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| Google Chromecast Review: Simple, Fast Internet TV |
Google’s Chromecast is a small dongle that plugs into a spare HDMI port on your TV to stream media from the internet to the living room screen using your smartphone, tablet or computer as a remote.
The tiny stick requires a connection to your home Wi-Fi network, and is powered by USB like most smartphones and tablet computers. It promises to stream content like Netflix, YouTube and the BBC iPlayer straight from the internet using your Android, iPhone, iPad or computer as a remote.
Chromecast, which looks like a chunky USB flash drive, is discreet and is designed to be plugged into the back of a TV and forgotten about. It comes with a USB power adapter, but can be powered directly by USB ports on most TVs, saving the need for yet another power plug.
Setting up the Chromecast is straightforward. An app called Chromecast is available for iOS or Android that connects to the streaming stick via Wi-Fi and allows you to configure the settings for your home Wi-Fi network.
From there, the Chromecast automatically logs on to the internet via Wi-Fi and waits until you command it to do something with one of your other devices.
Simple to use
Unlike most other set top boxes or streaming devices, such as the Apple TV or Roku, Chromecast acts like a window through which you broadcast media. It is purely a receiver and has no real interface of its own to navigate around, solely reliant on the commands from your computer, smartphone or tablet.
That lack of buttons or menus makes it dead simple to use. Find the content you want to watch, be it a Netflix, iPlayer or YouTube video, or some music from Google Play Music and hit the broadcast to Chromecast button.
The Chromecast then connects directly to the source, be it Netflix or another, and streams the video or music from the internet allowing you to turn off your smartphone or use it for something else.
Some apps, such as Plex, support streaming media from a network connected computer, while others allow users to stream media directly from a smartphone or tablet to the Chromecast.
Netflix, YouTube, BBC iPlayer Google Play and RealPlayer Cloud
What the Chromecast does, it does very well. Streaming from Netflix or YouTube is easy and works great, and so does streaming music from Google Play music or other Chromecast-enabled apps like RealPlayer Cloud or Plex.
However, what you can do with Chromecast is quite limited at the moment. Beyond Netflix, YouTube, BBC iPlayer and a small handful of apps like Real Player Cloud, your options are currently limited. There is no ITV player, 4oD or Amazon Prime Instant video streaming for instance, or any of the other catch up services right now.
The Chromecast is capable of mirroring a Chrome browser window from a computer, however, which makes it possible to display video from unsupported services or anything else that can be viewed in Chrome on the TV.
In practice, the video quality is low and the display can lag and skip frames, so it is not a real alternative to a dedicated streaming app for things like 4oD.
Price
At £30, the Chromecast is currently one of the cheapest streaming options - beaten only by the £10 Now TV box, which lacks Netflix or Amazon or many of the other services.
It significantly undercuts the competition from the likes of Roku’s £50 Streaming Stick or Apple’s £99 Apple TV.
Verdict
The Chromecast does what it claims to do very well and makes streaming video from Netflix and YouTube very easy indeed using a smartphone, tablet or computer as a wireless remote.
The problem is that Chromecast doesn’t do a lot more than that. It lacks a lot of the streaming services that competitors offer, but it promises to do a lot more in the future with rapid automatic updates in the background.
Chromecast is certainly an experiment for Google, and has the potential to be a one-stop streaming shop controlled easily from the sofa via a myriad of devices.
One £30 stick can turn any “dumb” television into an open smart TV in minutes, and offers developers a chance to innovate through apps that other smart TV platforms hamper with long and rigorous approval processes.
The appeal of the Chromecast, then, is the promise of what it could do in the future, not what it can do right now. Whether that is enough to justify its £30 price tag is debatable. It is certainly an interesting gadget to watch, if not necessarily buy right now.
Star rating: 3/5
Pros: Easy setup, great streaming quality, tiny, discreet, cheap
Cons: Not many streaming services, doesn’t do a lot right now
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