It seems like nowadays everyone wants to be your TV. Mainstream TV companies like Sony and Samsung are trying to make their TVs smarter while new entrants like Google and Apple want to make any TV smart with their products.
Amazon has a very unique position here. They actually not only have a very popular Amazon Prime service but they now more and more are creating their own content. Amazon Prime is already available on many smart TVs but Amazon has their own hardware product called Fire TV. Fire TV is more like what you have with the Apple TV or Android TV where you have full app download and media purchasing capability as opposed to Google Chrome stick where everything is still controlled from you phone or PC.
I purchased the Amazon Fire TV Stick at Amazon's first pop up store in Westfield San Francisco Centre. This mall is easy to get to from inside BART and San Francisco Muni's Powell station.
The pop up store is right in the middle of the open floor space making it feel spacious while retaining the feeling that you are in a regular mall store.
The Amazon store was mostly dominated by it's Kindle E-reader and Fire tablet products, but it did have a section for the Fire TV. The Fire TV was prominently displayed both inside and outside the store but interestingly enough could no longer be purchased because Amazon was releasing a new version of the product.
Amazon's shopping bags kept the same look as their ubiquitous brown shipping boxes, even including the "This Side Up" label.
I opened the Amazon Fire TV Stick in Mission Coffee & More in Fremont California.
The Fire TV Stick comes with a remote control, USB power charger and cable, and HDMI extender adapter.
Click here to see how to set up the Amazon Fire TV Stick.
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