The Firestick Alternative we have all been waiting for?

for the last five years or so the main

option for streaming sticks have been

the Fire TV OS based fire stick now

there are so many different models to

choose from but if you want a streaming

stick you really feel like the fire

stick is the only option

well there's actually another one this

is the me Android based Streaming Stick

it's going to kind of remind you of an

Nvidia Shield a little bit in the

operating system look I should say but

it's an alternative that does a lot of

what the fire stick can do as a compact

device and today we're going to be

reviewing it and seeing how well does

this actually stack up to the

competition so buckle up while we find

out if this is actually a decent

alternative to the fire stick now if you

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follow button and let's get into the me

stick let's start by unboxing this thing

now we're going to start by seeing if

the pieces that come inside this are

similar to the fire stick the first

thing you're going to notice

I mean come on they couldn't have tried

a little harder to differentiate the

packaging a little bit now this is a 4K

stick which right off the bat they only

have one model and that is 4K

look at that inside obviously all the

official apps we're going to go over all

that

you have a nice plug-in power cord right

here now this is going to run from your

power block to the cord I'm going to

show you that while we set this up

you also have here a nice TV extender

again another fire stick like item where

this can help to extend it a little bit

and this one actually looks a lot longer

than the one you get with your fire

stick so that's a huge bonus I think the

fire stick one is like that long but

here you can see this makes it a little

easier for those hard to reach HDMI

ports I'll show you the difference there

as well and then the remote now this is

my biggest negative already on this

first of all no no batteries

okay

in 2023 they really can't give you

batteries with the remote that's kind of

weak okay now regardless from that this

is not a really high quality remote you

guys can kind of see it's like cheapish

plastic not the best made remote I've

ever seen in my life it does have that

Google Assistant button it has two

shortcuts but look at all this wasted

space down here that you could have for

something such as a pause a rewind you

know some of that stuff and I know these

buns can do a similar function but it

would just make it so much easier I

don't understand why they didn't do that

so the remote right off the bat fire

stick remote all the way compared to

this one this one just feels like it's

gonna break as soon as you drop it other

than that the stick itself is basically

the same size we've got a little bit of

so look at that see very very similar

design I would say the same size a

little bit lighter most likely but

otherwise not too bad let's go plug this

thing in and I want to see what the

setup process process looks like and

everything like that so the first thing

you have to do is plug in your power

cord

it's actually decently long but you can

see it does struggle to reach that HDMI

port just a little bit I just have

enough it's just based on where my my

setup is

now what you're going to want to do next

is take your extender now you don't have

to use the extender if you have enough

room you can just plug this directly in

you can see right here how my stick

when we plug it in right here

because of the thickness of the stick

the actual other HDMI cord gets in the

way so a lot of this is not going to

work that's why they give you this

extender the extender we can now plug in

it's nice and thin and now we can easily

plug in our stick like so

just like this boom good to go now we

want to take our power cord and we want

to plug it in like so and that's it you

can see how the device can still be

hidden pretty well behind the TV it's

light enough that it does kind of

suspend off the top there and now we can

get into actually testing it out and

seeing how well the setup process is and

how easy this device is to use

so the setup process is basically the

same as any other Android based

streaming device that are official such

as the me cool the Nvidia Shield it's

going to look exactly the same so if you

already have a Google account you can

actually set up your credentials super

quick or if you have an Android phone

same thing it's a very very fast process

otherwise you can go ahead and go

through the whole entering your Wi-Fi

and all of that I'm going to do that

really quickly I'm not going to walk you

guys through this beginning part now

that whole process probably took me a

total of two to three minutes about the

same amount of time you'd spend setting

up a fire stick now starting with the

home interface this is the first thing I

want to talk about you're going to

notice it has all of those official apps

there's a lot of generic streaming

devices that actually don't allow full

versions of Netflix and that's because

they're not certified with it now the me

Streaming Stick is certified with all

those major streaming apps and the

Google Play Store meaning that any app

that you can download on your Android

device you can also download from the

Google Play Store and of course this

being Android TV we can also go ahead

and load third-party apps so obviously

you guys should know that right off the

bat this has no restrictions in terms of

that whatsoever now the major difference

right off the bat is the home interface

this is a big change from the Fire TV

stick in fact actually it has a lot less

ads okay Amazon loves to push ads on you

in this case you don't get those

compared to the fire stick you actually

just get a nice clean interface you can

customize a lot of these channels here

so we can remove Netflix from here if we

want we can add other channels if you

want to see previews so you can see here

Netflix we can remove that and now we

have that there so that's going to allow

us to really customize our home screen

experience and get the most out of it

it's a really big difference now the me

Streaming Stick comes with a total of

two gigabytes of RAM and 8 gigabytes of

storage now that brings it right up to

what the fire stick is in terms of

storage once you have account for the

operating system and all that you

actually get around five gigabytes total

so when we go into storage you're going

to see 5.2 gigabytes that's a little bit

more than you typically get with a fire

stick so again not a ton of space now

one added bonus I really like with this

device is the built-in Chromecast that

means it makes it really easy for us to

cast from our various devices where your

fire stick does have mirroring

capabilities it's not quite the same

thing and you don't quite get the same

quality when you cast from it now with

Android TV devices you get so many more

settings you can customize compared to

your fire stick including developer

options that you can unlock just by

going into your settings pressing here

five times and that unlocks your

developer options where you can

customize a ton of things inside of your

me stick I love that that's always been

a major bonus with Android based devices

that aren't quite as locked as the fire

stick now the mestick offers 4K quality

so it's up there with the 4K Max and the

normal 4K stick apart from the normal 4K

there is no AI enhancements you get what

you see you get up to 4K and that's

about it so if you have a 4K TV this is

going to offer pretty beautiful quality

on your TV now I did mention this before

but obviously much like your fire stick

if you're going to want to add a USB

port you do need to get an OTG cable in

order to expand this power port now with

all that in mind is this a better

purchase than the fire stick and the

answer is it's a little more expensive

but if you prefer the Android TV based

operating system that's really the only

main difference so for me the fire stick

does offer a lot more cheaper options

like the fire stick light which can run

you as cheap as like 20 bucks if you get

at the right time of year but if you're

like I cannot use Fire TV OS I hate

Amazon's operating system go with the me

stick it's actually a pretty great

option and it's not crazy expensive it's

a nice middle of the range streaming

device now if you guys enjoyed this

video make sure you hit that subscribe

button before you leave I'll be doing

tons of more content let me know what

you think down below of the me stick and

if you've tried it before and what your

experiences with it are thanks for

watching guys I'll see you later