Google Chromecast Review

Google launched their new $35 dongle at the July 24th event where they also unveiled their new Nexus 7 along with Android 4.3. Among the major announcements, the tiny little dongle that goes by the name of “Chromecast” was the talk of the tech industry for a while. Google’s Chromecast lets you stream content from your smartphone/computer to your TV. Lets check out what this tiny device is capable of.

Unboxing

Here is a video of the unboxing and demo that we did recently.

Box Contents

For a 35$ gadget, the packing is generous. The box contents include

• Dongle
• microUSB cable
• USB charger
• HDMI extender

Design and Build Quality

The Chromecast is an oddly shaped dongle with HDMI port at one end and a microUSB slot at the other end. On top of the device, we have the Chrome logo and Chrome branding along with an LED light indicator to the left of the Chrome logo. On the bottom we have certification information and tiny “Designed by Google” text.

In terms of the quality, the Chromecast is solidly built and a few drops wont be enough to crack the material used. It comes in black and there is only a single button that helps you reset your Chromecast to factory settings.

Getting Started

As you open the box, you get clear instructions on the left side of the flap as to how to get started with the device. Once we took our Chromecast, it was quite easy to get start and the process hardly took five minutes.

All you need to do is to plug in your Chromecast to the HDMI port in your TV/Monitor and connect the USB charger to either the USB port in the TV itself or the provided USB charger. Then the Chromecast is automatically detected and it starts loading until it shows a “Set Me Up” screen. After this, you can use either your smartphone or computer to download the respective application and go on with the configuration process. It takes less than 5 minutes as we already said. Once ready, you can directly stream your tabs from Chrome on computer to the TV or using a smartphone, you can share YouTube, Netflix or Play Movies.

Conclusion

The Chromecast isn’t available in India and we don’t think it will be available anytime soon. Even if you do manage to get one, you may be not be able to stream content from your Android smartphone as the Chromecast app isn’t available in India.

The Good

• Extremely easy to use
• Cheap

The Bad

• Limited apps that let you stream
• Should be connected to power supply when being used
• Completely useless as a standalone device