Locked in a turf war with Telstra and Netflix, Foxtel is fighting to defend its foothold in Australian lounge rooms with its new tiny streaming media player.

Say what you will about Foxtel, it's done a pretty good job of moving with the times, considering only a few years ago it was inconceivable for Australians to get the pay TV service in their lounge rooms without paying for a cable/satellite set-top box and locking themselves into an expensive contract.

The Netflix-style Foxtel Now streaming video service puts Foxtel within reach of the masses, letting anyone legally watch HBO blockbusters like Game of Thrones for as little as $15 per month. You can watch live channels and tap into Foxtel's catch up service.

Unfortunately Foxtel dropped the ball when it came to getting its streaming service onto home entertainment devices. While you can watch Netflix on practically anything that connects to your television, the Foxtel Now app has been limited to a handful of smart TVs and game consoles.

Foxtel's contender

The new $99 Foxtel Now streaming box has been in the works for a while and goes on sale Friday, but unfortunately Telstra beat it to the punch with the slick Telstra TV 2.

Telstra's $192 streaming box makes it easy to watch Foxtel Now content, along with a much wider range of other video services. Neither box can record programs.

The Foxtel Now box supports Ultra HD resolution and the HEVC streaming codec, but Netflix is missing at this point – which is a real blow. Foxtel says it's still working out the details with the streaming giant. There's no mention of support for High Dynamic Range.

The Foxtel box does include Stan (co-owned by Fairfax Media) as well as a single HD free-to-air tuner and catch up apps from the ABC, Seven and Ten. Once again this falls short of the Telstra TV 2, which offers catch up from all five major Australian free-to-air broadcasts with tight cross-platform search. The Telstra box also offers access to the Bigpond Movies store while the Foxtel box supports Google Play.

How does it stack up?

So why would you opt for Foxtel's box over Telstra's rival? For starters the Telstra TV 2 is more expensive (assuming it's not included in a broadband bundle) and you need to be a Telstra customer to activate it whereas the Foxtel box will work for anyone. You need a Foxtel Now account to activate it, but a free two-week trial will do the trick and all the non-Foxtel features will keep working if you let your Foxtel Now subscription lapse.

There's also the issue of unmetered content. Foxtel has confirmed that watching Foxtel Now on Foxtel's box – or a Telstra TV 2 for that matter – won't count towards your monthly download limit if you're a Foxtel Broadband customer. Meanwhile Telstra broadband customers miss out on this, instead receiving unmetered access to Telstra's Bigpond Movies, but realistically watching Foxtel Now is likely to chew through much more data each month.

The biggest difference is that the new Foxtel box is based on the slick Android TV interface – with the possibility of voice control on the cards – to offer an "open platform", according to Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh. There's the ability to install third-party Android TV apps, although it remains to be seen how these perform. Meanwhile the Telstra TV 2 is a locked-down Roku box, offering the simplicity of the Roku interface but not the depth of the Roku app store.

One benefit of Android TV is that the Foxtel box is recognised as a Chromecast device for streaming from a wide range of apps, while the Telstra box's streaming options are very limited.

The ability to stream recordings from a Foxtel iQ3 recorder in your lounge room to a Foxtel Now in your bedroom would have been a welcome addition but unfortunately they're completely separate ecosystems. If you've got a Foxtel home subscription you'll still need to pay for Foxtel Now in order to watch Foxtel on this new streaming box. You can't use the Foxtel app (previously Foxtel Go) on this box because it's not in the Android TV section of the Google Play store.

While the new Android-powered Foxtel Now streaming puck looks promising, it feels like Foxtel has delivered an also-ran rather than taking the opportunity to really hit back against its rivals. Just like the flaky iQ3 was rushed to market to combat Netflix, let's hope this new Foxtel box isn't a half-baked effort to fend off Telstra.

It will be interested to see how the new box fares in hands-on reviews, but is there room for a tiny Foxtel streaming player in your lounge room?