It’s September and there is no word of full stop for new launches at all after a month full of launches we now have something from Amazon too. Yes, Amazon has now updated its IoT products with all-new Fire TV Stick & Fire TV Stick Lite along with smart speaker Echo, Echo Dot & Echo Show 10 in the US.
Fire TV Stick & Fire TV Stick Lite:
As expected all-new Fire TV Stick is nothing but upgraded internals with the same old design. Yes, all-new Fire TV Stick will be powered by the same chipset as the Fire TV Stick 4K. The device is powered by Quad-core 1.7 GHz clocked processor coupled with 8GB internal storage. The connectivity options include HDMI output, micro-USB for powering the device, faster Dual Band Wifi, and Bluetooth 5.0 support.
The all-new Fire TV Stick also comes with HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG content but still restricted to 1080p at 60fps. It also gets the Dolby Atmos support and comes with same fully-featured Alexa Voice remote as the 4K version. The all-new Fire TV Stick is priced at $39.99 (Rs.3000/-) in the US.
The next is the lighter or cheaper version of the Fire TV Stick with the new Fire TV Stick Lite. The new Fire TV Stick Lite comes with the almost same internals as the Fire TV Stick but with different remote aka Alexa Voice Remote Lite. The new Alexa Voice Remote Lite lacks volume and mute button then the original one. Fire TV Stick Lite is priced at $29.99 (Rs.2,300/-) in the US. Both the devices will go on sale from 30 Sept and currently up on pre-orders.
Echo & Echo Dot 4th Gen:
Amazon also updated its new Echo lineup with all-new Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show 10 in the US. All the three devices come with major design changes this time when compared with the predecessor. Yes, the Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show 10 will feature globular shaped speakers than the cylindrical one in the past.
The new Echo series includes two new models with Echo & Echo Plus. The new Echo will come with spherical shaped speakers with a plastic body and LED light on the bottom of the device. The new Echo series comes with 3.0 inches woofer and dual 0.8-inches tweeters, along with Dolby audio processing. The Echo comes with a built-in smart home hub with support for Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Amazon Sidewalk.
The new Echo is the first smart speaker powered by the Amazon custom AZ1 Neural Edge processor. It also includes an all-neural speech recognition model that processes Alexa requests faster. The connectivity option includes Dual-band Wifi with a 3.5 mm audio port.
The next is the Echo Dot series which includes three new models with different design this time. It again looks similar to Echo 4th Gen as shown above with spherical shaped speaker. The Echo Dot 4th Gen features 1.6″ front-firing speaker and will have a separate variant with an LED display that can show the time, temperature, timers, and alarms.
There is also special Echo Dot Kids Edition, which is the same as the standard Echo Dot except it comes in two colour prints Panda and Tiger. It also gets 1-year free Amazon Kids+ subscription.
Echo Show 10:
The last device is the new Echo Show 10 which is also getting some major design changes. The new Echo Show 10 also comes with a spherical speaker with 10-inches screen on top. The features Echo Show 10 unique rotating display that automatically turns to face you when you speak to it and can also track your movements and keep the screen facing towards you during video calls, recipes or watching videos.
It sports 10.1 inches display in the front with the triple speaker assembly & rotating body which can spin 360-degrees using a brushless motor. The Amazon Echo Show 10 features 13MP selfie camera to track the movements and also activate the rotating features only when required. The connectivity option includes Wifi-6 & Bluetooth 5.0 support.
The Echo Show 10 comes powered by MediaTek 8183 main processor plus second processor with Amazon AZ1 Neural Edge. It features 2.1 System: 2 x 1.0” tweeters and a 3.0” woofer. Amazon will soon add support for Netflix and Zoom in the coming weeks.
Pricing:
The Echo is priced at $100 (Rs.7,400/-), the Echo Dot at $50 (Rs.3,700/-), the Echo Dot with clock at $60 (Rs.4,500/-), the Echo Dot Kids Edition at $60 (Rs.4,500/-) and will go on sale from Oct 22. The Echo Show 10 is priced at $250 (Rs.18,500/-) in the US.
