Google pulled off a rare feat this week, shocking the tech world with a product so unexpected and at such a low price that many of us were left scrambling to make sense of it.
Here's my take on the search giant's new Chromecast dongle after taking it for a quick spin at Wednesday's media event in San Francisco—go out and buy one. Preferably in the near future, because for a limited time, Google is throwing in three months of free streaming Netflix content when you buy the $35 device.
That price. What's not to love about it? As Gizmodo's Brian Barrett pointed out, the actual price for what he calls "the future of television" is around $11 when you factor in the free Netflix service.
The Chromecast works with any Android or iOS device, which function as remote controls directing the little device to pull video from the cloud and play it on your TV. You can also control the Chromecast with your PC or Mac, making this a truly cross-platform play for Google—and a shot across the bow aimed at Apple TV and Apple's AirPlay, which doesn't work with Android or Windows.
Basically, if you've got an HDTV, a Wi-Fi connection, and a smartphone or laptop, there's simply not a whole lot of reasons for not buying Chromecast. Unless you're literally down to your last $35 or something.
Is it going to revolutionize how we watch TV? Who knows. Lots of people are already using similar, more expensive devices from the likes of Apple and Roku $99.99 at RadioShack to stream content to their television sets. Ditto with the current and future generation of major game consoles, which are becoming all-in-one entertainment portals rather than just video game vehicles. Chromecast isn't doing anything spectacularly new, but that low, low price could sway millions of fence-sitters into giving cloud-streamed TV content a try.
Having seen the Chromecast in action this week, I'm not totally sold on it becoming the dominant platform for my TV viewing. I'm not quite ready to forego the live cable content that's piped to my box for egregious monthly prices.
But I enjoy Roku and use the Xbox 360 for non-gaming purposes more than I thought I ever would. I even got a brief kick out Google's disastrously received Nexus Q, a goofy black ball that didn't do much beyond play YouTube videos, cost hundreds of dollars, and mainly functioned as a high-tech lava lamp. A $35 dongle that gives you access to Netflix, YouTube, Google Play Store content, and the entire Internet via the Chrome browser (the last feature is in beta, but it works quite well)? That seems like a no-brainer purchase.
Speaking of the Nexus Q, it's a pretty good showing by Google to have taken its lumps on that device, returned to the drawing board, and come up with essentially a 180-degree take on streaming TV. The Nexus Q was a ridiculously expensive piece of hardware that only worked with Android and delivered extremely limited content. The Chromecast is a ridiculously cheap device that works across multiple platforms and with Netflix on board, already presents a far more attractive content offering.
Google has also released the Google Cast software developer kit, and companies like Pandora are lining up to build compatible apps for the Chromecast, which could very well build up a robust developer ecosystem in no time at all. Spotting a Google Glass wearer at Wednesday's event, I asked a Google rep if we'd be seeing a Chromecast-Glass connection anytime soon. He wouldn't say, but did mention that the SDKs for both are out there, so you do the math.
Is there anything not to like about the Chromecast? As Barrett noted, it won't charge when plugged into the HDMI port of your HDTV. You have to do that separately, which is kind of a drag. Apps are currently limited, though that should change. And you can't actually play media stored locally on your phone, tablet, or laptop—those devices just tell the Chromecast what to pull from the cloud to play rather than pushing media over to the device. But you can actually power down your phone after directing the Chromecast to do its thing.
But these are minor quibbles when you consider the crazy low price. Did I mention the Chromecast costs $35?
We will have a full review of the device in the coming days, so stay tuned. Until then, check out our first-look slideshow above.
No comments:
Post a Comment