diff --git a/docs/narr/assets.rst b/docs/narr/assets.rst
index 2cc870619b..bad6660664 100644
--- a/docs/narr/assets.rst
+++ b/docs/narr/assets.rst
@@ -370,19 +370,22 @@ do so, do things "by hand".  First define the view callable.
    :linenos:
 
    import os
-   from pyramid.response import Response
+   from pyramid.response import FileResponse
 
    def favicon_view(request):
        here = os.path.dirname(__file__)
-       icon = open(os.path.join(here, 'static', 'favicon.ico'), 'rb')
-       return Response(content_type='image/x-icon', app_iter=icon)
+       icon = os.path.join(here, 'static', 'favicon.ico')
+       return FileResponse(icon, request=request)
 
 The above bit of code within ``favicon_view`` computes "here", which is a
 path relative to the Python file in which the function is defined.  It then
 uses the Python ``open`` function to obtain a file handle to a file within
-"here" named ``static``, and returns a response using the open the file
-handle as the response's ``app_iter``.  It makes sure to set the right
-content_type too.
+"here" named ``static``, and returns a :class:`pyramid.response.Fileresponse`
+using the file path as the response's ``path`` argument and the request as
+the response's ``request`` argument.  :class:`pyramid.response.FileResponse`
+will serve the file as quickly as possible when it's used this way.  It makes
+sure to set the right content length and content_type too based on the file
+extension of the file you pass.
 
 You might register such a view via configuration as a view callable that
 should be called as the result of a traversal:
diff --git a/pyramid/response.py b/pyramid/response.py
index d2b6fc8a77..2642d7769a 100644
--- a/pyramid/response.py
+++ b/pyramid/response.py
@@ -30,12 +30,21 @@ class FileResponse(Response):
 
     ``cache_max_age`` if passed, is the number of seconds that should be used
     to HTTP cache this response.
+
+    ``content_type``, if passed, is the content_type of the response.
+
+    ``content_encoding``, if passed is the content_encoding of the response.
+    It's generally safe to leave this set to ``None`` if you're serving a
+    binary file.  This argument will be ignored if you don't also pass
+    ``content-type``.
     """
-    def __init__(self, path, request=None, cache_max_age=None):
+    def __init__(self, path, request=None, cache_max_age=None,
+                 content_type=None, content_encoding=None):
         super(FileResponse, self).__init__(conditional_response=True)
         self.last_modified = getmtime(path)
-        content_type, content_encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(path,
-                                                              strict=False)
+        if content_type is None:
+            content_type, content_encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(path,
+                                                                  strict=False)
         if content_type is None:
             content_type = 'application/octet-stream'
         self.content_type = content_type
diff --git a/pyramid/tests/test_response.py b/pyramid/tests/test_response.py
index af6eb3532b..c5df1fc059 100644
--- a/pyramid/tests/test_response.py
+++ b/pyramid/tests/test_response.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import io
+import os
 import unittest
 from pyramid import testing
 
@@ -17,6 +18,25 @@ def test_provides_IResponse(self):
         inst = self._getTargetClass()()
         self.assertTrue(IResponse.providedBy(inst))
 
+class TestFileResponse(unittest.TestCase):
+    def _makeOne(self, file, **kw):
+        from pyramid.response import FileResponse
+        return FileResponse(file, **kw)
+
+    def _getPath(self):
+        here = os.path.dirname(__file__)
+        return os.path.join(here, 'fixtures', 'minimal.txt')
+
+    def test_with_content_type(self):
+        path = self._getPath()
+        r = self._makeOne(path, content_type='image/jpeg')
+        self.assertEqual(r.content_type, 'image/jpeg')
+
+    def test_without_content_type(self):
+        path = self._getPath()
+        r = self._makeOne(path)
+        self.assertEqual(r.content_type, 'text/plain')
+
 class TestFileIter(unittest.TestCase):
     def _makeOne(self, file, block_size):
         from pyramid.response import FileIter