Best Buy to Sell Insignia & Toshiba Smart TVs Powered by Amazon FireTV (1 Viewer)

[Todd Erwin]

Todd Erwin

Best Buy to Sell Insignia & Toshiba Smart TVs Powered by Amazon FireTV

Starting this summer, shoppers at Best Buy will find a Toshiba-branded smart TV powered by Amazon's Fire TV, to be followed shortly thereafter by 10 other models and sizes from both Toshiba and Insignia (Best Buy's in-house brand). Insignia's smart TV's were previously powered by Roku (there is no word if newer Insignia models will still offer Roku built-in). In an interesting twist, Best Buy will also sell Fire TV-powered Insignia sets on Amazon.com in addition to Best Buy's own website. The TV's will also include a voice-enabled remote with Alexa. Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made the announcement at a Best Buy retail location near Amazon's main headquarters in the Seattle, WA area. The announcement did not include what sizes the displays would be available in, nor any particular price points, but that they would include both HD and UHD displays.

Sources: Variety and The Verge.

 

[Brian Kidd]

Ugh. Roku is just such a better user experience than Amazon. I have a feeling I'll be using standalone Roku devices for some time. I'd love to be convinced that there is a better built-in "smart" service. I just haven't come across it.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I no sure if using Amazon Fire TV will work good or not to be honest but I have absolutely no interest in anything made by Insignia. And Toshiba's stuff has not interested me in many years. So we will have to see if the use of Amazon Fire TV helps sell tv's for them or not? To many companies making better tvs to bother with these two manufacturers.

 

[Todd Erwin]

I've tried both Amazon Fire TV and Roku, and Roku not only has the better interface, it has a much wider range of apps that are not available on Fire TV (Vudu and FandangoNow, especially).

Yeah, Toshiba is nothing more than a licensed name now when it come to televisions, but Insignia displays actually aren't that bad. Would I place one in my living room? No, but it would be a likely candidate for a bedroom or guest room.