I got this for my Mum for her birthday, she's always complaining that everything on TV is crap so now at least she has a wider range of films and TV shows to scan through and ON DEMAND! It'll take a bit for her to get used to it but she's enjoying it so far, she doesn't have a smart TV so she's never used any of the apps like Prime Video, Netflix, All4, iPlayer etc so it's a whole new world 😄 she has used YouTube from Facebook on her phone but nothing like full series and good films whenever she wants to watch them which is great, personally I couldn't live without streaming apps as I haven't watched regular TV in years.
I've not had any experience with the Firestick as I use my PC and PS5 for all of my apps but even then, it was very simple to setup. I didn't run into any problems with the software or the hardware, everything worked really smoothly and the main router is right next to the living room TV so it has the fastest signal in the house 👌🏻
The setup was very straightforward, plugged the stick into the HDMI port, plugged in the mains cable(TV's USB port doesn't have sufficient power for the Firestick but not a big deal!), selected the HDMI source and it immediately popped up 'FireTV'. The Firestick setup was very simple with only a couple of initial settings, we quickly linked her Amazon account with the onscreen code and she had a 30 day free trial of Prime available which was a time/money saver.
After she had a snoop around at some of the films and shows on Prime, we set up her iPlayer which has all BBC channels and shows ready to go!
The remote is great, she really likes the Alexa voice commands too which saves time on having to look through extensive lists, the four app buttons at the bottom make it very snappy to jump from one app to another without much effort. The remote is easy to use(for me) but I don't think it'll take long for my Mum to get the hang of it, it has a directional circle for navigation, center button to select, return button for previous screen, independent volume buttons, mute, pause, rewind, fast forward, home and options button.
This is a great option for expanding your TV experience if you don't have a Smart TV, it has lots of apps, has the Alexa function, it's easy to use and setup while also being portable, so you can take your stick to someone else's house and watch from your account using their WiFi 👌🏻
My mum loves it, she's really happy with it and has gotten used to now over the last few weeks but sometimes she still needs a hand. It's a fair price and very good product!
Carbon emissions from the lifecycle of this product were reduced compared to similar products or previous models.
As certified by
Reducing CO2
The Reducing CO2 label applies to products certified by the Carbon Trust, that are lowering their carbon emissions year after year for the full life cycle of the product. The Carbon Trust was formed in 2001 and introduced the world’s first carbon label in 2007. It produces its certifications to global leading and independently verified standards. The Carbon Trust has a mission to accelerate the move to a sustainable, low carbon economy.
