If you’re looking for a cheap 4K streaming device, it doesn’t get much better than the Chromecast with Google TV. Available for $50, Chromecast comes with 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos in a clean design that plugs into an HDMI port and hides behind your TV, making it the perfect complement to the Apple TV 4K: half the price with most of the basic features.
Google’s latest device, aptly named the Google TV Streamer, is a whole different caliber. Priced at $99, it competes directly with the Apple TV 4K in terms of price and features. It’s a 32GB device with Ethernet and HDMI that also serves as a Matter smart home hub and Thread border router. Apple, on the other hand, charges $129 for a similarly feature-set 64GB Apple TV 4K (without Ethernet) and $149 for a 128GB Apple TV 4K (with Ethernet).
Google itself admits that the TV streamer is a direct competitor to Apple TV 4K. Shalini Govil-Pai, vice president and general manager of Google TV, says Google is trying to “take the market to a new level.” In addition, Chromecast with Google TV will be discontinued, effectively abandoning the lower end of the market and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick will take all sales.
After all these years of people saying Apple needed to compete with Chromecast with an Apple TV dongle, Google surprised us all by going the other way and creating a device that can compete with the Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire Cube, and Roku Ultra. And it did it in the most Apple way, with a device that’s all about form and made for watching. The Google TV Streamer has an incredibly thin wedge design that rests elegantly on a TV stand. Its flat base looks like a charging mat, and the color options (hazelnut and porcelain) will look great in any living room.
Apple has owned the high-end streamer market for so long that it hasn’t really had to innovate to stay on top. If it had, it would be easy to imagine something like the Google TV streamer. Apple TV 4K is an excellent streaming box, but it’s not flashy in any way – the Google TV streamer certainly is. And maybe that’s just the push Apple needs to take its own streaming box to the next level.
