Difference between Fire TV Stick and Chromecast Ultra

chromecast-ultra-1Google announced their latest streaming device, the Chromecast Ultra. Chromecast Ultra is the next step to Chromecast where you can simply plug the device into the HDMI port and cast content from the Internet. While the Fire TV Stick is a good competitor to Chromecast, Chromecast has a slight edge in terms of featured content. A lot of apps support Chromecast and even some TV’s have Google’s Casting built in such as Vizio‘s Smartcast. With Chromecast, you can cast content from Youtube and from a Chrome browser. Neat!

What Chromecast distinguished itself apart from the Fire TV Stick is the capability to stream in 4K Ultra HD / HDR. For Amazon, only the Fire TV has this capability.

Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick’s advantage is its access to Prime videos and its library. Amazon also has more 4K content as well as exclusive content. Google Play is lacking in this area.

Both have mirroring capabilities from their respective phones but Google may have a slight edge over the ease of use.

At this event, Google also announced Google Home which has its AI, Google Assistant, which will seamlessly integrate information from various Google apps from calendar, maps, traffic, and location to give you information such as news and weather. Although Amazon’s Alexa is amazing, it doesn’t compare to the integrated offering that Google can offer. This is when the Fire phone’s failure is coming to bite Amazon.

Chromecast Ultra Amazon Fire TV Stick – Gen 2 Amazon Fire TV – 2nd Gen
Launched Nov. 2016 Sep-16 Dec. 2015
Price $69 $39.99 $99.99
HD Type All up to 4K, Ultra HD, HDR Up to 1080p – 60hz up to 2160p 4K – 30Hz
Chip CPU Marvell Armada 1500 Mni Plus Mediatek 8127D
Quad-core ARM 1.3Ghz
MediaTek 8173C
Quad-core ARM Cortex A72 (2x2Ghz, 2×1.6Ghz)
RAM 512mb 1GB 2GB
Storage 256mb 8GB 8GB
Connectivity HDMI, Wifi, Ethernet (adopter) Bluetooth 4.1, Micro USB, HDMI, WiFi Bluetooth 4.1, Micro USB, HDMI, WiFi, Ethernet, Dolby
Dimension 52x52x13.5mm 86x30x12.6mm 115x115x17.8mm
Weight 40g 32g 270g
Remote No Yes Yes

Amazon blocks sale of Chromecast and Apple TV

Amazon has a love – hate relationship with Google and Apple. On one hand, Amazon has made a lot of money selling Android devices such as smartphones, tablets, accessories, and other related devices. It’s very own Fire tablet OS is based off of Android! Similarly, it has sold a lot of Apple products as well as resale of the said products from iMacs all the way down to iPod touches and all of its accessories.

The big disagreement comes from the fact that both Chromecast and Apple TV lacks support for Amazon’s Prime content. This has been called out by many users in the past as support for Prime on Chromecast and Apple TV would be a very nice icing on the cake. It would absolutely expand the media library especially for Prime subscribers.

However, this would also put Amazon at risk as it may mean the death to its very own Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick. With this in mind, Amazon is likely to have made a conscious decision to block the sale at one of the world’s largest e-retailer. Amazon officially responded that the reason for pulling Apple TV, Chromecast, and Nexus TV is to “prevent confusion”. Right…ridiculing your customer base doesn’t bode well with said consumer *sneer*.