Monday morning Amazon introduced the Fire TV Stick, a streaming device that plugs into a television's HDMI port, reports The Verge. Amazon claims that the Fire TV Stick offers the same quality experience as the full Fire TV introduced in April.

The Fire TV stick is able to stream from all the desirable services that you'd want:

  • ESPN
  • YouTube
  • Hulu Plus
  • Pandora
  • Prime Instant Video

Plus, it can play games.

The Stick becomes available for $39 beginning Nov. 19. It is currently available for preorder. Prime subscribers can get it for $19 through Wednesday.

How the Amazon Fire TV Stick Rivals Chromecast and Roku Streaming Stick

Chromecast is Amazon's best-selling electronic device. Amazon would prefer that popular device be replaced with one of its own products. In a written statement, Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos claimed the Fire TV Stick "is the most powerful streaming media stick available."

The Stick has twice the memory and four times the internal storage of the Chromecast with these two features 8GB of internal storage and 1GB of RAM.

And, it offers something Chromecast doesn't: dual-band Wi-Fi and a dual-core processor.

Amazon also claims its Fire TV Stick trumps the power of the Roku Streaming Stick with six times the processing power.

Another huge benefit of the Fire TV Stick is that it comes with a basic remote and interface, whereas the Chromecast is used through your phone. It's important to point out that a remote with microphone and voice search must be purchased separately for $29.99. If you don't want to spend more to get the fancier remote, you can download Amazon's Fire TV remote app, which allows you to perform a voice search. It's currently available for Android only, and an iOS app is being developed.

The Fire TV Stick costs more than the Chromecast, but the user-friendly interface to start streaming may be well worth it.