Chromecast with Google TV (HD)

I only have an HD TV and VDSL internet, so didn't need the 4K version. Works well and fast. You can disable the extended home screen that has recommendations etc., and just have 'apps only', which is great (although that way turns off voice assistant, which isn't so great). Can have multiple profiles, awesome. The bottom left button on the remote turns on/off TV but the input selector button to the right of this I haven't managed to get it to work (not a game changer though) and volume buttons on the side of the remote can do either your TV volume or the Chromecast's own volume. You decide in settings. Works well with Google home app on your phone/tablet. The setup was very easy and it guides you through perfectly.

tl;dr - pros: Google Assistant, turn old TVs into smart ones, cheap, very simple setup cons: limited selection of apps, no web browser, may not work with off-brand TVs quite so well Been using this most days for about a month. I bought this for the older TV in my house that's in the bedroom and it's awesome to be able to effectively turn an almost 10 year-old TV into a smart TV. Super simple to set up, it only took about five minutes or less (not including finding all the apps I wanted and installing them). The remote is really simple to use and appears to be both wireless and IR, because the Chromecast is not visible at all from the front of the TV and yet it works perfectly, plus I was able to set up the TV itself to be controlled (turned on and off, turn the ... Moretl;dr - pros: Google Assistant, turn old TVs into smart ones, cheap, very simple setup cons: limited selection of apps, no web browser, may not work with off-brand TVs quite so well Been using this most days for about a month. I bought this for the older TV in my house that's in the bedroom and it's awesome to be able to effectively turn an almost 10 year-old TV into a smart TV. Super simple to set up, it only took about five minutes or less (not including finding all the apps I wanted and installing them). The remote is really simple to use and appears to be both wireless and IR, because the Chromecast is not visible at all from the front of the TV and yet it works perfectly, plus I was able to set up the TV itself to be controlled (turned on and off, turn the volume up and down) by the Chromecast remote - this TV is a Panasonic, you may have issues with this if you're using an off-brand TV like Veon from The Warehouse. Also as far as I can tell, you can't use the Chromecast remote to change brightness or other TV settings not mentioned above. I was a bit disappointed that there is, as yet, no support here for Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming. I was able to sideload a version of the app for Android, but it didn't work at all so I uninstalled it. Also a bummer that there's no official browser support, meaning you can't even download Google Chrome. I thoroughly recommend this for the bedroom especially, because it's cheap enough that you won't mind not using it every single day, and it's convenient for things like playing rain sounds to fall asleep to for example - I've done this several times now. You can set it to turn off the TV automatically after a period of inactivity, so there's no waking up in the middle of the night to the TV still blaring. The Google Assistant integration here is very good. Being able to change the aircon temperature, or turn it off completely, with my voice using the Chromecast remote is pretty cool, and you can do it without turning the TV on. I'm excited to get more Google Assistant devices to see how well they all play together. I love this, definitely a recommend despite its shortcomings.

We bought one, with the aim to get one for all the TVs . We had a Vodafone box and I was tempted to go with the sky box. One morning my wife could not get the Vodafone box to work and she thought it was Vodafone that turned it off. I went and got this Google TV device to make sure that our not-smart tv become a dumb TV. Now i don't even care about the Sky TV thing. This is AWESOME. it has everything the sky tv has and is even MORE convenient for CHEAP. Planning to get some of those cheap VEON panels and slap this device on it. It will make any good panel a GREAT smart TV. Just to be clear, I still love our Samsung TV. It is named "the best tv in the world" on the wifi but this is definitely a challenger for the title.

Decent software, excellent design, bad hardware

Chromecast with Google TV has one primary selling point: Excellent design.The hardware and remote feel very good in the hand. Even though the dongle itself is hidden behind the TV most of the time, it just has a touch to it that exceeds expectations.Then there's the remote. It's minimalist without being impossible to control, like the Apple TV touch remote. (Apple has fixed that with their latest release, but that was a pretty terrible design, from a UX standpoint.)However.The software is slow to respond. There's a lag from almost every keypress. It's not unbearable, but it definitely is painful.There's a storage limit. You can only install so many services before you run out of room. Now, logically do you need all those services? No. But it shouldn't be hardware ... MoreChromecast with Google TV has one primary selling point: Excellent design.The hardware and remote feel very good in the hand. Even though the dongle itself is hidden behind the TV most of the time, it just has a touch to it that exceeds expectations.Then there's the remote. It's minimalist without being impossible to control, like the Apple TV touch remote. (Apple has fixed that with their latest release, but that was a pretty terrible design, from a UX standpoint.)However.The software is slow to respond. There's a lag from almost every keypress. It's not unbearable, but it definitely is painful.There's a storage limit. You can only install so many services before you run out of room. Now, logically do you need all those services? No. But it shouldn't be hardware limitations that make you decide.Finally, the remote starts to eat through batteries. Two AAA batteries every 10 days, at this point. That's just unacceptable from ecological and economic standpoints.

