Google Chromecast 2 Review: The Sequel Is Better Than the Original

Our Verdict

This elementary-to-apply streaming device has become more fully featured without adding complication or a college cost. Y'all'll still need a mobile device to control it, unlike Roku's stand-lone streaming stick, simply we adopt the Chromecast overall.

For

Redesigned app makes it easier to observe streaming content
Improved Wi-Fi connectivity
Back up from a vast assortment of streaming apps
Like shooting fish in a barrel to prepare up and use

Against

New design means device will dangle when plugged into an HDMI port
Requires calculator or mobile device

Tom's Guide Verdict

This simple-to-use streaming device has become more fully featured without adding complication or a higher price. Yous'll all the same need a mobile device to control it, unlike Roku's stand-alone streaming stick, only we prefer the Chromecast overall.

Pros

+
Redesigned app makes information technology easier to notice streaming content
+
Improved Wi-Fi connectivity
+
Back up from a vast array of streaming apps
+
Easy to gear up and use

Cons

-
New design means device will dangle when plugged into an HDMI port
-
Requires figurer or mobile device

Combining a small-scale design and a price tag to match, Google's Chromecast has proved to be a pop mode for people to easily stream video from a computer or mobile device to their television. But the ease with which you could set up a Chromecast didn't extend to the residual of the feel: Finding video and audio to send to Google's streaming stick proved to be a hassle unless yous knew exactly what you were looking for.

That'southward changed with the new version of Chromecast. While its new look — as well every bit its $35 price tag — volition grab virtually of the attending, the real improvements are inside the device and in the app you use to command it. The new Chromecast delivers solid performance and more than easily searchable content, making it an bonny low-cost choice in the crowded streaming-player marketplace.

Pattern: Colorful But Dangly

In that location will exist no mistaking this Chromecast for its predecessor. Whereas the original was a rectangular stick with a somewhat circular handle, the new model has gone full circle. The new Chromecast is a circular disc measuring virtually ii inches in bore and roughly a third of an inch thick. Google also added a splash of colour to the mix. My review unit featured a bright-red face that Google calls "coral"; you lot can also go the Chromecast in yellowish (or "lemonade" in Google's parlance) and bones blackness. The color is a fairly welcome addition if you find the bright shades Google picked aesthetically pleasing and if your Chromecast is visible when information technology's plugged in. My Chromecast is tucked neatly backside my Goggle box set up, so any added color it brought to the room was lost on me.

The HDMI plug attaches to the rest of the Chromecast via a 4-inch cable. When not in use, the plug folds neatly confronting the back of the Chromecast, with magnets holding everything in place for easy storage or transit. Information technology likewise means your Chromecast volition dangle from that cable when you've plugged it in. Information technology would be nice if you could apply those magnets on the plug to keep the Chromecast from dangling, but on my 9-year-erstwhile Sharp Aquos TV, it proved impossible to keep the Chromecast attached to its plug while the device was plugged in.

The best feature of the new Chromecast blueprint is easily the included power cable, which is now a generous 5 feet long. Whether you power up from a USB port on your newer TV or connect to a nearby power strip or electrical outlet, the Chromecast'south power cable should be long enough to achieve whatever power source yous use. That'south a welcome improvement over the pes-long cable that came with the original Chromecast.

Setup: No-Sweat Start-Upward

Then, you lot've plugged your Chromecast into an HDMI port on your Tv ready. What now? You fire upward the mobile Chromecast app, available for either Android or iOS, to complete the setup procedure, which Google has kept pleasingly simple.

Credit: Jeremy Lips/Tom's Guide — (Image credit: Jeremy Lips/Tom'due south Guide)

Launch the app on your mobile device, and it volition detect your nearby Chromecast. The app will prompt you to cycle through your inputs on your tv set until yous discover the one displaying your Chromecast's code. From at that place, it's a matter of naming the device, deciding whether y'all desire to enable invitee mode to permit other people to stream to your TV from their phones, and inbound your Wi-Fi network's countersign to complete the setup process. Information technology took me longer to type my notes detailing how to setup a Chromecast than information technology did to actually set up the device.

