Need Suggestions for a Fire TV like streaming stick

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atg666

atg666

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Used to own a Fire Tv stick. During recent civil work in my home, lots of small electronics were "lost" / "stolen", which included this 4 month old Fire Tv stick.

Need suggestions for a streaming stick / box which fits the following criterion:
1) within 7k INR.
2) ability to install apps
3) lesser probability of adverts in UI
4) 4k desired, not mandatory.
5) Non chinese brand. I accept that the product might be made in china/prc. I do not wish to buy a chinese branded product.

I have shortlisted the following:
1) Fire Tv stick 4k: not very intuitive UI, rather boring. INR 4499.
2) Google Chromecast with TV: no personal experience, some say that there are many adverts in it. INR 6399.

Kindly suggest any other awesome alternatives to the same. If anyone has some experience with the Google Chromecast with TV, kindly also let me know if the adverts are a bit much.
 
atg666 said:
Used to own a Fire Tv stick. During recent civil work in my home, lots of small electronics were "lost" / "stolen", which included this 4 month old Fire Tv stick.

Need suggestions for a streaming stick / box which fits the following criterion:
1) within 7k INR.
2) ability to install apps
3) lesser probability of adverts in UI
4) 4k desired, not mandatory.
5) Non chinese brand. I accept that the product might be made in china/prc. I do not wish to buy a chinese branded product.

I have shortlisted the following:
1) Fire Tv stick 4k: not very intuitive UI, rather boring. INR 4499.
2) Google Chromecast with TV: no personal experience, some say that there are many adverts in it. INR 6399.

Kindly suggest any other awesome alternatives to the same. If anyone has some experience with the Google Chromecast with TV, kindly also let me know if the adverts are a bit much.
Click to expand...
If you are looking for VFM, then Fire TV is the only option. Personally, I don't like their interface at all and also the fact that they have always done their best to make the older devices generally unusable with updates over time. This is the reason I always used custom launchers with my Fire TV but those are also blocked with the latest updates, so you are stuck with the FireOS interface which you are calling "intuitive" but I find quite messed up, especially as I don't use Prime Video much.

CGTV is rather overpriced for something that sells for $40-50 in US. The hardware isn't great and it doesn't even receive updates from Google for months on end. If you need Chromecast and the Google TV interface, then it makes some sense, but not at the current price.

Otherwise, Nvidia Shield will be recommended which is not worth the price of import, especially if you are not into Android gaming or emulation. Other boxes available locally are the Chinese-branded ones. The cheaper ones have no certification and will not play Netflix or Prime at even FHD whereas the certified ones are priced at the upper-end of your budget with better specs but are never updated.
 
atg666 said:
I called it not very intuitive.

Any fellows have some experience with Roku?
Click to expand...

I have extensively used Roku but that was in US. Roku isn't really for us in India. I am pretty sure there are no apps for SonyLiv, Disney+Hotstar (Disney+ will be there which may work probably), Zee5 etc. On top of that, you cannot technically install any apps on it. It has concept on "Channels" if I remember correctly. You cannot get "3rd party apps" like we can install APKs for "various stuff" on Fire stick / android tv.
There are some "private" channels which you can manually "install" in your roku but they usually get shut down quickly. And I don't know much people invest time to develop anything for Roku.
 
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You cannot get "3rd party apps" like we can install APKs for "various stuff" on Fire stick / android tv.
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Thanks for this. This is the sort of clarification I need.

So the only consideration is between the original 2 choices:
  • Fire Tv stick 4k
  • Google Chromecast with Tv
With the intrusive adverts being shown on Google Tv interface as shown here, I would rather go for the Fire Tv stick 4k.
 
atg666 said:
Thanks for this. This is the sort of clarification I need.

So the only consideration is between the original 2 choices:
  • Fire Tv stick 4k
  • Google Chromecast with Tv
With the intrusive adverts being shown on Google Tv interface as shown here, I would rather go for the Fire Tv stick 4k.
Click to expand...

Well, Fire stick UI is one big advertising board by itself. I prefer firestick only because I have got accustomed to using it. Have 4 TVs in home and all run fire stick or have fire tv OS built in.
 
raksrules said:
Well, Fire stick UI is one big advertising board by itself. I prefer firestick only because I have got accustomed to using it. Have 4 TVs in home and all run fire stick or have fire tv OS built in.
Click to expand...
Google Tv is worse, from what I have seen in reviews. The ads are in your face, autoplay videos and are unmuted by default with no way to even mute them in settings / options.
Till Amazon does this with the Fire Tv Stick, I would say it my just be the lesser of 2 evils.
 
Unless Apple TV serves your purpose, Chromecast is the only thing which fits in your budget. Any Google TV based streamer will have ads, but it's less than Fire TV.

However, it may be possible to install custom launcher on Chromecast, it's no longer possible on Fire Stick. Since most ads are on the home screen, custom launcher gets rid of it.
 
atg666 said:
Google Tv is worse, from what I have seen in reviews. The ads are in your face, autoplay videos and are unmuted by default with no way to even mute them in settings / options.
Till Amazon does this with the Fire Tv Stick, I would say it my just be the lesser of 2 evils.
Click to expand...
Google tv imo doesn't push muted video on homescreen. instead it is the yt app which does. autoplay videos is always turned on and there is no option to disable it. there is option to choose if they are muted or not but that's it. i really hate the feature for a thumbnail gives a better idea about what a video is about
 
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