![]() ![]() The new Google TV interface may sound familiar, but it’s not just a resurrection of the deprecated smart TV platform from 10 years ago. With the Assistant integration, you can ask the digital helper to play your favorite songs on Spotify, show your Nest camera stream, change up the color of your lighting or play specific shows. Google said it picked these two streaming services because they’re the most popular among users. The keys here include Back, Assistant, Home, Mute, Power, Input, as well as dedicated options for YouTube and Netflix. Roku’s new $100 streaming box just added support for Dolby Vision, while Amazon’s $50 Fire Stick 4K and the Apple TV 4K have both had the codec for years.Ī new component of the Chromecast is the remote control, which Google said was “our most requested feature.” It has a round four-way navigation pad near the top and eight buttons below that, as well as volume controls along the right edge. It’ll also work with Dolby Vision content for better colors, contrast and brightness, as well as offer surround sound for more immersive experiences. The streaming puck is powered by a new processor that helps it run the new interface and support 4K HDR at up to 60 frames per second. The design looks rounder and softer, similar to Google’s latest Nest Mini speakers, with a color palette to match. Google is calling this the “best Chromecast yet.” It looks more like to the Chromecast Ultra from 2016 than the original stick, with a slightly oval shape and a thinner profile. Google’s Launch Night In event today basically confirms things we already saw. Combine that with a bluetooth paired controller to the Chromecast device, and you’ve got an easy gaming setup straight out of your big TV.Because some of Google’s retail partners accidentally sold units of the new player, we’ve already know exactly what to expect. You can add/install a bunch of other apps, including SteamLink which will let you stream games from your PC. ![]() The display looks as you’d expect, a list of apps, with TV show suggestions and access to the Google TV app store. I ended up using the TV remote for volume instead. For volume, you do have the choice of having the buttons control the TV volume or the Chromecast device volume, so if you were solely using the TV with that it would make sense to increase the TV’s volume and change to that – but if you have other devices you switch to, they’ll of course come out a lot louder. Maybe it’s just my TV, but it was frustrating. Within about 1.5m it worked perfectly, and beyond that it just didn’t work. The device is still quite small and thin and has the hard wired HDMI cable at one end, and the USB-C port at the other – cable and power point plug were included.īack on the remote, once I’d finished setting up and started to play around I found the throw distance of the remote for IR functions (such as volume) to the TV was quite poor. In some ways, it’s much nicer to have a full version of Windows available along with a keyboard to be able to alternate between media watching device and computer monitor, but using a keyboard is still a clunky experience for sitting on a couch and just wanting to watch some Netflix.Ĭoming in three colours (which have fancy names, but they’re white, pale blue and pale pink), I started with a pale blue. ![]() Personally I’ve been plugging old laptops into TVs and using wireless keyboards to provide a similar experience. To reiterate – this can now be a standalone device for streaming media, that doesn’t need your phone or anything else to kick it off. For $99AU, you can buy a Chromecast with Google TV device and plug it into a HDMI port of your TV, and plug the other end into the wall via USB charger to make any TV, smart. In a move that will probably frustrate most TV manufacturers, Google has added this same Google TV experience into their latest Chromecast devices. So much so, that most TVs these days come with Google TV built into it, and a nice big Google Play button on the TV remote. One of the areas they’ve excelled at in recent times, is leveraging their Android platform to provide a decent Smart TV experience. Google do some things well, and some other things not so well – those get abandoned reasonably quickly for the most part. ![]()
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