Review: Fire TV device great, but not fully ready

Furthermore, the search is rudimentary. Speaking “Sabrina: The Teenage Witch season 4” just got me the entire show, starting with season 1. The voice search recognizes titles of individual episodes, but it'll take me to the show's main page.

You can search while watching video, but that kicks you back to the home screen. It would have been nice to get just Hulu Plus video while in the Hulu Plus app.

One nice touch, though: If video is available for free on Hulu Plus, the search will steer you there, even if Amazon's trying to sell it. Amazon says it hopes to expand that to all other apps.

If you have Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX tablet, you can start video there and switch the feed to the TV. That frees up the tablet screen for supplementary content from Amazon's IMDb video and celebrity database. You can also check email and Facebook. It's akin to Apple's AirPlay feature for iPhones and iPads.

Fire TV is easy to set up, especially if you buy it through Amazon and have your device pre-registered to your account. Just plug the device into an outlet and connect it to the TV with an HDMI cable, which isn't included. You can get on the Internet through Wi-Fi or connect an Ethernet cable - again, not included.