The streaming process remains unchanged from the original Chromecast. Every bit you watch content on a mobile phone or tablet, y'all can select the Bandage push button to transmit it to your Chromecast, which, in turn, starts streaming that content on your TV. You can keep to control playback from the mobile device where the stream originated, simply y'all can also use your mobile device to do other things — bank check your electronic mail, surf the Web, take a phone call — without interrupting the Chromecast's stream. Some people may prefer a setup that offers a more conventional remote control, such every bit Roku'southward Streaming Stick, even if the Chromecast proves to exist the less-expensive option.

Interface: Find Streams Faster

The mobile device is a pretty central part of the casting procedure, which brings usa to a major shortcoming of the original Chromecast: There simply wasn't an easy style to find content to cast to your Television set. If y'all knew specifically what you wanted to watch — perhaps a picture on Netflix — or you were in a specific app, like WatchESPN, and y'all spotted a programme worth streaming, getting that content to appear on your set was but a matter of pressing the Cast button. Discovering things you didn't even know were available to bandage was another matter altogether. And the Chromecast app, which offered merely setup and management features, offered picayune assist.

Credit: Philip Michaels/Tom's Guide — (Image credit: Philip Michaels/Tom'due south Guide)

That's changed with an update to the Chromecast app, which now acts as a kind of programming guide. Google added a What'due south On tab to the Android version of the app that displays castable content from the other apps installed on your phone. (These changes are coming to the iOS version of Chromecast too, though that update had not appeared at the time we published this review.) On my Samsung Milky way S6, for case, the pinnacle of the What's On tab displays trending videos on YouTube, bachelor streaming content on Netflix, movies I tin can buy from Google Play, and ESPN programming from the WatchESPN app. Below that, the tab displays other video and music apps that offer Chromecast support.

Say, for example, you see something on the What'south On tab that catches your eye. Borer information technology takes you to a clarification page with more information on the show, flick or clip. Borer a yellow Spotter button on that page launches the app in question — YouTube for a Saturday Night Alive highlight, for example. The video will brainstorm playing in the app; yous hit the Cast button to pick upward playback on your Boob tube.

Note that you'll just see programming for apps yous already have installed on your telephone. Because I don't have Hulu on my phone, for example, the Chromecast app won't mention any Hulu-based shows. That may seem like the obvious thing to do — simply it reduces both ataxia and user frustration, and then information technology was the right call past Google.

The Chromecast app also offers a search field at the top of the What's On screen for those times when you're looking for something very specific. A search for "Drunk History," for instance, will plow upwards results for TV shows and full clips. Tap on the Television evidence results, and Chromecast volition brandish the apps I have that already have the show, also as apps I could download that will let me sentry the show I'm looking for. If the program is available through Google Play, I'll get a Buy link as well.

The revamped Chromecast app does a much better job of helping yous observe things to cast to your TV — really, there was nowhere for it to go but upwards. Even so, the app isn't a foolproof way to find things just yet. The Netflix suggestions take been fairly static since I started using the app, and I wish more Chromecast-capable apps would exist cycled into the slot that WatchESPN has occupied since the Chromecast update. Just the search features, including vox-enabled search, are helpful, and the app does a practiced job of helping y'all find videos worth watching.

Functioning: Mostly Solid

Google says the new Chromecast includes improved Wi-Fi architecture with a built-in adaptive antenna organisation. The device supports 802.11ac wireless connectivity. I certainly didn't experience whatever connectivity bug when testing the new Chromecast, which seems like it will play quite nicely with most Wi-Fi network setups.

I had less luck with one of the other promised operation improvements, though that may change as more than developers update their Chromecast apps. Chromecast has a Fast Play characteristic that starts preloading content as shortly as you open the Chromecast app. Developers volition be able to update their apps to add content prediction features that anticipate what you want to watch, cutting downwardly on the fourth dimension it takes content to start streaming to your Chromecast.

