Amazon starts selling FireTV in UK

Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - 12:53 by Mike Price

British TV fans will soon be able to start purchasing online retail giant Amazon's first set top box for £79, according to the Guardian.

FireTV was launched earlier in the year, but has so far been limited to the US. Now anyone can head to Amazon’s site offering safe shopping online and place their order for the box, which should arrive in the UK on October 23rd this year.

If you are already a member of the Amazon Prime service then you can save £30 on the up front price. And the idea is that the box will help generate revenue for Amazon through subscriptions to its video service and the sale of apps and other media content.

FireTV is a direct competitor for similar gadgets, like the equivalently priced Apple TV or Google’s bargain basement Chromecast, which costs just £30.

One of the benefits of FireTV is that it has an impressive array of onboard hardware, including a quad core processor and 2GB of RAM. The idea is that this will allow it to do much more than just stream video, but should also facilitate gaming features which are accessed courtesy of a separate wireless controller to supplement the remote.

The controller costs an extra £35 when you buy it via safe shopping online. And while the FireTV will hardly be able to match up to the graphical fidelity of the likes of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it should be gutsy enough to keep casual gamers happy with big screen versions of smartphone and tablet titles.

What could make or break FireTV in the UK is the number of third party firms that are willing to develop apps for it. Netflix will be available, but with a host of other devices already supporting this service, it hardly makes Amazon’s box essential.