Walmart has just released its new Onn 4K Streaming Box with Google TV. This is the successor to its first Onn 4K streamer released in 2021. The new model looks identical to the old one on the outside but comes with some internal improvements and maintains its killer pricing of $19.88. Read more ›
Most of the focus these days is on the newer Google TV interface, but older devices still running the Android TV interface seem to be getting a new account profile switcher on the Home screen. Reddit users are reporting that some Android TV devices with the “Discover” interface can now switch user accounts through a new profile icon that has appeared in the upper right corner of the home screen, as spotted by 9to5Google. This profile switcher isn’t as robust as the one found on Google TV devices, which can change recommendations and watchlists for each user. Instead, this is meant as an easy way to switch between Google accounts. This is likely being added to make switching accounts within Google apps, like YouTube, possible since those apps no longer rely on in-app account switchers and need to use an OS-level switcher.
Google has announced a few tweaks to the Home screen of streaming devices running Google TV, the version of Android TV using Google’s newest launcher interface. The changes are pretty minor and consist mostly of rearranging a few existing navigation tabs and buttons. Read more ›
Android 13, for phones and tablets, has been available for nearly half a year now, but that’s not true for the TV variant of Google’s operating system. While people are already starting to talk about the upcoming features of Android 14, Android TV 13 has been unavailable on any device. That has finally changed because Google recently updated its developer page with the final release of Android TV 13, as spotted by 9to5Google. Read more ›
With the new 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube being released tomorrow, I decided this was a good time to refresh all the benchmark scores for all competing devices so that everything was on an even playing field, since scores can change over time due to software updates. While no device ever scores exactly the same as before when rerunning benchmarks, especially when years have passed between tests, the two scores are usually close enough to not make much of a difference. As I retested the streaming devices in my arsenal, it became clear that the scores that dropped the most were the ones from devices that updated from Android 9 and 10 to Android 11 and 12, like the Nvidia Shield TV and the Google Chromecast 4K. The performance hit, from software updates alone, was as much as 12% in one case. Read more ›
Google released its 2022 Chromecast with Google TV HD this morning and I picked one up to see how it stacks up against all the popular Google TV, Android TV, and Fire TV streaming sticks and boxes from Amazon, Walmart, Nvidia, Tivo, MECOOL, and more. First and foremost, here are Geekbench CPU and GFXBench GPU benchmark scores to see how much raw performance power the new Chromecast HD has compared to its big brother, the Chromecast 4K, and all the other streaming devices I could get my hands on. Read more ›
As expected from numerous leaks, Google has released a non-4K version of its Chromecast streaming device. The Chromecast with Google TV HD, as it is officially called, provides what you’d expect from a budget streaming device with few surprises. At $29.99, the cheaper Chromecast competes directly with the Fire TV Stick Lite and Roku Express which cost the same. However, the Chromecast HD comes with the same remote as the 2020 Chromecast 4K, so you get TV power and volume controls on the remote, which the Fire TV and Roku do not offer at this price point. Read more ›
Google’s upcoming 1080p Chromecast has been steadily leaking since the start of the year. Most recently we learned that the new model would likely cost $29.99 and be released very soon. New information has now surfaced, including a lengthy understanding of the device’s hardware specs and images that reveal the device will look identical to the existing Chromecast released in 2020. Read more ›
Hints of an upcoming new Google Chromecast with Google TV have been circling around since the start of the year. The device is expected to be cheaper than the existing $49.99 model released in 2020 and only support up to 1080p content. A new report from WinFuture claims that retail sources say the new model has already started arriving at retailers, which indicates the launch is imminent. Further, these sources claim the price of the new device will be €40. Comparing that to the existing 4K Chromecast, which sells for €69.99 in Europe, means the device will likely be $29.99 in the US. Read more ›
Over the last few weeks, there have been several newsworthy bits of information about Android TV and Google TV devices. Here’s a roundup of that news, which includes insight into new internal storage minimums, Nest, Fitbit, and Wear OS hardware integration, Tivo’s more into Smart TVs, and various software updates. Read more ›
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