It's going to take some time for that characteristic to fully roll out. But in launching the new Chromecast, Google said that some apps have already added preloading features when yous open up those apps on your mobile device. The result should exist faster load times, even if you're using an older version of the Chromecast hardware.

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When I sent a video to Chromecast from my phone, information technology would announced on my Boob tube screen promptly, though not without some noticeable loading time. Netflix took the longest of the apps I timed, taking an boilerplate of 13.ix seconds for an episode of Orange Is the New Black to pop upwardly on my TV after I selected my Chromecast device from the screen of a Milky way S6. Things were a bit speedier when I was switching shows within Netflix. I could jump over to an episode of The Information technology Crowd in six.6 seconds, with Netflix picking upward where I had left off.

WatchESPN launched the fastest, taking 8.iv seconds to movement a streaming college football from my telephone to my Goggle box. HBO Go and YouTube averaged 11 seconds and xi.five seconds, respectively. But that'due south about how long streams took to start when we tested the original Chromecast, so information technology's clear that faster starting time-upwards times swivel heavily on back up from app makers.

Once streams did appear on my TV, there were no buffering bug. The picture looked decent plenty to watch, though a higher football on WatchESPN didn't await as precipitous when coming through the Chromecast as it would accept when being circulate past ESPN via my cable box.

The Chromecast streams' start-upwards delays aren't specially pregnant in the greater scheme of things and sound pretty churlish in this Age of Miracles we live in. ("I have to wait 11 whole seconds to watch a John Oliver prune? Smash all technology.") If you lot are expecting instantaneous streams, though, you should dial back your expectations.

Apps: More than Choices Than Ever

The universe of apps that can take reward of Chromecast is vast — Google says it's in the thousands. The reality is probably more express in terms of apps you lot'll desire to use with Chromecast, but in that location's more than enough bachelor to scratch any streaming crawling you may have. Besides Netflix and Hulu, you tin also cast movies and TV shows from HBO Become, Crackle, Showtime Anywhere, Plex and network Boob tube apps from the likes of CBS, ABC and Comedy Fundamental.

Sports fans can get their set from WatchESPN, MLB.com, NFL Dominicus Ticket and dozens of other apps appealing to specific sports and leagues. On the music front, Spotify now supports Chromecast, filling in a big pigsty in the streaming stick'southward capabilities and negating an border the Roku Streaming Stick held over the Chromecast; Pandora, iHeartRadio and NPR 1 are among the other Chromecast-supported music and audio apps.

One app you won't find is Amazon Instant Video, which offers streaming video to Amazon Prime number members. Chromecast back up has been a casualty of an ongoing standoff between Amazon and Google over developing apps that back up each other's version of Android. If Amazon Instant Video support is what'due south keeping you from embracing Chromecast, you may be in for a long expect: Amazon recently announced it would end selling the Chromecast altogether, citing the device'south incompatibility with its streaming service.

Google is promising big things for castable games, with Chromecast-friendly versions of Angry Birds Go!, Earth Golf Tour and Driver Speedboat Paradise in evolution. At the moment, though, Chromecast-enabled games lean toward more casual fare. I was able to play Monopoly Dash, a Monopoly-themed version of Become Fish, using my phone as a game controller, and I exhausted myself waving my phone around to score points on Just Dance Now.

MORE: Our Favorite Streaming Media Players and Sticks

Still, Chromecast volition need far more sophisticated games if it has any hope of challenging your console for entertainment supremacy. For now, games are a nice bonus feature for Chromecast, at best.

Bottom Line

With the promise of more engaging games and updated apps designed to load casts faster, it would seem that some of the Chromecast's entreatment is in its potential. Nevertheless, the content-discovery features that are here are still worthwhile and are a definite comeback over the original version of the device.

Owners of the get-go Chromecast will probable want to concur on to that model — the best enhancements with this generation come via the mobile app, and so the original device will be able to have advantage of those changes. If you held off on ownership the Chromecast in the ii years since its debut, all the same, this new version improves the overall experience while keeping the price tag as appealing as always.

Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom's Guide. He has stiff opinions nigh Apple, the Oakland Athletics and old movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.