The battle to grab a share in the smart TV market is gearing up as multiple vendors jump the bandwagon. While the giants such as TiVo may certainly have their reign unabated, the fact that new players are entering the arena is good in that brings the consumers a lot of new options.
A case in point is the SmartStick announced by Favi. The most intriguing part about this nifty gadget is that it runs Android Jelly Bean and can easily plug straight into your HDTV’s HDMI port.
As would be required of literally any streaming stick, Favi’s SmartStick comes with support for a whole host of web streaming services as well as for the apps in the Google Play Store. The price point also makes the scales tip in Favi’s favor, given the fact that numerous other vendors are hovering over near-$100 prices for similar offerings.
However, a drawback for the SmartStick is that it doesn’t come equipped with a keyboard or a mouse, devices which may be absolutely essential to make full use of it. And since you’ll have to purchase them separately, that may effectively eliminate Favi’s price-point edge. The company is offering the 4 GB variant of the stick for $50 whereas the 8GB version is up for $80. While you can already place your orders with Favi, you will be able to actually lay hands on it only in November.