Great Features

Purchased this to try other than a another product I was using.Was truly shocked at how well this Chromecast work with the Google Tv. Streaming seems to lag sometimes but so do other streaming devices. Love how well the remote works when searching. I can say when you ask per say a name of a movie or show sometimes it will take you else where like YouTube or something. That's a little frustrating. I did find it being fast and reliable most of the time. I think Google is on right track with streaming devices. Love that it's small enough to hide behind the TV some and the USB cord isn't super long . Overall it's great streaming device. Would highly recommend

Love it and recommend it to others!

We've been really happy with this, we wanted something compatible with 5g and were tired of having to use our phones to cast to the TV (although you still can with this one). It connects to your TV model and become the master remote so you can adjust volume, turn the TV on and off etc. No lag unless the WiFi is playing up. So nice to scroll through the streaming apps (kayo is available). And the speech to text button works pretty well, we use it often to save time searching. Yes it need to be plugged into the wall now, not a USB port for power. Only annoying bit is the remote is really smooth and slippery, it often goes flying, but that's all! Far superior than the old chromecast. Had it for more than a year now and use it everyday as we don't have aerial.

Love my chromecast

I am a huge fan of Google Chromecast. I have tried so many different "Smart TV" softwares and Google makes the best one. I love that the remote is SIMPLE. I always found remotes with a lot of buttons and features to be more annoying than helpful. This one is dead simple to use. I love the Chromecast has so many of the different streaming services built in. I have used other software that was missing some of the major streamers, which seems crazy. The best part about the Chromecast compared to others is that they aggregate the content across my different streaming services. I use five different services and this allows me to see all of my free content in one place rather than jumping around the each of them as I am looking to find my next show/movie to watch.

Start Enjoying Your Time Watching TV Again

The actual Chromecast is a great joy for one who has just retired and sick and tired of advertisements on free tv. I didnt realize what l was missing. Love every minute of it. Only one difficulty the instructions were in Spanish so l had to download a translator and it took forever to install this way. I have actually purchased two from you but have difficulty loading it onto my Sonic TV. No problems with my other TV just the sonic. Would you have any idea why. Would love some help. My friend and l spent four hours downloading and reading instructions for trouble shooting but nothing worked. Will still highly recommend it to everyone. Price was wonderful too. Would like to say here that Staff at the Broadmeadows store are always professional and helpful.

Unreliable junk

I can't stream media from my phone reliably with this - it keeps jamming and buffering. By comparison, my old 3rd gen Chromecast works fine. It allegedly comes with all the features of an Android type media streamer, but I find Kodi and VLC often won't load. It features a really fancy desktop, with lots of bling, moving images and spam trying to make you buy movies and products on Google. I think this fancy desktop uses so much system resources that a lot of apps can't function properly, which is a pity because you can't get rid of it. If you want to cast media from your phone, get the old 3rd gen Chromecast. If you want a media streamer, get the NVIDIA Shield TV. Don't bother with this, because it tries to do both and does neither reliably.

Wonderful Feature Rich TV Streamer

I bought 4 of these HD Chromecasts and I have nothing but praise for this device.My HD varieties worked flawlessly from the setup to its eventual use. I do have to add a caveat to this I also bought a 4K version which was faulty out of the box . it simply refused to connect to my wireless internet I eventually got my money refunded. The second one I purchased just worked brilliantly though I also connected one of the 4 HD varieties for which I had no trouble connecting it to my TV. I have yet to try the other 3. All in all a great device turning your HD or 4K normal TV into an exceptional android TV. Well worth the extra $20 for the HD variant compared to the standard 3rd generation chromecast at $39. The remotes voice assistant was just wonderful and worked to a T. ... MoreI bought 4 of these HD Chromecasts and I have nothing but praise for this device.My HD varieties worked flawlessly from the setup to its eventual use. I do have to add a caveat to this I also bought a 4K version which was faulty out of the box . it simply refused to connect to my wireless internet I eventually got my money refunded. The second one I purchased just worked brilliantly though I also connected one of the 4 HD varieties for which I had no trouble connecting it to my TV. I have yet to try the other 3. All in all a great device turning your HD or 4K normal TV into an exceptional android TV. Well worth the extra $20 for the HD variant compared to the standard 3rd generation chromecast at $39. The remotes voice assistant was just wonderful and worked to a T. I cannot recommend this device enough.