Amazon's new Fire TV Stick comes with an Alexa remote for $40
It's faster, but there's no 4K support yet.
Amazon's next take on the Fire TV Stick looks pretty much the same as before, but it brings along some useful upgrades to keep it current. The biggest difference? It now includes an Alexa-enabled remote at the same $40 price. It also packs in a faster quad-core processor (compared to a dual-core chip before) which Amazon claims is 30 percent faster than its predecessor, as well as speedier 802.11ac WiFi. Mostly, it seems like Amazon is trying to keep the Fire TV Stick more competitive with Roku's excellent $50 streaming stick.
Unfortunately, there's still no 4K support on this stick -- if you want that, you'll have to shell out for Amazon's $100 Fire TV. I'd also expect that device to get a refresh soon to support HDR, just like Roku's newest lineup. The Alexa remote appears to work just like before, allowing you to search for content, launch apps and ask for things like the weather.
You can preorder the new Fire TV Stick today, and Amazon says it'll start shipping on October 20th. The company is also offering early customers $65 worth of free content from the likes of Hulu, Sling TV and Amazon Video.
