the original purpose of offering low-end streaming hardware to match the higher-end Fire TV."

Spend enough time in hotels and own Bluetooth headphones or have a house with wall mounted TVs and a desire to minimize and/or eliminate visible boxes and wires and you’ll see the case for this.

Amazon still makes the only stick / box that can login to a Hotel wifi hotspot, which is invaluable.


Amazon's Next Fire TV Box Has Cleared the FCC | The Digital Reader August 23, 2016 um 1:43 pm

[…] the benchmark that leaked in July are accurate (and belong to this device) then Amazon's new Fire TV will run Android 5.1 (plus […]


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