The tech item I'm most thankful for in 2015 [Wayne]
I’m lucky I get to try out a lot of tech and, like my colleagues here at BetaNews, I buy a fair amount of shiny new products too. 2015 has been a good year for new hardware and I have a long list of items that have become essential to my daily life.
I picked up a trio of new Apple products this year -- an iPhone 6s, an iPad Air 2, and an Apple Watch -- but as much as I love them all, not one of those is the product I’m most thankful for in 2015.
Like my colleague Alan Buckingham, who picked Amazon Echo as his favorite product, I’ve also chosen an Amazon device -- the Fire TV stick.
I’ve never been particularly interested in joining Amazon Prime, but this year I decided to give it a go. Amazon hooked me by discounting Prime memberships, and also offering money off the Fire TV Stick. I figured if I was going to make proper use of Prime, I needed some way of watching all of that video that Amazon offers for free, and the Fire TV Stick was it.
The device comes with a remote control, naturally, but you can also control things using your smartphone and the free Fire TV app.
The quality of programming available to watch is staggering. Yes, there’s excellent original content such as The Man in the High Castle (which I love), and Transparent, and next year we’ll see the return of the Top Gear trio -- Clarkson, Hammond, and May -- but there are blockbuster movies, popular series and pilot episodes to enjoy too. The content is refreshed just regularly enough.
The Fire TV stick does require a Prime membership to benefit from it, but shop today and you can pick up the dongle for just $24.99 (usual price $39.99), which is an absolute steal.
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