Is anyone in SA using the Amazon Fire TV?

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balky

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Does anyone in South Africa have an Amazon Fire TV? If so, then please tell us how well it is working and where you purchased it from.
 
balky said:
Does anyone in South Africa have an Amazon Fire TV? If so, then please tell us how well it is working and where you purchased it from.
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+1

I would love to know as well. I was thinking of importing it via have2have.co.za.
 
Hey Balky , ordered mine from amazon USA on sunday recvd it yesterday, ordered via aramex shopandship.com
great device so far
all the usual streaming works great - hulu,netflix and amazon instant, hd buffered a bit at start on my 10mb line
watchespn excellent quality
plex also had some buffering issues from my cloud server not sure why

not as many apps at the moment as my roku but the product feels solid and the remote is awesome

going to do the adb and sideload thing today and get xbmc gotham going

all round nice device if you use streaming services
 
Hi Rolandos, thanks for that info. Can you not buy it directly from Amazon USA?
 
Jola said:
They will only ship it to the USA. But you can get it on eBay.
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Amazon lets me add it to my cart without any messages that they will not ship it to SA, but anyway Yotch got me thinking about other options. I found this one which sells for $110 on Amazon and looks like a beast. It is capable of 4K video, which may be academic, but shows how powerful it is.

[video=youtube;sLwc6COFQ24]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLwc6COFQ24[/video]
 
rolandos said:
Hey Balky , ordered mine from amazon USA on sunday recvd it yesterday, ordered via aramex shopandship.com
great device so far
all the usual streaming works great - hulu,netflix and amazon instant, hd buffered a bit at start on my 10mb line
watchespn excellent quality
plex also had some buffering issues from my cloud server not sure why

not as many apps at the moment as my roku but the product feels solid and the remote is awesome

going to do the adb and sideload thing today and get xbmc gotham going

all round nice device if you use streaming services
Click to expand...

What have you done about the power supply? Did the original work or did you replace it?
 
Hi,

So I got mine yesterday, and I must say I am quite impressed.

It's a fast little box and does most of what I expect of it.

The Setup was easy and straight forward so that after 5 minutes I was up and running.

I have firstly installed xbmc on it and made it my default interface as I am not planning on becoming a Amazon Prime member and prefer Netflix.
So after some investigation I rooted my box so that it boots right into XBMC once started.

Netflix is running well, and at last I get 5.1 on my system through optical even though it does not support DD+ which was my issue with the Roku i had before.
The Netflix interface is the old one so I am hoping for an update. It uses the Android Netflix app which is then started via XBMC so no plugin required.

You feel the improved hardware and it is lots of fun working with XBMC and fiddling with it. I had plex before but on the Fire it does not do 5.1 so I went with XBMC and access my server via the Network.

All in all I am happy, I get 5.1 across all platforms and my wife thinks she will manage which was quite an improtant factor.

I accessing it through Unotelly without a problem, just needed to chhange my Amazon account to the US.

The power supply is 110-220 so no need to look for a new one.

That's it for now, will keep you guys posted as I go along.
 
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One of the main benefits of this box is that you can set the DNS on it, which you cannot do with the Roku.

So from a network point of view, better than the Roku.
 
As I said the main reason that I like the box is the 5.1 support on a non DD+ receiver and the fact that zou actuallz run a Netflix app oppose to a plugin which usually causes issues.

Let me know what you think of it Jola when you get yours, I must say I made the move from Roku and haven't looked back, but it is still early so let me have a play before the final verdict.
 
Smokey_sa said:
As I said the main reason that I like the box is the 5.1 support on a non DD+ receiver and the fact that zou actuallz run a Netflix app oppose to a plugin which usually causes issues.

Let me know what you think of it Jola when you get yours, I must say I made the move from Roku and haven't looked back, but it is still early so let me have a play before the final verdict.
Click to expand...

Hi, just a question, did you have to register for a US Amazon account to use it or can you use the device without one?
 
Rytlock said:
Hi, just a question, did you have to register for a US Amazon account to use it or can you use the device without one?
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Well I had an Amazon account and just changed the location to the US so that I could configure it. Also you need the US account to purchase apps through the Amazon site.

I had no reason not to do it as my wife also has an account for ZA.

Otherwise just create a US account for the FTV.
 
Cool, thanks. Thinking of getting one. See Takealot got them in stock now. But cannot make up my mind if I want the Amazon or Google Nexus...
 
Rytlock said:
Cool, thanks. Thinking of getting one. See Takealot got them in stock now. But cannot make up my mind if I want the Amazon or Google Nexus...
Click to expand...

I think it's about what you want to do with it.

I am mainly running Netflix and Kodi on mine and never had a problem. Wifi is good and it does what it says on the tin.
Just be aware that you will not be able to root it, should you want to do so. (at least not at the moment.
 
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