Amazon is taking aim at Google and Roku with the launch of its Fire TV Stick in the UK. The £35 Stick is a smaller, more affordable version of Amazon's Fire TV box and can be plugged into any set with a HDMI port. It comes with apps including Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon's Prime Instant Video and streams music from Spotify and YouTube among others. The £35 Fire TV Stick (pictured) is a smaller, more affordable version of Amazon's Fire TV box and can be plugged into any set with a HDMI port. It comes with apps including Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon's Prime Instant Video and streams music from Spotify and YouTube among others. Amazon's Fire TV launched in the UK in October and costs more than double the price of the Stick, at £79. The Fire TV Stick isn't as powerful as the standard TV box, but many of its features are identical, including the apps available and its Fling function that lets people beam content from their phones to their TV. Inside the Stick is a dual-core processor, which Amazon said has six times the processing power of Roku Streaming Stick, and 8GB of storage. This is four times as much storage as the Chromecast and 32 times that of the Roku Stick. The Stick comes with a remote control but it can also be controlled using the free Fire TV Remote app for iOS and Android that includes voice search. Amazon's Fire TV (pictured) launched in the UK in October and costs more than double the price of the Stick, at £79. The Fire TV Stick isn't as powerful as the TV box, but many of its features are identical including the apps available and its Fling function that lets people beam content from their phones to their TV . Inside the Fire TV Stick (pictured) is a dual-core processor which Amazon said has six times the processing power of Roku Streaming Stick and 8GB of storage. This is four times as much storage as the Chromecast and 32 times that of the Roku Stick. Elsewhere it has 1GB of memory . Processor: Quad core with 'three times the processing power of Apple TV' Storage: 8GB . Weight: 281 grams . Operating system: Fire OS, based on Android . Memory:  2GB . Set-up: Box comes pre-registered and previously purchased Amazon content  will automatically be shown in a Watchlist. Voice activated: Users can say the name of a film, TV show, actor, director, genre, app or game into the remote and the results will appear in seconds. Games controller: Separate Bluetooth controller with dual analogue sticks. Games can also be beamed from Fire TV Remote app. Cost: £79 . Processor: Dual core with 'six times the processing power of the Roku Stick' Storage: 8GB . Weight: 25.1 grams . Operating system: Fire OS, based on Android . Memory: 1GB . Set-up: Box comes pre-registered and previously purchased Amazon content  will automatically be shown in a Watchlist. Voice activated: Users can say the name of a film, TV show, actor, director, genre, app or game into the remote and the results will appear in seconds. Games controller: Games can be beamed to the TV from the free Fire TV Remote app for iOS and Android. Cost: £35 . The Fire TV Stick is available to pre-order from Amazon for £35 and will ship from 15 April. After this date it will also be sold in John Lewis. And for the first two days Amazon Prime members get the Fire TV Stick for £19. 'When we launched Fire TV in the UK last September, it quickly became our fastest-selling Amazon device,' said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and boss. 'We're excited to introduce Fire TV Stick in the UK. Fire TV Stick is the most powerful streaming media stick available, with a dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, dual-band and dual-antenna Wi-Fi, included remote control, voice search with our free mobile app, and an open ecosystem. The Fire TV Stick (pictured) is available to pre-order from Amazon for £35 and will ship on 15 April. After this date it will also be sold in John Lewis, and for two days Amazon Prime members get the Fire TV Stick for £19 . 'The team has packed a huge amount of power and selection into an incredible price point - Fire TV Stick is just £35.' Other Fire TV Stick features include Whispersync that saves and synchronises  video and music libraries across devices. Google's Nexus Player is expected to go on sale in the UK on Thursday. A pre-order page appeared briefly on Amazon last week, but it has since been taken down. The device launched in the US last year and costs $99. It is likely to cost £80 in the UK. It has many of the same apps as Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV, plus a games controller from Asus that lets people play Android games on their TV. Users can additionally 'Fling' movies and TV shows from their Second Screen-enabled Fire tablet or Fire phone to Fire TV Stick. Once content has been 'flung', the phone or table can be used to control playback or volume. The Fire TV Stick will also mirror the phone or tablet display. A function called ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) will suggest films and TV shows that people will want to watch and buffers them for playback before a user hits play. And Amazon's X-Ray feature for for movies and TV shows lets people see information about cast and crew, the names of songs as they play, as well as a list of music in the movie or TV show, trivia items in context with the action on the screen, and character backstories. X-Ray is exclusive to Amazon and is powered by IMDb.
Fire TV Stick is a smaller, more affordable version of Amazon Fire TV . It is available for pre-order today and the £35 device will ship on 15 April . Plugs into any HDMI port on a TV and connects wirelessly to the web . Apps include Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Prime Instant Video, Spotify and more . And content can be controlled using an app on iOS and Android .