The Chromecast is smaller and cheaper than its competitors, but it loses out on most other counts. Personally, I find it hard to get excited about this functionality once you've become accustomed to the excellent image quality and reliability of services like Netflix and HBO Go.Ĭan it compete with the Apple TV and Roku? However, I had a much better experience using the same hardware with the screen-mirroring capability built into OS X and the Apple TV, so some of the fault has to fall on the Chromecast. Performance is dependent on your home-networking equipment, wireless environment, and computer's performance, so it's possible that the Chromecast may fare better in your setup. And the feature itself isn't entirely stable, so expect the extension to crash sometimes, with Google throwing a quirky "brain freeze" message up on your TV. You're also going to run into occasional (and sometimes frequent) dropouts - sometimes just audio, but sometimes the video pauses, too. Image quality ranges from mediocre to poor, mostly because Chrome is converting the video on the fly from your PC and sending it to the Chromecast. The bad news is that its limitations are obvious right away. I tested free Hulu content, NBC, CBS, and Fox, all of which worked. The good news is that mirroring works with essentially any streaming video, albeit with a few seconds of lag. It "works," but it's not a very satisfying experience.įree Hulu works, but not well. The Chromecast's mirroring feature is no different. In my experience, screen mirroring is one of those features that sounds great (free Hulu on my TV!), but it's usually just clunky enough that you find yourself not using it that often in the real world. By using the Chromecast extension, you can mirror any tab in Chrome on your TV, including any video, music, or photo that works in your browser. The other way to get content to the Chomecast is by using the Chrome browser on a Windows PC, Mac, or even most of Google's own Chromebook laptops. Screen mirroring: Not the panacea you've hoped for For households where not everybody has a smartphone or mobile device, a Chromecast may not be the best choice. In other words, there's no way to use the Chromecast as a "standalone" device - you need to have a smartphone or tablet handy. When you're not streaming, the Chromecast displays some pretty nature photos and status information, but you can't navigate to apps or select any content from your TV. Sarah Tew/CNETīy pushing all of the interaction to smartphones and tablets, one surprising result is that the Chromecast doesn't really have much of its own user interface. You're not making any image quality compromises by streaming with a stick.īefore you tell it what to play, the Google Chromecast doesn't have much of its own user interface. "Arrested Development" on Netflix looked as good as it does via my Roku 3, and high-quality content from YouTube like "Speakeasy with Paul F. Image quality from Netflix, YouTube, and Google Movies & TV was excellent - as good as you'd expect from a more sizable streaming box. It's undeniably fun to have a group of friends trading YouTube videos on your TV. Another perk is that any compatible device on the network can grab control of your Chromecast and can make adjustments. You can even adjust the volume using your device's hardware volume controls, although in my testing it adjusted only the Chromecast's internal volume, rather than the volume on the TV, so you'll still need your TV's remote around for master volume control. You can pause content or use the scrubber at the bottom to skip forward or back. In all, it's perfectly fine for a device designed to live behind your TV.Īfter you get a video playing, your smartphone or tablet acts like a remote. On the far end are a Micro-USB port, a small status light, and a tiny button you can use to reset the device to its factory default. (If you have a particularly cramped back panel, Google generously includes an HDMI extender cable.) The matte-black finish has enough of a texture to make it easily grippable, perfect for popping out the Chromecast and throwing it in your bag for travel. It's a 2-inch dongle that's compact enough to occupy a spare HDMI input on your TV without blocking adjacent inputs. ![]() The Chromecast hardware isn't anything special, but it has a reassuring, solid feel. For everyone else, Roku's line of boxes are still best in class - especially the Roku 3 - at least until the Chromecast adds a lot more content options. If you're invested in the Google Play marketplace for music and videos, the Chromecast is the best way to get that content on your TV and you can't argue with the price. ![]() Still, the Chromecast's success and its now-proven record of continued support make it much more attractive than when it first launched in July.
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