Three days into Black Friday, and Amazon is already cutting prices further on its Fire TV range.
The reductions – particularly on their brand new model – suggest the company is extremely keen to get the “Select” streaming stick into as many homes as possible.
The Fire TV Stick 4K Select, which dropped to £23.99 on Tuesday, is now down to £19.99. That’s 60% off (!) a device that only launched last month at £49.99.
The standard Fire TV Stick 4K has also been reduced further, now sitting at £24.99 – down from £29.99 earlier this week (compared to its regular £59.99 price).
But whilst the 4K stick getting cheaper is nice, it’s the Select’s pricing that raises eyebrows. Amazon is practically giving away its newest streaming device, the first to run on the company’s brand new Vega operating system rather than Android.
And if you’ve got an old Fire TV stick lying around, there’s an additional trade-in discount that can bring the price down even further (see below).
At £19.99, Amazon is unlikely to be making money on the hardware. They’re barely covering manufacturing costs. So why the aggressive discounting on a device that’s barely six weeks old?
The answer may have everything to do with a Firestick that’s struggled to find its footing since launch – facing lukewarm reviews, developer hesitation, and getting caught up in the broader controversy around Amazon’s IPTV streaming crackdown.
What Makes The Select Different
The Fire TV 4K Select (see my review) is the first streaming stick to run on Amazon’s brand new Vega operating system. Every previous Fire TV device – the HD stick, the 4K stick, the 4K Max, the Cube – all run Fire OS, which is based on Android.
Vega OS ditches Android entirely. It’s built directly on Linux instead, which Amazon says allows for a leaner, more efficient system that needs less powerful (and cheaper) hardware to run smoothly.
That sounds great in theory. The problem? It means starting…