Upgrade to Chromecast 4k today, or wait until Google TV Streamer releases?

2 years ago by GissaMittJobb to c/android

Context: I have a Chromecast with Google TV today that I'm quite happy with, after having heavily customized the thing. However, it's only 1080, and I recently got a 4k TV and would like to be able to get the full mileage out of it.

Now that Google are sunsetting the Chromecast series, is it a bad idea to pick up a 4k Chromecast, or should I just wait for the new device to drop? It seems a bit pricier and I'm not sure if there are any features I should necessarily wait for.

My use-case is basically watching YouTube/Nebula/Netflix/Jellyfin.

Diplomjodler3 7 points 2 years ago

I have a 4k Chromecast but I'll be replacing it with the streamer once it comes out. Mine has been a bit flaky lately, requiring frequent reboots.

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jjlinux 1 point 2 years ago

I thought it was only mine. Guess they're ready to apply the obsolescence update to these soon.

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Pardal 5 points 2 years ago

From personal experience, the Chromecast 4K on its is very limited on free space. That means if you want to install more than a handful of apps, you will need to resort to a USB hub, most likely a powered one, to connect a USB flash drive or SD card in order to expand the usable space.

If you think that's not a problem, the Chromecast is a very capable device. I won't put it on the same level of performance like an Apple TV 4K, but it can do everything I throw at it, albeit in some slowness from the UI from time to time.

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randombullet 1 point 2 years ago

Would a Nvidia Shield be a good fit for this use case?

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GissaMittJobb 1 point 2 years ago

Possibly. I'll have to add it to the mix when comparing. Thanks for the suggestion.

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MummifiedClient5000 1 point 2 years ago

I don't have a qualified answer, but I'm interested to hear what sort of customization you can do on a Chromecast?

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GissaMittJobb 3 points 2 years ago

You can do a lot of things! I've replaced the launcher and installed an altstore on it, giving me access to plenty of good stuff.

It's running Android under the hood, so any APK is theoretically installable, but most won't run well unless they are optimized for the use-case.

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MummifiedClient5000 2 points 2 years ago

I should look into that. The launcher is awful.

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GissaMittJobb 2 points 2 years ago

I was mostly against having the amount of ads that it blasted on me. They had a setting to turn off the recommendations, but that made it nigh-unusable.

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