Giving your old television a new lease of life, the Google TV Streamer brings the best of the internet into your lounge room.
These days most new televisions are smart TVs, but it’s still hit-and-miss as to which apps and services they support. Even if a new TV offers everything you need today, television makers can be slow to add new services and features that come along down the track.
Rather than regularly upgrading your TV every few years in search of the latest features, the smarter approach is to focus on buying the best picture quality you can afford and then letting your attached streaming devices do the heavy lifting.
Enter the $159 Google TV Streamer, Google’s latest device for turning any HDMI-capable television into a high-end Smart TV – up against the likes of Amazon’s Fire TV range, Apple TV, Fetch TV, Hubbl and Google’s own cheaper Chromecast with Google TV ($59 HD, $99 4K) – which is discontinued but still sold by Google while stocks last.
Table of contents
First impressions
The Google TV Streamer is a tiny set-top box rather than a dongle, with a sleek but awkward wedge-shaped design. It’s subtle enough to hide out of the way, but the sloped top means you can’t stack anything on top of it.
Up until now, Google’s streamers have been HDMI dongles. With the change, it’s not as easy to hang or mount the Google TV Streamer out of the way behind your television. The set-up process also makes it clear that you should power the box using the supplied USB-C cable and AC adaptor, rather than attempting to power it from a USB port on your television.
In return for the extra bulk, the Google TV Streamer is blessed with a gigabit Ethernet port. It’s a welcome addition for those of us who have an Ethernet switch in our home entertainment cabinet (doesn’t everyone?), letting you avoid interference and congestion on your Wi-Fi network for smoother streaming.
The remote control has also bulked up compared to the one supplied with the old Chromecast with Google TV. It’s now 15mm longer, allowing it to sport an extra row of buttons – although all that has actually changed is that the little volume rocker buttons on the side have now been granted space on the front.
The little TV power button remains at the bottom left, but the TV Input switcher alongside it has become a new programmable button. It can either change the TV device input, launch your favourite app on the Google TV Streamer or launch the Google Home interface for controlling smart home devices.
You’re still stuck with dedicated YouTube and Netflix buttons, and it would be nice if Google felt secure enough to let you choose which services to launch with these buttons – in my home we’d quickly swap out YouTube for Disney+.
During setup, the Google TV Streamer automatically detects your television. It correctly identified my LG OLED and configured the remote’s power, volume and input buttons accordingly.
Unlike the Chromecast with Google TV, there’s no cheaper Full HD version of the Google TV Streamer for use with older televisions that don’t support 4K. It’s another reason why scrapping the Chromecast seems like a bit of a jerk move by Google. It’s reminiscent of scrapping the great Chromecast Audio adaptor, of which I still have a few around the house, to force people to buy Chromecast-capable smart speakers.
Getting back to the remote, despite a slight size increase, it’s still small compared to those of other streaming devices, making it easy to lose down the back of the couch.
Thankfully, now you can say “Hey Google, find my remote” to a nearby Google speaker, making the remote beep so you can play a quick game of hide and seek.
Alternatively, you can trigger this using the button on the back of the unit, or using the Google Home smartphone app which can also serve as a virtual remote control.
Unfortunately the remote isn’t backlit, but Google has made a few subtle tactile changes to make it easier to use in the dark, or if you have low vision.
The new volume rocker makes it easier to tell whether you’re holding the remote the right way up, plus the microphone button has a tiny bump like the F and J keys on physical keyboards. It’s a shame Google couldn’t make the Home button raised, like the mic button on the old remote, so it would be easier to find by feel.
Google TV Streamer specs and price in Australia
| Output | Up to 4K HDR, 60 FPS |
| Video formats | Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG |
| Audio formats | Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos |
| Connectivity | HDMI 2.0 Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2.4 GHz/5 GHz) Bluetooth 5.1 |
| Memory | 4 GB |
| Storage | 32 GB |
| Operating system | Android TV OS 14 |
| Smart home connectivity | Matter Thread border router |
| Dimensions | 162 x 76 x 25 mm |
| Weight | 161 gm |
| Colours | Porcelain |
| Price (RRP) | $159 |
| Warranty | 1 year |
| Official website | Google Australia |
Features
At first glance, the Google TV Streamer doesn’t offer much of a feature boost compared to the cheaper 4K Chromecast, but dig a little deeper and you might find a reason to upgrade.
Under the bonnet, the Google TV Streamer bumps up the RAM from 2 to 4 GB and onboard storage from 8 to 32 GB. Realistically, you’re only likely to appreciate the improvement if you tend to use the device for playing Android games and running other demanding apps beyond media streaming.
As before, the picture quality is still excellent, supporting 4K Dolby Vision so there’s no step down compared to using the streaming video apps built into your 4K Dolby Vision-capable television.
One welcome change in some lounge rooms will be the addition of Dolby Atmos support, assuming you have a sound system capable of making the most of it.
Like the Chromecast, you can connect a single Bluetooth device for listening at night without waking the household, but it’s a shame you can’t connect two devices so parents can watch TV together in the evenings without disturbing the younglings.
Meanwhile, added support for the Matter and Thread smart home standards makes it easier to control other devices around your home.
Using the programmable button on the remote calls up the Google Home dashboard with a list of compatible smart gear around your home, including Google Nest cameras – although if you’ve turned off the camera in the Google Home app on your phone (perhaps to save power) you frustratingly can’t turn it on using the television.
Easier access to smart home controls is a handy addition considering that asking Google Assistant to perform some tasks and watching it screw up, rather than simply pressing buttons, is sometimes more trouble than it’s worth.
Streaming quality
In terms of software, the Google TV Streamer runs Android TV OS 14, stepping up from OS 12 on the Chromecast. While the new OS delivers benefits behind the scenes, there’s not much change in the user experience.
You’ve got all the major streaming services at your disposal, with cross-platform search and ‘Top picks for you’ content discovery, both of which make it easy to find something to watch without trawling through individual streaming services.
With the move to Android TV OS 14, AI helps make smarter suggestions, in addition to writing synopses and summarising reviews.
Search for a movie, like the brilliant Blades of Glory, and cross-platform search presents you with five different ways to watch it – favouring the services you’re already subscribed to, then other available subscription services and finally Google’s own service to rent or buy.
The Google TV Streamer brings a full Android-TV-style experience to the screen with a remote control, as you find built into some smart TVs. This way you’re not reliant on a smartphone to run things, as with the early Chromecast sticks. That said, you can still take advantage of Chromecast streaming to fling audio and video to the new device from your gadgets.
It would be great if you could remove the clutter of YouTube clip recommendations on the Home screen and just focus on the premium streaming services. Come movie night, the whole household doesn’t need to see the weird stuff I’ve been watching on YouTube.
Who is the Google TV Streamer for?
The Google TV Streamer is pretty much your one-stop entertainment shop when it comes to bringing the best of the internet to your lounge room. All that’s missing is a digital TV tuner – if that’s important to you then also consider the Fetch TV Mini or perhaps the oft-maligned Hubbl.
That said, if you’re happily making do with a Chromecast then there’s little reason to upgrade to the Google TV Streamer. Unless you’re enticed by the likes of an Ethernet port or Dolby Atmos support, that is.
The decision to scrap the perfectly good HD and 4K Chromecast models and force punters to pay a lot more for the Google TV Streamer is naturally going to rub some people the wrong way. If you’ve been meaning to upgrade an old TV on the cheap, grab a Chromecast for Google TV while you can.
The post Google TV Streamer review: A literal Chromecast killer appeared first on GadgetGuy.
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